The Book of Lost Tales

[Varda]

anyone read these books? my dad just sent these to me. nevermind the fact that i don't always get the reading done that i am technically supposed to (for school) but i don't always have time for pleasure reading... i have barely gotten into the first half of it and am on "The Cottage of Lost Play."

Anyone want to give me some guidance about The Book of Lost Tales? Is it hard to read like Sil or is it just short stories that don't really connect besides being in ME?

[Varda]

oh also i noticed that the publisher is different (is a brand new copy)... it is Del Rey Fantasy instead of BB.. i thought BB did all Tolkien's stuff...

[Wayfarer]

Are you kidding? If anything, it's HARDER than the silmarillion.

But a good read, just the same.

[Ñólendil]

BoLT doesn't take place in Middle-earth, either. This was the earliest stage of Tolkien's legendarium, in fact it's a _different_ legendarium than that which is glimpsed in the LR. 'Middle-earth' had not yet emerged. The BoLT is a study of the early texts that preceded the Silmarillion.

[Elenhin]

I don't think that it can be clearly said that "this is Middle-Earth" or "this is not Middle-Earth" when talking about Tolkien's writings from different time periods. His stories were always a work in progress, and the motivating forces behind them were his invented languages. The languages (and the stories themselves) of course changed as Tolkien aged, but the change was gradual and there are no definite borderlines between "wholly different mythologies".

So even though the word "Middle-Earth" was not used in the Books of Lost Tales, I think that we can still say that they are about "Middle-Earth" - which is just another word for the same world. Ok, it's not exactly the same, but the differences are mainly in details or missing time periods (while they're important, they're major additions to the world, not major changes to it). The underlying concepts and the most important stories were there.

[Ñólendil]

Welcome! All that is true. The 'Middle-earth' business is really semantics. That word is not used anywhere in the Book of Lost Tales, and that fact serves as a useful tool to point it's difference from 'The Silmarillion'. It must be admitted that by the time the Lord of the Rings was published, Tolkien's conception of his mythology was drastically different from what he had in mind when he wrote what stands as The Book of Lost Tales. You can't read the BoLT and make conclusions about the world of Tolkien that is compatible with that in the LR, for the BoLT is not compatible with the LR. I feel that point is very important.

'Middle-earth' is a word for 'Earth' and might be applied to any world that is supposed to be ours, as I'm sure you know, but I am using it in the sense of 'the world of Tolkien's that he applied the word "Middle-earth" to'. And that's still in a loose sense, as as you say Tolkien was always 'finding out' more things about Eä, and it was always in development.

I will therefore concede that the Book of Lost Tales takes place on our Earth, or what is feigned to have been our Earth (and can be called 'Middle-earth') but in intention the BoLT was supposed to be replaced by The Silmarillion (which actually contains the word 'Middle-earth') -- via the development and revision of the former.

One can very well say 'This is not Middle-earth', certainly, if you mean 'this is not the world J. R. R. Tolkien applied "Middle-earth" to, which is quite different'.

[Varda]

well from what little i have read so far i do see things that appeared in the Sil, like Valinor and the Valar and also Eldar. So I take it he just was experimenting at this point and brought some of these ideas into later works?

also there are gnomes in "The Cottage of Lost Play"... were there any in more recent writing? was ME ever supposed to include gnomes later on?

[Ñólendil]

'Gnomes' appears in the Hobbit. It was Tolkien's old name for 'Noldor', which has a similar meaning. He decided not to use 'Gnomes' in the Lord of the Rings because it would be too difficult for your average reader not to picture little bearded men with pointy hats, and that sort of thing.

[Kirinki54]

Originally posted by Inoldonil
'Gnomes' appears in the Hobbit. It was Tolkien's old name for 'Noldor', which has a similar meaning. He decided not to use 'Gnomes' in the Lord of the Rings because it would be too difficult for your average reader not to picture little bearded men with pointy hats, and that sort of thing.

So what did he picture himself while contemplating to use the phrase 'Gnomes' at all? Is his reasoning about this naming process (ending up with the Noldor/Elves) related in HoME or elsewhere?

[Elenhin]

Inoldonil, you're of course right in saying that one can't read the BoLT and make conclusions about Tolkien's later conception of his mythologies. His early conception (BoLT) was of course radically different from his later conception (Silmarillions), but it was a conception of the same world. That is, the greatest difference between the latest "BoLTs" and the earliest "Silmarillions" was probably in the name. Of course along the years the earliest Silmarillions evolved to the Silmarillions which served as a foundation to LotR - and they then evolved into a (largely non-completed) more scientific Silmarillion. The textual history is confusing and complex, but we can at least say with certainty that Tolkien wasn't playing with a number of different worlds during his lifetime - he had only one, and I prefer to call it "Middle-Earth" rather than "Tolkien's imaginary world", regardless of what JRRT called it while he wrote the stories. (Just as a side note: Cristopher uses the same naming convention.)

