The Hobbit is better than The Silmarillion

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I mean for readability? Yes hands down no contest. The Silmarillion is (and this is from someone who was listening to me TRY to do voices and fun things with the Sil) like reading The first three books of the Bible. It's boring with only brief flashes of highly interesting things.

For Lore and making it so that you can understand more of Middle Earth and everything that lives in it? Ehhhh. If you can actually get past the it's about as fun to read as the Bible part of the Sil, I'd say it's better for that. If you can't, again the Hobbit wins just because you can read it with ease.

Honestly I'd live to see more Lore discussions based around the Hobbit and seeing what we can glean using just that book.

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Hmmm, interesting point of view. Although, in my opinion, it's really difficult, not to say that it's a bit unfair to compare two very different books by the same author, especially since the targeted audience for those books is very different. Look at me and my lack of words trying to prove a point... Bless...

The Hobbit is a children's fantasy novel; and if memory serves me right, Tolkien didn't intend to expand on it or change the content of it or connect it with the legends of The Silmarillion until he was asked to make a sequel of it because the book was so popular... Since it was aimed primarily at children the structure of the book is different and it's more reader-friendly than The Silmarillion or Unfinished Tales... In addition, the story of Bilbo's great adventure told in The Hobbit is completed (it has a beginning, middle and an end) and well rounded.

On the other hand The Silmarillion has the look and feel of a medieval chronicle (Tolkien did have a tendency to write like a medieval scribe; if you know, you know. :winkkiss: ). The content is fascinating, but at times the chronicle can be a bit dry and sound like a chapter from a history book - all those names of rulers and lords and important people and narratives of diplomatic history... The intended audience is also different and that is reflected in the style. :nod:

So it doesn't seem fair to me to compare those books, because they are so different despite being set in the same universe. However, just because I don't think it's "fair" to do it, doesn't mean that it's not interesting to read about it. :winkkiss:
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To me, i love all the third age writings the best, they are the culmination of all the history of ME. So I do like the hobbit better then the sil. I also like second age writings more then first age.
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I personally agree with all of you.

It took me a very long time to actually finish the Silmarillion (three years I think :lol: ) also due to the fact that I had to start all over again, after I've lost my first copy that contained lots and lots of sticky notes :brickwall: . I must also admit that I found certain parts of the Silmarillion more than difficult to read/understand, so taking notes seemed crucial to me.

I also agree with the fact that reading the Silmarillion feels a lot like ready the bible, especially in the early chapters. I have got to say, however, that the chapters are very different from one another. While there are chapters that are very factual and seem dry, there are extremely beautiful chapters that are full of emotion; Beren and Luthien as an example. I also find it very difficult to compare the Silmarillion with the Hobbit at this point. While one learns a lot from the Silmarillion about the past ages and about Tolkien's universe, the Hobbit is practically a children's book that does contain more informtation about the dwarves (especially concerning their personalities and mentality) and we learn about the hobbits for the first time.

@Chrysophylax Dives If you want to stick to the statement, I would clarify it at this point; E.g. 'better' in which aspect? I have got to admit that I love the Silmarillion, precisely because it talks about the glorious days of the elves, which are days gone by during the times of the hobbit.

[Edited]
Last edited by Legolas on Thu Oct 28, 2021 10:42 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Legolas wrote: Tue Oct 26, 2021 7:44 am I personally agree with all of you.

It took me a very long time to actually finish the Silmarillion (three years I think :lol: ) also due to the fact that I had to start all over again, after I've lost my first copy that contained lots and lots of sticky notes :brickwall: . I must also admit that I found certain parts of the Silmarillion more than difficult to read/understand, so taking notes seemed crucial to me.

I also agree with the fact that reading the Silmarillion feels a lot like ready the bible, especially in the early chapters. I have got to say, however, that the chapters are very different from one another. While there are chapters that are very factual and seem dry, there are extremely beautiful chapters that are full of emotion; Beren and Luthien as an example. I also find it very difficult to compare the Silmarillion with the Hobbit at this point. While one learns a lot from the Silmarillion about the past ages and about Tolkien's universe, the Hobbit is practically a children's book from we learn more about dwarves or about the hobbits for the first time.

@Chrysophylax Dives If you want to stick to the statement, I would clarify it at this point; E.g. 'better' in which aspect? I have got to admit that I love the Silmarillion, precisely because it talks about the glorious days of the elves, which are days gone by during the times of the hobbit.
While I do enjoy third age the best, I found that every time I read the sil it helped me understand it better and enjoy it more. This happens with all of Tolkiens works but especially with the sil.
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I don't think your statement is that controversial, @Chrysophylax Dives. :smile:

The Hobbit is a proper story. As Tolkien writes in the Foreward to Lord of the Rings, the Scouring was an "essential part of the plot, foreseen from the outset." Your protagonist starts at "home," gets pulled away and goes through a strange and "wide world," then returns home, most likely a changed person from the adventure. The foundation for any fantasy, adventure story is one where the readers go through the same recognition (we all know what "home" means to us) and estrangement (the experiences of the "wider world.") But it can't just end there, we have to return home, but because of our estrangement, home is changed.

You don't get that recognition/estrangement/return journey in The Silmarillion. It's interesting, I actually think what Gandalf says to Bilbo towards the end of The Hobbit, is Tolkien interjecting his own feelings about Bilbo, and relationship with being the author of The Hobbit:

"You are a very fine person, Mr. Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little person in a wide world after all!" (The Hobbit: The Last Stage)

He had all these unfinished and unpublished tales from The Silmarillion, but The Hobbit is the story he finished. Gandalf's comment makes me smile, because just my opinion, I think it's Tolkien's opinion of his own story, and an author's feelings about his protagonist. :grin:
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The statement in the OP is deliberately vague because there is so much that could be said in comparison, and I don't want to shut down any avenues of discussion that others might care to stroll down.

One of many justifications of the statement I would advance concerns the narratorial style of The Hobbit, which Tolkien reacted against as he composed the sequel and reflected on his practice in 'On Fairy-stories', and which Verlyn Flieger and other elf-obsessed commentators have declared inimical to a proper fairy story. When I read such criticism of The Hobbit I worry about the state of mind of the critic (the older Tolkien's included). The narratorial style of the story is an intrinsic part of what makes it such a wonderful story.

I was prompted to pen this comment because I was just reading something about how children are literal in their use and understanding of language and only by adolescence comfortable with idioms, proverbs, irony, and metaphor in general. I think that likely explains some of the magic of the words of The Hobbit, whose author is constantly playing with literal and figurative usages, from the wizard's reply to the hobbit's innocent 'Good Morning!' on. I first heard the story when I was seven, and though that was now decades ago I am certain I recall some of the wonder of the words of the story, which not only told of magic but - somehow - showed me it made before my eyes. I guess my innate identification of author and wizard must date from that first hearing of the story aloud.
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I can't get my head around the notion of comparing them. The Hobbit was my first introduction to Tolkien, a late one when I was about 19, and I read it with delight. I went straight on the LOTR which I read with something more elevated stirring inside me - wonder, awe, very strong responses to the inspiration it brought me - emotional and intellectual.

I bought the Silmarillion as soon as it came out, and was lost in it from beginning to end. I loved it. Maybe my responses to literature are too emotional? These three works are beyond being compared usefully with on another, I feel.
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It’s been many years since I read either of the two. I should probably remedy that soon but there are just so many books I want to read! They are two very different books as has been pointed out already. Personally, I enjoyed The Hobbit a lot more, but I don't know that I would say it is better. I love the humor, Bilbo, the clever play on language you pointed out @Chrysophylax Dives and the adventurous quest (and “mini quests” along the way).

I found The Silmarillion challenging, and if I’m being totally honest, at times quite uninteresting, to read. The writing style and tone don’t really work for me but the stories themselves are brilliant, sweeping, tragic and epic. Because of the nature of the book that covers such a large stretch of time (and arguably space), I felt I never really got time to sink my teeth into something before it was on to the next thing. It’s been a while and I might be exaggerating but I feel like some key events occur in the span of about two sentences (probably necessary or it would be 10k pages long). I usually tend to prefer a deeper dive into one character, or a group of characters, as opposed to a sweeping epic spanning thousands of years. Undoubtedly, I am amazed by the world building and attention to detail and all that went into it. It’s just not exactly the kind of reading I enjoy and I primarily read for enjoyment/relaxation (unless I’m reading nonfiction).

I don’t disagree that I think The Hobbit may often be dismissed by some as a child’s story with little substance especially when compared to a masterpiece like The Sil. However, maybe some are forgetting that many “traditional” children’s stories/fairy tales were often intended to teach lessons/morals. If I think of it that way, The Hobbit makes something of a clear case against greed (and maybe even some commentary on the pitfalls of capitalism) and I think if people dig a little deeper if they want to, they may find other themes/lessons to be derived from the story. However, a story can also just be a story to enjoy and sometimes I think endlessly over-analyzing it can be a bit too much.

Anyway, I don’t think one is necessarily “better” than the other. It is a bit like comparing apples to oranges that come from the same tree. In the end, it will come down to personal preferences. I’ll just appreciate both for what they are.
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You all are right who say 'better' is unhelpful, the two are so different. Sometime after the movies and in the older internet wave some idea emerged that all these stories are part of the same unified 'Middle-earth', which kind of inevitably made for snotty comments about The Hobbit.

I'm surprised but relieved that others share my own early experience of The Silmarillion. Obsessed by the two hobbit stories, as a young teenager I was so excited to get my hands on the (impressive looking) book that promised the heart of it all. And then after a while of reading what sounded a bit like The Bible I got really bored and gave up. In later years I've gone and read nearly all the stories, in their HOME versions even, and I appreciate from a distance the sport of laying out the different versions of the key tales. But though I am now in awe of the Silmarillion stories, I cannot say I especially like them.

What I think these days is that what is particularly good in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings entered not through The Silmarillion stories as such but something else that formed in the mind of JRR Tolkien, maybe in the late 1920s. I also think that The Hobbit is more substantial than people usually see, and that reading the (now easily available) first edition, with its original riddle game, is an eye-opener.
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I can understand both sides to this discussion, because @Chrysophylax Dives mentions a point that is similar to my own thoughts when trying to read The Silmarillion:
In later years I've gone and read nearly all the stories, in their HOME versions even, and I appreciate from a distance the sport of laying out the different versions of the key tales.
I read The Hobbit for the first time in 7th grade English class, because right around that time the Fellowship of the Ring movie was coming out. After The Hobbit, my dad had the Lord of the Rings books and I read Book I of FOTR before watching the movie in theaters. I loved the book and loved The Fellowship movie, I finished reading the rest of LOTR before TTT movie came out. Then right around 2004, after the ROTK film, I read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings again.

At 19, this would have been around 2007 (my heyday of activity on the OP) I thought I'd try to read The Silmarillion for the first time and had to put it down. I forget where I stopped, but I didn't finish it my first attempt. I think it was because my expectations were this would be a similar reading experience to The Hobbit and LOTR. I loved those 2 stories, because the language, the details, their focus on the key events in Third Age history, with their tantalizing glimpses into the past. It made me want to dig deeper into those "glimpses" which I thought I would get with The Silmarillion. But The Silmarillion read more like a summation of events. It was distant and impersonal. The detail of Lord of the Rings, and the glimpses of the "Necromancer" and swords from Gondolin peeking into The Hobbit were missing.

It was only after reading "Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin" and "Narn I Hin Hurin" in Unfinished Tales that I wanted to give The Silmarillion another chance. In my opinion, "Of Tuor and his Coming to Gondolin" is the best single chapter/Middle-earth related tale Tolkien wrote (with "Beren and Luthien" coming in 2nd). So my 2nd attempt at the Silmarillion, I got through it, because I wanted to read those chapters in particular (which were near the end!), and then I wanted to read about the Fall of Numenor. I think if I was given the advice back in 2007 to "skip the Ainulindale and Valaquenta, and just start with The Silmarillion proper" I might have gotten through The Silm with my first attempt and enjoyed it a lot more. Still it includes the 2 best tales (in my opinion) that Tolkien wrote.
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Boromir88 wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 1:56 pm Still it (the Silm.) includes the 2 best tales (in my opinion) that Tolkien wrote.
Boromir88, you are saying (in the crude language of the OP) that Tuor and Beren and Luthien are superior tales to The Hobbit and even LOTR?
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Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Sat Nov 06, 2021 3:55 pm Boromir88, you are saying (in the crude language of the OP) that Tuor and Beren and Luthien are superior tales to The Hobbit and even LOTR?
Nope. I think I explained my opinion clumsily. I meant to say, I agree with what other posters have said in that it's like comparing apples to oranges. And in my first attempt to read The Silm (when I was 19) I went in thinking it would be similar delivery to The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I wanted to dive deeper into the "glimpses" I got from reading TH and LOTR, but The Silm didn't have the same charm. What I mean by that is it's story-telling was different. The first attempt to read The Silmarillion, it was mythical, distant and lacked the personal connection I felt reading TH and LOTR. The Silmarillion felt like reading a summary of different events.

