Contrarily, those who have followed in his footsteps since have tended to be inspired by a desire to imitate him. And in this, Tolkien's attempt to recreate the form of the Eddas is completely at odds with the Christian, romantic moral content with which he fills the story.

Excluding the whole History of Middle Earth since I’ve just started to read them, I have finished my re-read of Middle Earth including the appendixes and JIRT was a genius in worldbuilding.Yet they failed to do what Tolkien did because they did not have a whole world of mythic tradition, culture, and language to draw on. Says that Frodo and Sam later on learned the truth of what happened and made the necessary changes in their narration of Lord of the Rings.

If it weren't for the giddy excitement of finally discovering the literary roots of one of my favourite film-trilogies, I wouldn't have ever made it through these. Each had a purpose, even if they didn't serve the story, they were part of a grand and strange world. It may be impressive as a thought exercise, but to put that much time and work into the details instead of fixing and streamlining the frame of the story itself seems entirely backwards to me. Given that Tolkien did not just invent a world, new creatures and weapons, but invented an actual freaking language, he gets 5 stars from me (I'm sure he was anxiously awaiting my approval).His attempt to force Christian theology onto a heroic epic is as problematic and conflicted as monks' additions to Beowulf. I could do without the 80 pages on tobacco production, but Tolkien wasn't writing a story; he was writing a history of a place that had never existed. It's a totally different perspective on life than I would normally think of, and it was a treasure to be introduced to it. Indeed, I didn't finish the trilogy until I was in my early 20s and I'm not ashamed to admit that I was actually quite proud of myself for having finally completed this mammoth journey with Frodo and his companions.

This central schism makes his work much less true to the tradition than Anderson's The Broken Sword, which was published the same year. After serving in the First World War, he became best known for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, selling 150 million copies in more than 40 languages worldwide. This is the story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected…Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys a comfortable, unambitious life, rarely travelling further than the pantry of his hobbit-hole in Bag End. The Eddas were long and convoluted because they drew from many different stories and accounts, combined over time by numerous story-tellers and eventually compiled by scribes. Beginning with Bilbo’s fateful visit from Gandalf and culminating in the dramatic climax between Frodo and Gollum atop Mount Doom and Bilbo’s departure to the Grey Havens!And of course Aragorn's there, right on the front cover, because we KNOW how much MR TOLKIEN LUUURVES him some Aragorn!

Good will always win as long as there are good men and women willing to give of self for the better good. These authors are mostly trying to fix a Tolkien they don't understand, trying to make him easy to swallow. Not only does Tolkien put forth a vision of chaste, humble, 'everyman' heroes who persevere against temptation through piety, he also presents a world of dualistic good and evil, of eternal, personal morality, prototypical of the Christian worldview, particularly the post-Miltonic view. Our team is made up of book lovers who are dedicated to sourcing and providing the best books for kids. Since they were first published, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have been two books people have treasured.

He gave characters similar names to represent other historical traditions: that of common prefixes or suffixes, of a house line adopting similar names for fathers, sons, and brothers. The Red Book of Westmarch was written by Bilbo, Frodo and Sam as a recounting of the events during Bilbo’s adventures, the War of the Ring and a translation of history.