I hope I expressed myself clearer now.

[Ñólendil]

Yes, I see just where you're coming from. Thanks. :)

Kirinki, 'Gnome' comes from Greek gignOskein 'to know' (I looked that up, it's not something I know :) ). Tolkien probably chose it for his Noldor because of it's linguistic connexion with knowledge. 'Ñoldor' meant 'the Wise, the Knowledgeable, the Lore-masters'. I gather that 'ñoldo' or 'ñolda' or something similar was a word for wisdom, knowledge and lore at one time in Quenya. See my name for evidence!

[Michael Martinez]

Inoldonil, you're of course right in saying that one can't read the BoLT and make conclusions about Tolkien's later conception of his mythologies. His early conception (BoLT) was of course radically different from his later conception (Silmarillions), but it was a conception of the same world. That is, the greatest difference between the latest "BoLTs" and the earliest "Silmarillions" was probably in the name. Of course along the years the earliest Silmarillions evolved to the Silmarillions which served as a foundation to LotR - and they then evolved into a (largely non-completed) more scientific Silmarillion. The textual history is confusing and complex, but we can at least say with certainty that Tolkien wasn't playing with a number of different worlds during his lifetime - he had only one, and I prefer to call it "Middle-Earth" rather than "Tolkien's imaginary world", regardless of what JRRT called it while he wrote the stories. (Just as a side note: Cristopher uses the same naming convention.)

I hope I expressed myself clearer now.

The Book of Lost Tales represented Tolkien's attempt to articulate a completely artificial Anglo-Saxon mythology for England. It was set in England, not in "Middle-earth". In Old English, there was a word for "Middle-earth" (midden-geard), referring to the habitable world of men, but Tolkien attached no significance to it.

The Valar of The Book of Lost Tales comprised a pantheon of pseudo Old English gods. That is, since nothing of the mythologies of the Old English peoples who settled in England survives, Tolkien just made up a mythology in which Men arrived in England after it was inhabited by Elves and other fairy creatures (pixies, etc.). At some point, there was a great war between Elves and Men, and the Men prevailed. The Elves were defeated and driven into the hills.

The "Silmarillion" is a third generation work for Tolkien. That is, he first wrote The Book of Lost Tales, setting it (most of it) in England. He then took two stories from BOLT and rewrote them as epic poems, set in an imaginary land (Beleriand). He then wrote a "Sketch of the Mythology" which became the first "Silmarillion".

From that point forward, Tolkien rewrote the Silmarillion mythology (no longer rooted in England or Old English) twice. Then The Hobbit was published and he was asked to write a sequel to it.

By this time, before he started writing the sequel, Tolkien had begun to use the name "Middle-earth" to refer to that portion of his imaginary world in which Men normally lived. Beleriand had become a fixed part of that imaginary world, but nothing concerning Hobbits or the lands Tolkien described in The Hobbit was included in that world.

Through the 1930s, Tolkien had also begun developing another mythology based upon a time travel story. This was the story of Numenor, the lost continent of Atlantis. Tolkien gradually revised it several times.

As he wrote The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien drew the worlds of the Silmarillion and Numenor into the world of the Hobbit, and he created a new Middle-earth which encompassed histories based on the older mythologies. Tolkien's new Middle-earth mythology grew throughout the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

Eventually, he decided he would have to dispense with many old traditions and start over again, but he never got very far with the last mythology.

[Michael Martinez]

...His early conception (BoLT) was of course radically different from his later conception (Silmarillions), but it was a conception of the same world. That is, the greatest difference between the latest "BoLTs" and the earliest "Silmarillions" was probably in the name....

That is incorrect. The Book of Lost Tales is a supposed Anglo-Saxon mythology set in England. The Silmarillion mythologies were all set in imaginary or ambiguous northern lands with no relationship to England. Also, the characters and stories were substantively different. Beren, for example, was only an Elf in The Book of Lost Tales. He became a man in "Lay of Leithian" and remained a man throughout all subsequent mythologies.

[brownjenkins]

MM is correct on the particulars... that said, many of the stories in BoLT contain elements of the tales later reworked and published in the silmarillion... names, races, motivations and sometimes even themes change... but many also stay the same... the "gods" or "valar" are also portrayed very differently... with more of a pagan feel to them and less of the christian morality that appeared in the later renditions

the stories also excel on the descriptive end of characters and locations in a way that you don't see much of in the published silmarillion (or any of tolkien's other writings for that matter)... that said, it is a collection of snippets and incomplete or alternate tales... so it truely takes a lot of concentration and a bit of a scholarly attitude to appreciate

[BeardofPants]

Really? Must have missed that particular memo. I really enjoyed reading them, and found them a much easier read than I anticipated. ::shrug:: BoLT2 is still one of my favourite HoMEs.

[Valandil]

Just got my Casper WY Library Card last night, and celebrated by checking out BOLT 1! :) Have not read this yet - only excerpts from a couple of the later HOME books.