MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION!!!!

[Vanye]

I, Vanye will commence reading The Silmarllion Immediately & will let not procrastination disuade me from this publicly stated goal! OK! I've said it & I shall do it if it takes all of 2005! I surely hope that it does not however as it is only the first on a very long list of books on my to read list. I most surely have to get several of them read in that time. Of course it is still true that there are so many books so--little time, & for some of us that is an ever more pressing reality! Any way I'm gonna do it w/no more stalling! Vanye
P. S. I seem to recall someone else (who sall remain nameless) making this same promise, is that someone still on board for this entertprise, huh? ;D

[Stormrider]

Well, I did not make the promise but it is something that I would like to read again since I have read it only once before and that was about two and a half years ago.

So, Vanye, whether it takes all of 2005 to get through, I will be glad to join you on this journey.

[Stormrider]

Well, Vanye, I am going to take my copy of The Silmarillion to work today and start reading the Ainulindalë and (hopefully) the Valaquenta. I think I will jot down a couple of things I find interesting or confusing to post on these boards.

[MajahTR]

gulp! that would be me Vanye...he he

ok so i haven't exactly got the book off the shelf but i will definately start!

thanks for the jolt!!!
Majah
procrastination is not my problem but distraction is...hahahahahaha

[Stormrider]

Yes! Distraction is my problem, too! I have so many projects that I want to do!

I only read a couple of pages yesterday because I ended up doing a few errands a lunchtime and then I started working on my January Art Contest entry. (I guess I can be forgiven for that distraction!)

[Vanye]

To both Stormrider & Majah! Well I have also begun to read the Sil & today in a used bookstore I found a real treasure--Part 1 on tape so I'll read along as I'm listening & hopefully it will help my comprehension. I am also finding "Middle-earth for Dummies" to be helpful in sorting out all of the names of characters as well as placenames which can be a bit mind-boggling Ifinished reading RoTK on Monday night & picked up The Silmarillion the next day. So far-so good! I'm also doing an online Shakespeare class beginning on Mon.( I've already read 2 out of 4 of the Comedies on which the class is based) so I will be able to keep up more or less!!
Vanye

[Stormrider]

I have gotten through the Ainulindalë and want to read the Valaquenta before I post anything yet. These two chapters or should I say sections seem to go together.

I have Letters of JRR Tolkien and Foster's Complete Guide to Middle-earth which should help with definitions and questions we might come up with. Also others from our group have read The Sil and have some good ideas, theories, and comments that I am sure they will share with us, too.

[Stormrider]

I wish I had an audio of The Silmarillion. That would really come in handy for me right now! I could play it while I do my painting, load the Hobbit Study quizzes to html, and plan our 3rd Anniversary Celebration! That would be a BIG help! I could also listen to it as I drive to and from work. Maybe I should check into getting one!

As a matter of fact, we are going to dedicate one of the 3rd Anniversary Chat time slots to a Silmarillion discussion so you might like to join us there. More news and time on that will be posted very soon. It will be held in The Prancing Pony chatroom linked to the Tolkien's Ring old MSN Archive Site which you will have to sign into to get into the Pony. More on all this later.

[Magpie]

I have the audio version of the Silmarillion and, although I like it (the reader does a very nice job), it doesn't really help me much. Unless my full attention if focused on it (like walking), it just becomes a lot of blah, blah background noise. In the car, there are too many other things I must focus on to get much out of it. IMO, this book is a very difficult read because of the style in which is was written. If you think about how much information is conveyed in a paragraph, then think about your mind wandering for 3 minutes, you can see how you could miss a lot! Add to that the more formal style of writing, which (for me) takes more concentration and it's all over before I know it and I'm not sure what just happened.

I can't say I have a strong grasp of the Silmarillion but it has helped to read it, listen to it, discuss it, and read auxilliary books about it. When we did our Splintered Light study group, it was very illuminating about some of the deeper concepts of the Silmarillion.

If anyone wants, I could point you to the discussion threads at Dale Ann's old site. There was also another site that did a Sil study. There were going to take down the discussion so I captured the threads for my own use. If it's not up anymore, I could probably put them up.

And I can recommend Splinterd Light. Parts of it didn't grab me but other parts were wonderful. I think it depends on one's interest in the stories. Language, philosophy, theology, history....

P.S. I will admit to a guilty pleasure that also helped me with some of the stories in the Sil. Fan Fic. I hadn't really read more than a story or two before the Sil but I happened across a series of fan fic stories about the sons of Feanor, primarily Maedhros. I think I need a human face on these characters and that's not what Tolkien was writing. Putting a human face on Maedhros (even though I'm very aware that that face is not one entirely created by Tolkien) helped me relate to the stories more. The same was true with the "Narn i Hîn Húrin". These stories gave us some insight into the characters involved.

[Ninhiisenen]

My 2004 book was The Silmarillion and I'm just finishing it. It takes me longer to read anything because of my impaired vision, and after my birthday on October 23rd, I was blessed by a package from a friend of mine with not only Silm, but the Hobbit and LotR on mp3 CDs. Is Martin Shaw the reader of everyone else's audio versions? He's awesome, and he does voices, lol! I think my plans for 2005 will be to read all the... I guess you'd call it... "side stuff" History of Middle-Earth, Unfinished Tales, all the scatterings of Tolkien left besides the big books. Plus, I'd like to read some other fantasy series' and broaden my spectrum. Work also hinders my time to read and do leisurely things, but even if a book takes me two years to finish, it's worth it. The whole Lord of the Rings trilogy took me... 3.5 years maybe.

[Vanye]

Yes, Martin Shaw is the reader on my tapes. He has a good voice alright. I was wanting to ask all of you on the site if his pronunciations are correct as I have not gotten into the languages that much yet? Anyway I have a different take on Iluvatar & several other names than he does! Your question about time is another one that I have been interested in & we were having a discussion about it on another site. I found another site called The Victorian Web which has an article called 'Time in the Fantastic Novel'. In the article the author Gregory Souza discusses several fantasy authors including JRRT & C.S. Lewis. He talks about some of the ways in which Tolkien manipulates time especially the sense of a long history he creates in numerous ways including; references to all the 'ruins' the travelers encounter, the tales they tell , songs they sing & poems they recite. All of which help to move the story along--steeping both the characters & the reader in the antiquity of ME. The sense of continuity imparted by including characters who have lived for thousands of years Elrond particularly comes to my mind: after all he was there when Isldur cut the ring from Sauron's hand & did his best to get him to destroy it then & all of that occurred long before either Gollum or Bilbo had ever had possession of it!! How much more continuity can you get in one character?? So far in the Sil I get the same feeling as when I read parts of the Bible, in particular, 'the begats' or their like: in which huge amounts of time & momentous events are summed up in a few paragraphs or even in a couple of sentences--I read & I reread a lot! I'm gonna need more than 365 days to finish this one!! Well I've rambled long enough! Vanye

[MajahTR]

the first time i started reading the Sil a few years back...i was also completely struck by the "begating" tone of the beginning. i am afraid to say i didn't make it much farther than that.

this is the weekend that i sit down and begin again!!! (wait for me, i will run and catch up with you all.... )

interesting enough Vanye, my favorite used bookstore here has a couple of the Sil volume 3's...wonder if they got spread out over the countryside? i am like Magpie tho and i find that after a few minutes i am being lulled by the voice reading but i am not really listening to what is being said.

Magpie...maybe you could start some discussion threads based on the information you kept from that other site?
i think it would be great to read others insights too!

have a good Saturday
Majah

[Magpie]

Thanks for the offer, Majah, but my New Year's Resolution (made at the end of last summer) was to step back from leading discussions. I'd been doing a lot of teaching in multiple venues and organizing and leading discussions and I am looking to take a more casual, relaxed role for awhile. I would be very willing to provide links for these discussions that other people could read.

Would you like them all in one post?

[MajahTR]

oh no Magpie...no leading discussions here!
this is supposed to be a simple group of friends discussing things about the Sil...otherwise i couldn't keep up myself!

i just thought you could post anything you thought may be of interest or had good points in it...just to enhance our own personal reading and studying.

sure do them all in one post if you want...then we can pick thru it for our own shiney tidbits... ;D
thanks
Maj

[Fredeghar Wayfarer]

Well, I've read Silmarillion but I still haven't gotten all the way through Unfinished Tales (my copy is still.....unfinished. Ha, I slay me!). Maybe I should add that to my list of books to read this year.

I don't have any of the History of Middle-earth series. That always seemed a bit overwhelming to me. Isn't it, like, ten volumes long and in a very dry history text format that expands on what we already know? It sounds like a huge undertaking, especially for someone like me who reads at a slower pace.