[geeks] okay.

[Tim H.]

Well, years ago there were a couple lost tales books, but now there is a complete shelf of unfinished works to go with it.  Christopher Tolkien has been editing and publishing his fathers notes for a long time, in fact the Silmarillion was put together by Christopher.  It's kinda cool, in traditional mythologies people study different colloquial versions of the stories etc., but with Tolkien you can spend an entire scholarly life studying the different versions of one guys myth. 

The Silmarillion is by far the most cohesive book published after Tolkien's death, and in the intro Christopher says that his father's histories of the races of Arda changed considerably at times, and he chose the most consistent ones for the Silmarillion.  A lot of the other stuff shows up in the unfinished works.

kamakazi

On Mon, 6 May 2002 09:36:56 -0400
Brian Hechinger <wonko at 4amlunch.net> wrote:

> On Mon, May 06, 2002 at 12:45:33AM -0600, jodys at helluin.org wrote:
> > 
> > Oh, come on you don't get the merit badge until you've read the Silmarillon
> > and know what Helluin represents.
> 
> the Silmarillion was really good, but it was VERY difficult to read.  not much
> of a story book, more like a text book.  still good though, you learn a lot by
> reading it.  what were the other two, the small ones, the lost stories or
> something like that?  can't remember, it's been years since i've read all that.
> 
> -brian
> -- 
> Whoops, nevermind...  the compile just imploded, crashing the xterm it was
> running in as well...  Thanks, Richard...              -- George Adkins --
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks