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Grand Bob
The Shire
Nov 13 2014, 3:33pm
Post #26 of 34
(467 views)
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Thanks for the welcome. I have read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings every year since 1973 and will continue to do so until I tire of them (which doesn't appear to be likely). By the way, for this year's LotR reading I used the new 60th anniversary LotR UK edition. It is very nice and it will probably replace "Old Paint" - my beloved 1991 Alan Lee illustrated edition that I have read for the previous 23 years.
One of my favorite quotes from The Hobbit:
"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway."
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EomundDaughter
Lorien
Nov 13 2014, 6:31pm
Post #27 of 34
(485 views)
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Tolkien is incredible....this is so true
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Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
¯ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Nov 14 2014, 1:05am
Post #28 of 34
(438 views)
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"It's the job that's never started as takes longest to finish."
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I use that one at work too--on myself.
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Plurmo
Rohan
Nov 14 2014, 3:12am
Post #29 of 34
(452 views)
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The sleep they had never meant to take.
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The long shadow of the stone in the middle of the hollow circle at the Barrow-downs, which was over the hobbits when they awoke from the "sleep they had never meant to take." That one impresses me because it seems to be a signifier of the Barrow Wight himself.
In the sense that it signals that the hobbits had fell prey to the Wight, entangled in the encircling dusky labyrinth of mist and shapes that is the threshold of his dominion. In the sense that its wandering body has its feet firmly attached to the ground, and the stone, around which it sways, is the only being with a voice so "slow and everlasting" as to be able to make company to a being in eternal captivity, living in the agony of a sleep it had never meant to take.
When Sam put the Ring on his finger (and so entered the Wraith World,) he felt like a "small black solid rock," so, in a sense, maybe the shadow of Bilbo the goblins saw at the Misty Mountains gate was also the shadow of a stone. Maybe the little we perceive of some of the beings trapped in the Wraith World we take for shadows of stones, because in our minds there could be no other matching element for the heavy shadow that expresses the stillness of a waiting wraith.
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Grand Bob
The Shire
Nov 14 2014, 11:56pm
Post #30 of 34
(459 views)
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After looking at the Tom Bombadil thread, I decided to add one more of my very favorite Tolkien quotes, from one of his letters (#144) describing Bombadil:
"The story is cast in terms of a good side, and a bad side, beauty against ruthless ugliness, tyranny against kingship, moderated freedom with consent against compulsion that has long any object save mere power, and so on; both sides in some degree, conservative or destructive, want a measure of control. But if you have, as it were taken a 'vow of poverty', renounced control, and take your delight in things for themselves without reference to yourself, watching, observing, and to some extent knowing, then the question of the rights and wrongs of power and control might become utterly meaningless to you, and the means of power quite valueless."
This statement becomes more profound upon reflection, and in a nutshell is an excellent summary of politics (the desire for control that he addresses), and its alternative, which is represented by Bombadil.
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Immortal
Nov 16 2014, 12:46am
Post #31 of 34
(450 views)
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From the introduction to "Leaf by Niggle"
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"One of its sources was a great-limbed poplar tree that I could see even lying in bed. It was suddenly lopped and mutilated by its owner; I do not know why. It is cut down now, a less barbarous punishment for any crimes it may have been accused of, such as being large and alive. I do not think it had any friends, or any mourners, except myself and a pair of owls."
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
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"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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marcelm2000
Registered User
Nov 21 2014, 9:41am
Post #32 of 34
(402 views)
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Everything in the world has its right to survive
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My goes "Men are created equal"
I never dispise those who are disable, and i think most of them don't dispise themselves either. Because Men are created equal, they have their own happiness, we can not know.
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noWizardme
Half-elven
Nov 21 2014, 3:12pm
Post #33 of 34
(407 views)
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remided me of this, on the pacifist dilemma
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Part way through "Aldarion and Erendis, 'The Mariner's Wife' " (Unfinished Tales) King Meneldur learns that Sauron is stirring again and that it might come to war. This is his soliloquy about the dilemma of how to respond to evil:
To prepare or let be ? To prepare for war, which is yet only guessed: train craftsmen and tillers in he midst of peace for blood spilling and battle: put iron in the hands of greedy captains who will love only conquest, and count the slain as their glory? Will they say to Eru : At least your enemies were amongst them? Or to gold hands, while friends die unjustly: let men live in blind peace, until the ravisher is at the gate? What then will they do: match naked hands against iron and die in vain, or flee leaving the cries of women behind them ? Will they say to Eru: At least I spilled no blood?
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"nowimë I am in the West, Furincurunir to the Dwarves (or at least, to their best friend) and by other names in other lands. Mostly they just say 'Oh no it's him - look busy!' "
Or "Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"
This year LOTR turns 60. The following image is my LOTR 60th anniversary party footer! You can get yours here: http://newboards.theonering.net/...i?post=762154#762154
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CuriousG
Half-elven
Nov 21 2014, 7:28pm
Post #34 of 34
(455 views)
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And since we've been bringing up religion elsewhere (or the lack of it), it's interesting that that speech includes the notion of people meeting their Maker and having to justify their actions. But the Numenor tale is the most directly religious of all parts of the story. There's never any mention of Feanor having to explain his actions to Eru, or Finrod being rewarded for his. It's a Man thing.
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