Then I read Unfinished Tales and was captivated by the first chapter, "Of Tuor and his coming to Gondolin" and the next one (to a lesser degree) "Narn I Hin Hurin." That motivated me to give The Silmarillion another chance, because I really wanted to get to the Tuor chapter (but that was near the end!). So, I skipped the Ainulindale and the Valaquenta, started with The Silmarillion proper ("Of the Beginning of Days") and found that I wasn't turned off like with my first attempt. And I actually enjoyed many other chapters in The Silmarillion.

What I found, in my opinion, is I think as stand alone stories they are better than any singular chapter in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. That's to say, remove "Of Beren and Luthien" and "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" and you still have the makings of a good story. That's how I should have explained it, but making a 1 to 1 comparison is flawed. You can't compare "Of Beren and Luthien" or "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" as complete stories, like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. But trying to compare "Of Beren and Luthien" or "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin" to a single chapter in The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings is also a flawed comparison. They are just too different to compare. I was expecting them to be similar when I first read the Silmarillion, and I hated it; actually stopped reading it. But glad I read Unfinished Tales (when I didn't go with the expectation of "This will be like reading The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings") and glad it motivated me to give the Silmarillion another chance. Basically, when I first picked up the Silmarillion at age 19, I didn't have anyone in my close circle at the time to tell me "hey this isn't going to be like TH or LOTR, but it does contain chapters of pure gold."
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:) Get you. Thank you @Boromir88.

Generally, and to repeat, I'm rather relieved by the comments on this thread. If I re-put the original post I'd now put 'The Hobbit is better than you think.'
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Late to the party -- the Hobbit is better than you think, and I don't think anyone -- especially not Christopher Tolkien -- could really claim that the Silm, which is really almost an anthology with some collecting themes -- is superior when it comes to being a good, solid, well-written book.

Also @Chrysophylax Dives I'm glad to see the 'Good Morning' conversation sparked this thread. It's one of my favorite passages in the Hobbit -- and probably most of Tolkien's works, period -- and has been since I was maaaaaaybe six.
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Androthelm wrote: Fri Nov 12, 2021 1:50 am @Chrysophylax Dives I'm glad to see the 'Good Morning' conversation sparked this thread. It's one of my favorite passages in the Hobbit -- and probably most of Tolkien's works, period -- and has been since I was maaaaaaybe six.
Hi Androthelem, https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.1 ... 7/mode/2up: here is a possible source of that passage. From a book by grammarian Otto Jespersen, published in 1924 and owned by Tolkien. Look at the section 'Formulas and Free expressions', where listed as formulas are both 'Good morning' and (Gandalf's other trick in that conversation) 'I beg your pardon'.

(By the by, I have a sense that the 'Good morning' formula has a wider significance relating to Tolkien's subsequent account in 'On Fairy-stories' of 'fairy elements' as noun-adjective combinations.)
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That's so interesting @Chrysophylax Dives! I can't believe I'd never made the connection between the adjective-magic of 'On Fairy-stories' and The Hobbit beginning with a debate over just how the adjective 'Good' impacts 'Morning'.

Unfortunately, the other end of that link you've posted seems to be down -- it's IA, though, so I'm sure they'll be back up again soon.
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Well, not to discount your characterization of the wizard-hobbit exchange, but I think the general step to take (with Tolkien) is from seeing an adjective impacting a noun to a vision of mutual impact making (possibly) something novel, or at least queer. Jespersen, in that link, merely says that such phrases are formulas, the meaning of which cannot be reached by analysis of the two parts of the phrase - as Gandalf demonstrates! I think Tolkien would have agreed with that, but then taken a step further, as it were, into Fairie, which maybe is as simple as, not so much analysing such phrases but simply reflecting on them until you fall into their strangeness and see something quite other.

In terms of the hobbit, 'Good Morning' is perhaps merely an ordinary and everyday preparation for the queerer formula 'nameless thief', itself a translation out of Old English of a phrase used to describe the thief who steals the cup that awakes the wrath of the dragon that is Beowulf's doom. Bilbo Baggins the hobbit is set up by author and wizard to play the part of this nameless thief, and in terms of the OP, much of the overlooked magic of The Hobbit concerns the way that Tolkien takes apart and plays with this formula (most obviously, with the queer sign on the door that names the hobbit a burglar and the magic ring that was originally the birthday present of a nameless creature).

