/lit/ - Literature

you have to have a pretty high IQ to understand Tolkien. The narrative is extremely subtle, and without a solid understanding of Old Norse, most of the etymologies will go over the typical reader's head. There's also Tolkien's mythopoetic outlook, which is deftly woven into his narrative-- his Legendarium draws heavily from the medieval Finnish Kalevala tradition, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these books, to realise that they're not just fairy tales-- they say something deep about language. As a consequence people who dislike Tolkien truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the beauty in Aragorn's rendition of the 'Tale of Tinuviel', itself a cryptic reference to the goings-on of the First Age. I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Tolkien's genius prose unfolds itself.

>>21823817
they all suck
no i won't say why

>>21460537
>>21460963
BTFO

>>20691291
>I have claimed that Escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since I do not disapprove of them, it is plain that I do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which “Escape” is now so often used: a tone for which the uses of the word outside literary criticism give no warrant at all. In what the misusers are fond of calling Real Life, Escape is evidently as a rule very practical, and may even be heroic. In real life it is difficult to blame it, unless it fails; in criticism it would seem to be the worse the better it succeeds. Evidently we are faced by a misuse of words, and also by a confusion of thought. Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter.

>Just so a Party-spokesman might have labelled departure from the misery of the Führer’s or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery. In the same way these critics, to make confusion worse, and so to bring into contempt their opponents, stick their label of scorn not only on to Desertion, but on to real Escape, and what are often its companions, Disgust, Anger, Condemnation, and Revolt. Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the “quisling” to the resistance of the patriot. To such thinking you have only to say “the land you loved is doomed” to excuse any treachery, indeed to glorify it.

>>20447872
based

>>20468536
i own and have read fully
>the hobbit
>the lord of the rings
>the silmarillion
>the unfinished tales
>the history of middle-earth (all twelve volumes)
>the father christmas letters
>the story of kullervo

i own, but have not read fully
>the letters of j. r. r. tolkien
>the nature of middle-earth
>the lord of the rings: a reader's companion
>pictures by j. r. r. tolkien
>j. r. r. tolkien: artist and illustrator
>the adventures of tom bombadil
>sir gawain and the green knight

i want
>parma eldalamberon
>vinyar tengwar

>>20207297
BASED animal-friend.

>>20095006
Because Tolkien was an Anglo (the closest a man can come to being a God)

>>19660035
You lucky fellow. You’re in for a massive treat. Start with LotR, then read the Silmarillion (the latter was a big influence on Bakker). I consider the Hobbit to be optional reading unlike the previous mentions. Unfinished Tales is also spectacular.

>>19514941
why would i try to disprove something that's right

>no quenya words for "buy," "sell," "pay," or "money"
what did he mean by this

>>18740192
>only two names
ngmi

>>18581592
none of them because i accept that language changes

>>18398982
>word has no as in it because its writing system lets you skip writing them

>>18364741
I can tell you have a very inflated sense of your own intelligence so I'll try to be as polite as possible. There is nothing "fluid" about my rhyme scheme. I am following a very strict format, and everything fits into a 4/4 verse perfectly if you annunciate the syllables properly. You may have to read a line a few times to fit some of the sylables into a meter, but it there is absolutely zero fluidity in the rhyme schematic.

There is no satire or humor in my work. I follow strictly the doctrine of tolkein which is to say that all humor cannot be derogatory toward the work itself in any way, nor remove the reader from his immersion into the universe in any manner. It is a sacred law of high fantasy. The fact that you mis-percieve some form of satire or humor in my writing says more about the failure of your reading comprehension than it does about my work.

>>18256605

>in the first version of tolkien's mythology, morgoth was defeated when he climbed a pine tree into space and got stuck there when it was cut down
>tolkienian elves die when they are raped
>there were orcs that fought against sauron at the end of the second age
>lembas is made with corn
>sauron is a conlanger

feanor did everything wrong

i just think he's neat

>>16246690
i'm afraid i can't
he never wrote any bad books

>>16030218
>Critics who treat ‘adult’ as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

I reread the first chapter of The Book of Lost Tales 1 and the description of the Cottage of Lost Play made me tear up a bit. It's honestly tragic that the later versions of the mythology never got to be written down as completely as the Book of Lost Tales was.

Tolkien thread?

>he isn't L1 ithkuil

Has /lit/ read the Silmarillion?