Trying to fill the down time between finals week and graduation, I've begun to read my way through the required texts list for our J.R.R. Tolkien tutorial. In the last week, I've managed the following:
1.) Children of Húrin (posthumous)by J.R.R. Tolkien - a Lord of the Rings prequel
2.) Out of the Silent Planet (1938) by C.S. Lewis - the first book of Lewis' science fiction trilogy
3.) J.R.R. Tolkien: A Biography (1977) by H. Carpenter
Children of Húrin was entertaining, if a bit depressing. Doomed hero blames boorish behavior on his family's curse and causes the deaths of almost everyone he knows. Not spoiling anything as it's all foreshadowed from the beginning. Out of the Silent Planet was a passable early sci-fi book. A university linguistics professor (of course, he would be) takes a trip to Mars and has his "Avatar" moment. As expected, Lewis even manages to work in some Christian allegory. Carpenter's biography is a very moving account of Tolkien's remarkable life and career. His linguistics work, often overshadowed by his literary fame, is quite interesting.
The rest of the list includes Tolkien's The Hobbit (1937) as well as Lord of the Rings (1954-55), all of which I read in middle school (like most of my fellow classmates, I suspect. Except for Khanh).
I am planning to reread my old copy of The Hobbit after graduation. Following the later publication of the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien made substantial revisions to The Hobbit to consolidate his developing ideas about his fantasy world in later editions, particularly his depiction of Sméagol/Gollum and the account of his riddle game with Bilbo Baggins. I'm now anxious to locate an early edition of The Hobbit and compare it to the revised text. Surely the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford will have a copy.
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