But in terms of your own current thinking, it may be illuminating, if not always comforting, to consider the formulas, phrases, and fairy elements that might contain 'master'.
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I have made my rounds on many Tolkien forums and I have to say, the majority of fans it seems to be prefer The Silmariilion even to LOTR. I have at times felt like an outsider. So I am glad to see so many here love the third age as I do.
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bilbobaggins764 wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:55 pm I have made my rounds on many Tolkien forums and I have to say, the majority of fans it seems to be prefer The Silmariilion even to LOTR. I have at times felt like an outsider. So I am glad to see so many here love the third age as I do.
Me too. I was pleasantly surprised by the response to this thread. The Old Plaza Lore forum was a bastion of that 'purist' or Silmarillion point of view, and occasionally @Troelsfo, one of the old loremasters, pops in here to defend this position. Actually, this thread was penned in response to his last visit, now lost in the summer server crash, in which he cited an essay by the Tolkien scholar Veryln Flieger that 'explained' why The Hobbit is so bad. I spent $30 to buy Flieger's book so I could read the essay - and Troelsfo, if you ever read this: the essay sucks!
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Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 9:52 am
bilbobaggins764 wrote: Wed Dec 01, 2021 1:55 pm I have made my rounds on many Tolkien forums and I have to say, the majority of fans it seems to be prefer The Silmariilion even to LOTR. I have at times felt like an outsider. So I am glad to see so many here love the third age as I do.
Me too. I was pleasantly surprised by the response to this thread. The Old Plaza Lore forum was a bastion of that 'purist' or Silmarillion point of view, and occasionally @Troelsfo, one of the old loremasters, pops in here to defend this position. Actually, this thread was penned in response to his last visit, now lost in the summer server crash, in which he cited an essay by the Tolkien scholar Veryln Flieger that 'explained' why The Hobbit is so bad. I spent $30 to buy Flieger's book so I could read the essay - and Troelsfo, if you ever read this: the essay sucks!
lol, thanks for the warning. I love all Tolkiens stuff but third age is as good as it gets IMO. Followed by second age. Yet I still love the sil, every time I give it a read it gets better. But it will never reach the same level IMO as the two hobbit books.
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Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 9:52 am I was pleasantly surprised by the response to this thread. The Old Plaza Lore forum was a bastion of that 'purist' or Silmarillion point of view, and occasionally @Troelsfo, one of the old loremasters, pops in here to defend this position.
I have said, and I will stand by that view, that, in my considered opinion, The Hobbit is not a particularly good book. It is not a bad book either – you might say that is is “mostly harmless” – a rather indifferent attempt at a children's book that would have been largely forgotten if not for the later Lord of the Rings. In and of itself The Hobbit is a rather mediocre (in the sense of neither good or bad) and uninteresting children's book.

The Lord of the Rings, on the other hand, is indeed a very good book!

As for The Silmarillion ... that is a completely different thing, and I am not sure that it is fair to even try to assess the published Silmarillion on those terms at all, as it is only by a stretch that one can call it a finished work. It is, in my view, a considerably more interesting work than either The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but this, at least for me, lies more in its history, the complexity of its evolution, and not least for what these reveal about its sub-creator.

So, I would certainly not agree to say that “The Silmarillion is better than The Hobbit”, though, of course, I would equally protest being ascribed the position given in the title of this thread :smile: Neither of the two works is ‘good’ as work of literature, but otherwise they really are incommensurable, so any statement comparing their quality is, in my eyes, merely meaningless nonsense.

If you want me to praise other Tolkien works, I'd praise Farmer Giles of Ham and Smith of Wootton Major as really good books as well – very far superior to The Hobbit.

If you would rather have me give examples of good children's books, I'd recommend looking up most of the bibliography of Astrid Lindgren, but perhaps especially her Ronja Rövardotter and her Bröderna Lejonhjärta (respectively Ronia the Robber's Daughter and The Brothers Lionheart in English).
Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 9:52 am Actually, this thread was penned in response to his last visit, now lost in the summer server crash, in which he cited an essay by the Tolkien scholar Veryln Flieger that 'explained' why The Hobbit is so bad. I spent $30 to buy Flieger's book so I could read the essay - and Troelsfo, if you ever read this: the essay sucks!
:lol: Don't forget to also mention that I am a well-established “Halfwit Gamgee”-basher :grin: (who is a ‘hero’ only in the sense that he gets the girl and half the country ... grrrrrr :hammer:)

If you read Flieger's essay carefully, you will note that she speaks exclusively of the quality of the sub-creation in The Hobbit, comparing it to the standard that Tolkien himself set out elsewhere, and she finds that aspect lacking in the first half or so of the book. The essay, frankly, is excellent and goes a far way to help the reader understand Tolkien's own theory of sub-creation – better than his own words in ‘On Fairy-stories’ (though I also find that essay very highly interesting and illuminating).
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Troelsfo wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:35 pm If you read Flieger's essay carefully, you will note that she speaks exclusively of the quality of the sub-creation in The Hobbit, comparing it to the standard that Tolkien himself set out elsewhere, and she finds that aspect lacking in the first half or so of the book. The essay, frankly, is excellent and goes a far way to help the reader understand Tolkien's own theory of sub-creation – better than his own words in ‘On Fairy-stories’ (though I also find that essay very highly interesting and illuminating).
Having just read (also) Flieger's more recent volume of essays, chiefly on 'On Fairy-stories', I beg to differ. Flieger overemphasizes the making of a 'secondary world,' placing almost exclusive emphasis on the quality of 'inner consistency,' and overlooks most of the rest of Tolkien's theory.

As a general rule, it seems to me that if a secondary source appears more illuminating than Tolkien's words that is a sign that neither author or reader quite 'get' Tolkien's words. In this case, one vital factor that is overlooked is that, in the essay, a secondary world is said to be necessary in order to make the 'fairy element' appear credible. So rather than a simple exercise in fashioning a quality of inner consistency, this sub-creation of a world is born out of long pondering of the queer nature of the fairy element. At the heart of the essay is not this world-building as such, but a linguistic method of ascertaining the meanings of queer word combinations - ascertained by imagining the context of the newly coined idiom that is a fairy element, which is to say, imagining the world it inhabits.

Now the best introduction to Tolkien's theory and practice of word combinations is The Hobbit. 'Good morning!' paves the way - an idiom the analysis of which generates more meanings than intended but fails to pin a definition. Now we are ready for the more substantial fairy elements of the story, like hidden door, queer sign, magic ring, and nameless thief.

So while I accept that Flieger in her essay directs her complaints to the inner consistency of The Hobbit, I have to say that I do not see great insight in such complaints. A far more illuminating quest would be to seek the red thread that leads through the essay and the two hobbit stories - which would prompt us to consider the key step between one story and the other, namely imagining an origin of the magic ring...
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Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:54 am Having just read (also) Flieger's more recent volume of essays, chiefly on 'On Fairy-stories', I beg to differ. Flieger overemphasizes the making of a 'secondary world,' placing almost exclusive emphasis on the quality of 'inner consistency,' and overlooks most of the rest of Tolkien's theory.
While it may surprise you, I am inclined to agree with that, though I think that the mistaken over-emphasis comes from Tolkien rather than Flieger. Tolkien makes this his concept of Secondary Belief the core element of sub-creation, and he makes the concept of the “inner consistency of reality” the absolute cornerstone of his theory of Secondary Belief. Flieger, I will claim, only follows Tolkien on this.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:54 am As a general rule, it seems to me that if a secondary source appears more illuminating than Tolkien's words that is a sign that neither author or reader quite 'get' Tolkien's words.
I rather think that I managed to express myself very poorly there. My intention was definitely not to suggest that Flieger's text, in and of itself, was more illuminating of Tolkien's intention than Tolkien's own text. However, “On Fairy-stories” is, at places, rather dense and difficult to follow, and there Flieger's text is helpful with regards to the aspect that she investigates here. As said above, I rather think that Tolkien over-emphasises the significance of inner consistency, but Flieger, in my opinion, doesn't emphasise it further than Tolkien – rather, she goes a long way towards helping the reader understand that Tolkien did not mean it in the sense of complete and exhaustive internal consistency on every story-internal detail, such as it has often been presented, but that his focus was rather on the mechanics of the story. And The Hobbit does fail in this – you may disagree with her (and Tolkien's) assessment of the consequences for the reader, but the failures of consistency are real.

Personally, I have often found critical texts to be quite helpful in wringing out some extra juice of Tolkien's words. Not because I didn't get the general gist of them, but because there is so much more to Tolkien's words than I tend to get on first or even third reading. Not all critics are equally helpful (Tolkien (both father and Son), Flieger, Shippey, Hammond, Scull, Fimi, Garth, Hostetter, to name a few have proven among the most helpful) and no critic is always helpful (Flieger can, herself, be extremely dense and require very careful reading), and occasionally I have felt that my gain of understanding of Tolkien's intention after reading a good analysis has been larger than the gain after reading his words on their own.

I wouldn't say that the latter was necessarily the case when reading Flieger's essay, and I'll concede that I exaggerated my praise in this case.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:54 am In this case, one vital factor that is overlooked is that, in the essay, a secondary world is said to be necessary in order to make the 'fairy element' appear credible. So rather than a simple exercise in fashioning a quality of inner consistency, this sub-creation of a world is born out of long pondering of the queer nature of the fairy element. At the heart of the essay is not this world-building as such, but a linguistic method of ascertaining the meanings of queer word combinations - ascertained by imagining the context of the newly coined idiom that is a fairy element, which is to say, imagining the world it inhabits.
Just to be sure that I understand you correctly, the essay, you speak of here, is Tolkien's “On Fairy-stories”, and not Flieger's essay on The Hobbit? That would mean that “this sub-creation of a world” is literary – or perhaps specifically fairy-story – sub-creation, but still in a generic sense and not tied to a specific work?

Reading it in that way, I do no think that Flieger contradicts any of what you say – nor even that she would protest it. However, I do think that she displays a good grasp of the importance Tolkien ascribes inner consistency for the purpose of making the faerie element work – here Tolkien makes this the pivot upon which everything else rests. I think that you overlook, or do not acknowledge, the key role that he ascribes this concept of an “inner consistency of reality” in his fairy-story essay – the rest is not unimportant to him, but he makes this the one crucial thing without which the enchantment cannot function.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:54 am Now the best introduction to Tolkien's theory and practice of word combinations is The Hobbit. 'Good morning!' paves the way - an idiom the analysis of which generates more meanings than intended but fails to pin a definition. Now we are ready for the more substantial fairy elements of the story, like hidden door, queer sign, magic ring, and nameless thief.
I am not sure that I'd agree to it being the best introduction – or even a particularly good introduction. It's an introduction of sorts that might very easily lead people the entirely wrong way, taking his word plays a bit too seriously. These are word-plays intended, at best, to arouse an interest in words and language in very young listeners, and not in any way an exposition of a theory. There are other places in the latter half of The Hobbit that one might, with better justification, pull forward as examples of Tolkien's theories and practice with regards to words and phrases – i.e. of philology.

Another thing is, of course, that none of this has any bearing on Tolkien's more mature views of what constitutes good quality in literature in general and fairy-stories in particular – some curious word plays, philological jokes, and other examples of philological practice do not, in Tolkien's view or in mine, make The Hobbit good neither as children's literature nor as a fairy-story.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:54 am So while I accept that Flieger in her essay directs her complaints to the inner consistency of The Hobbit, I have to say that I do not see great insight in such complaints. A far more illuminating quest would be to seek the red thread that leads through the essay and the two hobbit stories - which would prompt us to consider the key step between one story and the other, namely imagining an origin of the magic ring...
And there you touch on what is, in my view, the only real literary quality of The Hobbit – it's role in the gestation of The Lord of the Rings. Without the sequel, The Hobbit just wouldn't be interesting.
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Troelsfo wrote: Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:31 pm Tolkien makes this his concept of Secondary Belief the core element of sub-creation, and he makes the concept of the “inner consistency of reality” the absolute cornerstone of his theory of Secondary Belief. Flieger, I will claim, only follows Tolkien on this.
@Troelsfo, it is good to read you here again. But Wow. Really? No doubt you are seeing something that I have missed; and by the by, and possibly it will surprise you, in general I rate Flieger's insights on the essay extremely highly - nobody has immersed themselves more deeply in Tolkien's work, with the possible exception of his youngest son; what she says should be listened to. But here both you and her seem to have gotten caught up in a spider's web.

Just be clear on what is being said here. (1) JRRT puts together an essay on fairy stories in which inner consistency is the absolute cornerstone of achieving that Secondary Belief that is the core element of sub-creative authorship; (2) This essay is composed whilst he composes his greatest fairy story, LOTR; (3) JRRT begins this fairy story by introducing a character who defies the inner consistency of (any) sub-creation.

If your reading of the essay in terms of its core and its cornerstone is correct then what to make of Goldberry's husband, whose very voice provides a model of that enchantment treated in 'On Fairy-stories'?
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@Chrysophylax Dives, you are suggesting that Bombadil 'defies the inner consistency of (any) sub-creation'. As Bombadil is not impossibly self-contradicting, this cannot be true. It's not even true of the particular sub-creation we're dealing with here, as he does not break anything in his passage through it. What he fails to do is form a perfect, pristine model that can be used as a base to directly map and expand upon whenever anything remotely similar arises later in the text. But that's not what's he's for, so his failure to do that is not a concern. As @Troelsfo points out, this is not about 'every story-internal detail'. You're missing the forest, and most of the trees, for one copse.

Are you mistaking inner consistency with provable categorization? Lack of precision does not break inner consistency. Rather, the mystery can help the imperfect sub-creator to smooth out the edges of that monumental task. We shouldn't let our over-emphasis on Bombadil push aside what Tolkien himself emphasized.

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@Chrysophylax Dives, it's good to finally have a bit of time to be here :smile:

I'd have to restrict my statement to be about that kind of Secondary Belief that Tolkien also calls literary belief. I am not sure if he would wish to restrict it further, e.g. the Secondary Belief in written fairy-stories, but with these restrictions, yes, I really do believe that he, in “On Fairy-stories”, presents this “innner consistency of reality” as the pivot of this literary kind of Secondary Belief, and hence as a crucially important part of that kind of sub-creation.

Tolkien's essay obviously has much more to say about fairy-stories, and much that is also important to his views and thoughts about them. I would even agree that Secondary Belief is not, in the essay, the most important aspect of fairy-stories as such – it's importance lies in letting the reader experience the enchantment of the story, not in creating a theory of fairy-stories, the latter being the broader thrust of his essay.

Digging through the timelines of “On Fairy-stories” and the early chapters of The Lord of the Rings might actually prove a good idea, but one that will require rather more time to go through, but there is no question that Tolkien did change the early parts of The Lord of the Rings several times, and that his changes also focused on achieving a much greater degree of inner consistency (the retcon edit of ‘Riddles in the Dark’ is an example of this thrust reaching not only The Lord of the Rings, but also The Hobbit).
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Hi @Troelsfo,
I suspect that what we have here reflects some deep aesthetic preferences and that I will not convince you out of what I take to be a blinkered reading of 'On Fairy-stories' (OFS). Still, I'll give it a shot, here focusing on the concept of inner consistency of reality. (Page numbers from the Flieger and Anderson edition.)

The first mention of 'inner consistency' is in the section 'Fantasy', where Tolkien contests the misapplication of "Imagination to 'the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality" (59). The expression appears 4 more times, and on each occasion quotation marks are placed around it - indicating that the phrase is not Tolkien's. The editors of OFS point out (110) that Tolkien is quoting (rather, misquoting) from the OED entry on 'Fancy': "imagination is the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of realities."

This OED sentence does not seem to refer to the kind of inner consistency (as coherence or non-contradiction of a secondary world) highlighted by yourself and Flieger. And Tolkien does not suggest that it does. In this first instance, he is making a quite different point. What he has noticed is that the OED-writer has disguised profound wish as definition. Not even the elves can give the inner consistency of reality to an imaginary creation - such a gift belongs only to God for it makes imagination real!

In other words, 'inner consistency of reality' in relation to fantasy art denotes for Tolkien in his essay an impossible goal, a wish that cannot be realized. The OED-writer's confusion evidently attracted Tolkien's attention because it complements his foundational declaration earlier in the essay that "the primal desire at the heart of Faërie" is "the realization, independent of the conceiving mind, of imagined wonder” (35).

What Tolkien proceeds to do in 'Fantasy' is adopt the goal of creation as an impossible aspiration, while pointing out that it is expression (art) and not imagination "which gives (or seems to give) 'the inner consistency of reality'" - here, in this second usage, he attaches a footnote stating that this gift is what commands or induces Secondary Belief. You can pull a theory out of this footnote if you wish, but it seems to me that such a theory must be subservient to the more general conceptual vision Tolkien is drawing on. In other words, the notion of 'belief' that Tolkien now introduces takes its meaning from the gap between reality and imagination and alludes, in the first instance, to the performance of art in bridging this gap (and in the second to the state of mind of the audience - enchanted, deluded, out in the cold).

I do not deny that once he has enrolled the notion of 'inner consistency of reality' for his own purposes Tolkien subsequently unpacks its meaning to encompass the kind of inner consistency that attracts you and Flieger. Indeed, in the 1950s he most certainly became preoccupied with just this kind of consistency of his secondary world. But this is not the primary meaning of the term as it appears in the essay (the precise context of the composition of which is everything), nor is it by any means the sole characteristic of fantasy as unveiled in the essay - for example, it is less significant in the perspectives revealed in OFS than the expressed need to achieve a 'credible' fit between a fairy element (the beginning of sub-creation) and a secondary world.
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Troelsfo wrote: Sun Dec 26, 2021 2:35 pm If you read Flieger's essay carefully, you will note that she speaks exclusively of the quality of the sub-creation in The Hobbit, comparing it to the standard that Tolkien himself set out elsewhere, and she finds that aspect lacking in the first half or so of the book. The essay, frankly, is excellent and goes a far way to help the reader understand Tolkien's own theory of sub-creation – better than his own words in ‘On Fairy-stories’ (though I also find that essay very highly interesting and illuminating).
Hi Troelsfo, I do hope you have not vanished for a long spell again. As @bilbobaggins764 intimates above, the position of which you and Flieger are spokespeople seems dominant in the world of Tolkien fandom. It is worth reflecting on the historical contingencies behind this: after the death of its author, Lord of the Rings fans were first and foremost offered installments on the Silmarillion. Beginning in 1977 with 'The Silmarillion'; then the early HOME volumes revealing a great gulf between this posthumous publication and the stories of the young Tolkien. This was truly exciting stuff, and gave us John Garth on Tolkien and the Great War while 'serious' fans - like Flieger and yourself - began the process of stepping onto the Silmarillion reworkings of the 1950s - a great and wonderful horizon, navigated by yourself and others expertly e.g. in recent discussions with @Boromir88 on another thread.

All of the above I welcome. However, somewhere along the road something has gone wrong, as demonstrated by Flieger on The Hobbit. It is like some of the foremost among this school of Tolkien fandom have thrown out the baby with the bathwater. You have lost the magic of The Hobbit! From reading both her and you, it seems to me that an error is generated in a fashion something like as follows:

1. Having learned how concerns over the 'inner consistency of his secondary world' generated the Silmarillion reworkings and new compositions of the 1950s, precisely this idea is misread back into OFS (composed 1943), where (see my post above) 'inner consistency' refers in the first instance to primary reality (and is enlisted by Tolkien as an anchor of his vision of a queer semblance of reality made by the fantasy artist).

2. Having 'discovered' this 1950s principle in OFS it is then read back a stage further, now to dismiss The Hobbit as 'not very good' because - allegedly - not internally consistent (which really means, not consistent with Middle-earth as Tolkien viewed it in the 1950s and the Tolkien-Wiki editors make it today). Hence one arrives at the unfinished late version of The Hobbit, the cue for Peter Jackson's abominations.

3. With this blinkered reading of OFS concluded and The Hobbit dismissed (as 'only a children's story'), the inquiry into the non-Silmarillion material on the table is deemed concluded.

Silmarillion enthusiasm has become Silmarillion policing! And unhelpful policing, if I may say so. With your eyes only on the Silmarillion stories you miss Tolkien's magic. On Fairy-stories is the only credible roadmap to Middle-earth, but you have first to unfold it! Certainly, much indirect criticism of The Hobbit really can be found in OFS (the very idea that a fairy story is a story for children, not least), but this is a sideline to the real show: the continuity, the question of the origin which inhabits both essay and sequel. Like it or not, the One Ring is born from the magic ring of The Hobbit.
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@Chrysophylax Dives – Simon, I am here, and though time is more scarce now that work-life has resumed after the holidays, I do hope to be able to find a bit more time than what I have had over the past year (2021 was insane at work – waaay too much to do starting mid January and until Christmas with a brief breathing spell in July when everyone else were on holiday).

I don't have time today (for the birthday toast) to do follow up on the topic, but will try later – I just want to say God forbid that you, or anyone else, should feel obliged to agree with Flieger (and much less with me!) – life would be so much less interesting if we all agreed!
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I haven't read Flieger's essay, or OFS yes, but I have read John Rateliff's History of the Hobbit, and I think maybe one of the things that turns off the Tolkien lorists and scholars from The Hobbit is the "Narrator's voice." Rateliff comments that the narrator's voice was something Tolkien was not too happy with:

The narrator's importance to the story is usually slighted by critics who would prefer The Hobbit to conform to and resemble its sequel in every possible detail. In later years Tolkien came to regard the tone of the intrusive narrator's remarks as condescending, feeling that it marked the book as targeted for children, and said over and over again in letters that he regretted this, considering it an error on his part and a severe flaw in the book.(History of the Hobbit Part 1; Bladorthin script)

If Tolkien thought it was condescending and a 'severe flaw' in the book, then that's probably a big factor in turning off the lorists from the old plaza, @Chrysophylax Dives. Well, with @Troelsfo here, I suppose we can ask his thoughts on the narrator's voice. :smile:

Rateliff says it's an essential element of the book and you won't find me arguing against him, but also essential to its success:

Finally, there is the voice of the narrator, an essential element in establishing the overall tone of the story and hence of the book's success.

I agree with Rateliff, I was never turned away by the narrator's voice, even as I've gotten older. I can see how it may sound condescending, but the narrator's voice isn't necessarily a "bad" thing. It's not like Tolkien wrote The Hobbit "badly," he wrote it in the tone of most children's books, and the narrator's voice is a common element in many children's books.

I'm reading The Silmarillion again, and actually the Narrator's voice pops up in that too, not nearly as frequently as in The Hobbit. I forget what chapter it was, and I'm paraphrasing here but it was "As you heard told earlier, the burning of the ships at Losgar happened at this time."
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@Troelsfo, thank you for the reassurance of your presence. This forum is a much lesser place without it.

@Boromir88 I think you put your finger on the motivation for this post. It kind of followed from a (now lost) post on the troll's purse or some such incident of The Hobbit, which drew a long and scathing rebuke from Troelsfo on similar such lines as a post praising the narrator's voice might have elicited. The explanation - by Troelsfo, Flieger, and everyone else - of why this and that element of The Hobbit is 'bad' appears very convincing. But after due consideration my response seems to be yours: I like the troll-purse that is the mischief, always have and as the decades have gone by and I have re-read the story, I have never once had a problem with this mischief. So arises the conviction expressed above - and focusing on OFS - that the flaw is not in the story but the 'analysis' or 'theory' brought to bear on the story.
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Boromir88 wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:10 pm I haven't read Flieger's essay, or OFS yes, but I have read John Rateliff's History of the Hobbit, and I think maybe one of the things that turns off the Tolkien lorists and scholars from The Hobbit is the "Narrator's voice." Rateliff comments that the narrator's voice was something Tolkien was not too happy with:
Tolkien also remarked on this in a letter to his aunt, Jane Neave, in November 1961:
Never mind about the young! I am not interested in the ‘child’ as such, modern or otherwise, and certainly have no intention of meeting him/her half way, or a quarter of the way. It is a mistaken thing to do anyway, either useless (when applied to the stupid) or pernicious (when inflicted on the gifted). I have only once made the mistake of trying to do it, to my lasting regret, and (I am glad to say) with the disapproval of intelligent children: in the earlier part of The Hobbit. serious thought to the matter: I had not freed myself from the contemporary delusions about ‘fairy-stories’ and children.
Carpenter, Humphrey; Tolkien, Christopher. The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien (pp. 309-310). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition. Letter #234
There are some similar thoughts expressed in another letter (draft) from 1959 to one Walter Allen at The New Statesman (letter #215), but the letter to his aunt is refreshingly direct and honest :smile:

Boromir88 wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:10 pm
If Tolkien thought it was condescending and a 'severe flaw' in the book, then that's probably a big factor in turning off the lorists from the old plaza, @Chrysophylax Dives. Well, with @Troelsfo here, I suppose we can ask his thoughts on the narrator's voice. :smile:
To me, the narrator's voice is a separate issue from the faulty sub-creation of the book.

Flieger discusses the latter, and I do agree with her in her assessment that the sub-creation isflawed (especially – perhaps even exclusively – in the first half of the book), but this is, to my mind, unrelated to the discussion of the narrator's voice.

Here I think that Tolkien is overly harsh on himself.

I would agree that there are a few times (again in the first half of the book), where the narrator does become ... not sure what to call it; it is certainly a talking down to the child, and in that sense it is condescending or patronising, but it comes, as Tolkien himself remarks, from an intention to “of meeting him/her half way”, but instead of trying to meet the actual child, it tries to meet a grown-ups mistaken idea of a child, effectively talking down to the child listening to the story.

Having agreed with that, I would, however, also say that this is nowhere as bad as Tolkien describes it, and the narrator mostly manages to meet the children in the right manner – explaining without patronising, but explaining in phrases that the children of 1928 (:wink:) could be expected to understand. There might be one or two places where the narrator makes me cringe, but that would be all, so I do not see the narrator's voice as being as great a problem as Tolkien himself came to do.

This means that I think that his 1960 attempt at rewriting The Hobbit, while in some ways an improvement, failed to address the real problem of the book: the flawed sub-creation in the first half.

Boromir88 wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:10 pm
Rateliff says it's an essential element of the book and you won't find me arguing against him, but also essential to its success:
One is, fortunately, not obliged to agree with neither Rateliff or Flieger (and much less with @Troelsfo :grin: ).

Boromir88 wrote: Mon Jan 03, 2022 11:10 pm
I agree with Rateliff, I was never turned away by the narrator's voice, even as I've gotten older. I can see how it may sound condescending, but the narrator's voice isn't necessarily a "bad" thing. It's not like Tolkien wrote The Hobbit "badly," he wrote it in the tone of most children's books, and the narrator's voice is a common element in many children's books.
I find myself unable to agree with both Tolkien or Rateliff on this issue :smile:

Tolkien did, in my opinion, err a couple of times in the first part of the book on the narrative voice, crossing the line to condescension (or whatever we should call it :smile:), but it is not a severe flaw. But neither is the narrator's voice such a crucial element of the book, and the story could, I believe, have been better told without this narrator (but only with an improved sub-creation!).

Rateliff, in my opinion, makes the error of confusing the book he has read with the book that could have been, if the story had been told for a different audience. It would certainly not have been the flippant and twee (and in at least one sense of that word, somewhat charming) children's book that we know now, but I do believe that it could have been much better literature, and a far better fairy-story, though this would have required making changes that even Tolkien appears to not have considered, or not been willing to make (it would, for instance, have required him to completely rewrite ‘Roast Mutton’ in a far more drastic manner than his rewrite of ‘Riddles in the Dark’).


Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 6:56 am @Boromir88 I think you put your finger on the motivation for this post. It kind of followed from a (now lost) post on the troll's purse or some such incident of The Hobbit, which drew a long and scathing rebuke from Troelsfo on similar such lines as a post praising the narrator's voice might have elicited.
That sounds fairly likely :smile: The troll purse is, in my frank opinion, one of the truly abominable details in The Hobbit, and I would say that the ‘Roast Mutton’ chapter is the part of The Hobbit that I would consider actually poor (not just “not good”).

I do hope, however, that my response above adds some nuance to my views – distinguishing between the very minor issues in a couple of instances with the narrator's voice, and the failed sub-creation of the first half of the book.

Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 6:56 am
The explanation - by Troelsfo, Flieger, and everyone else - of why this and that element of The Hobbit is 'bad' appears very convincing. But after due consideration my response seems to be yours: I like the troll-purse that is the mischief, always have and as the decades have gone by and I have re-read the story, I have never once had a problem with this mischief. So arises the conviction expressed above - and focusing on OFS - that the flaw is not in the story but the 'analysis' or 'theory' brought to bear on the story.
I find myself skipping over ‘Roast Mutton’ when reading The Hobbit these days …. That chapter consistently invites in me an almost overwhelming disbelief, forcefully throwing me face down in the Primary World mud. It is not only the purse, but almost everything about the three trolls, from their names to their cockney slang to ... just no! :smile:

These three trolls may be flippant and the purse a bit of mischief, but they are also an example of rather poor sub-creation (so very rare in Tolkien's fiction). I think they are very much of the same kind as the appearance of Father Christmas in Narnia, which Tolkien (and, in my view, very rightly so) protested so vehemently.

But it is actually good to hear that not everybody share this reaction :smile:
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Hi @Troelsfo, are you going to engage on 'the inner consistency of reality' as it appears in OFS? This cuts to the chase concerning where you and Flieger go wrong reading the essay. Just to remind you, I claim that in the essay 'On Fairy-stories' this phrase does not refer to establishing coherency and consistency within a secondary world (as per the late Silmarillion discussions and traditional lore debates) but rather to the art of fitting a queer 'fairy element' into its proper realm of being. I'd add that, in my opinion, the way to resolution is by exploring Tolkien's words in the essay and their meaning.
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@Chrysophylax Dives, I would say that you seem (at least to me) to be proposing a very idiosyncratic interpretation of Tolkien's essay here.

I most certainly disagree with your claim that the phrase “does not refer to establishing coherency and consistency within a secondary world” – I would, indeed, insist that it does also, and explicitly so, refer to establishing a coherence and consistency within the sub-creation, to abiding by the laws that have been established for that world.

This does not, in my mind, preclude that what you say is not also a part of this achievement of an inner consistency of reality – your interpretation just cannot stand alone and without the addition of coherence and consistency.
“The love of Faery is the love of love” J.R.R. Tolkien

Guardian of the Golden Wood
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Hi @Troelsfo,

I am sorry not to have been more clear. I meant, are you going to respond to my post above on 'inner consistency'? I copy and paste the starting point.
The first mention of 'inner consistency' is in the section 'Fantasy', where Tolkien contests the misapplication of "Imagination to 'the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of reality" (59). The expression appears 4 more times, and on each occasion quotation marks are placed around it - indicating that the phrase is not Tolkien's. The editors of OFS point out (110) that Tolkien is quoting (rather, misquoting) from the OED entry on 'Fancy': "imagination is the power of giving to ideal creations the inner consistency of realities."
Part of what I used to like about the Old Plaza was the careful attention to the texts in discussion of any point, so please forgive me if I am pushing you to back up your reading of 'On Fairy-stories' by actual reference to what Tolkien says. I find what Tolkien is doing with this phrase fascinating, but cannot square it with your usage (especially not when employed against The Hobbit!)
Eat earth. Dig deep. Drink water.

Guardian of the Golden Wood
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Chrysophylax Dives wrote: Thu Oct 14, 2021 6:07 am I feel like I'm coming out of the closet saying this. But its obviously true.
Yes. I still maintain this position.
Eat earth. Dig deep. Drink water.

Melkor
Melkor
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From a Tale of Adanel perspective, the Silmarillion is like watching 50 Ferraris on a race track. A monster truck appears and deliberately goes in the opposite track, and the narrative is essentially how eventually someone convinces the government to evacuate who’s left, and to stop that monster truck and the Ferraris it corrupts.

The Hobbit has that innocent charm that I envy. If only we could all be like hobbits, which was what Eru probably wanted both elves and humans to be in the long run.

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