I love Lord of the Rings, but not enough to read The Silmarillion or any of the other related texts. In fact, just typing this was the first time I found out that The Silmarillion had a SIL- as a prefix. I thought it was SIMarillion. Silmarillion feels weird to me and completely justifies my laziness in not absorbing everything Tolkien.
What constitutes everything Tolkien? Well, The Hobbit, as an appetizer. I loved the book as kid, but the Peter Jackson series was kind of a disappointment. Nevertherless, it’s rung #1 on this ladder.
Then, with great aplomb and lost of tumult, comes the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which is comprised of The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. I grew up in a big family where personal space was almost a joke and the tang of violence hung in the air like a constant threat, so I spent lots of time hiding in a corner, away from everyone, converting all of my personal dread into the joy I’d get from this trilogy.
I don’t remember how many times I read it, once a year or so, and that it was sacred to me. I may have cracked open The Silmarillion at some point, but by then television was in color, I had cleared the high bar of virginity and was on my own. That’s not to say Tolkien fans aren’t freaks in the sheets! I just have ADHD and it can be tough for me to ingest tomes of that density. Tolkien crazies: you have my axe. I just assumed that eventually I’d glean any Tolkien-related answers to my questions elsewhere.
Then I heard that Tolkien’s son, Christopher, had taken the reins of Middle Earth’s oxcart and published some of his father’s various scratchings into a book of Unfinished Tales. Imagine the loyalty of a fanbase that would buy tales that were unfinished. That’s amazing. Lo, Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth doth sprang.
Back then, I think I scoffed at the idea, imagining that to accept a stand-in Tolkien would be a capitulation, but since then I’ve tried to get my children to read J.R.R.’s masterpiece and to a person they’ve been underwhelmed.
“There’s a lot of plants, bruh.” They say. “A whole lot of describing the various plants on the way from here to there.”
“Don’t call me bruh.” I say. “I’m not your bruh, bruh.”
“Whatever, bruh.” They say.
They just don’t seem to have the patience to go there and back again. So maybe Christopher Tolkien might be an improvement for this TikTok generation? I’m not sure.
With the success of Unfinished Tales, reprising J.R.R.’s unfinished works became a mandate of sorts and led to three more books, The Children of Húrin, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin. I have also read none of them, mostly because having an accent above a vowel in any fantasy-related name gives me hives. That said, I’m tempted to maybe dive into these three.
Finally, you have the Pièce de résistance, The History of Middle-Earth. (OOOhhhh. Accent grave and aigu! Take that.)
This seems to be a twelve volume set of J.R.R.’s backstories, anthologized for the Tolkien fan. We’re pretty far down the river, here, folks and the fabric of my Oin & Gloin level fandom is starting to show some tatters. I had no idea that there was this much Tolkien shit out there. And by shit I don’t mean shit, obviously. I mean glorious, transcendent, nerd-porn.
But there’s more. I can’t believe it. I wrote finally to begin this section because I falsely assumed that the various money-grubbing accountants at Team Tolkien would have seen the complete 12 volume history as a fitting denouement. But no.
You’ve got The Fall of Númenor: And Other Tales From the Second Age. Why would I read this when I’ve seen the Amazon series and saw gorgeous Númenor up close?
Mmmmmm. What a beauty.
So that’s it, right? Nah-uh. We’ve still got a coffee table book called Tolkien: Maker of Middle-earth.
And that’s all.
Whew.
So why did I bring this up in the first place, you ask, if not to just make fun of all the Tolkien grandchildren enjoying Porsches and private schools and ski weekends in Gstaad? Well, because of the famous chant about the One Ring. Remember it?
Three rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for mortal men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne;
In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them,
One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them;
In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie.
So I always wondered what the other rings were. What’s the deal with those? Did they have names? What happened to all of them? And why would anyone be dumb enough to wear a ring connected to the Dark Lord?
Then today, after almost a half century of leaving the wider Tolkien texts to more disciplined minds, I stumbled across an infographic that answered it all for me. Or most of it, anyway. Check it out.
That’s a pretty comprehensive overview, though the absence of Sam Gamgee as a bearer of the One Ring feels like an oversight. And maybe I’m misremembering, but didn’t Tom Bombadil himself put the One Ring on?
Seeing this also made me realize what the elves were giving up by destroying the One Ring. It adds a huge wrinkle I didn’t fully appreciate.
So, there’s a lot of Tolkien out there. I can’t really make fun of the collected works of Tolkien, though. Tolkien is like it’s own culture at this point. You can’t major in it, as far as I could find, but Signum University in NH offers a concentration in it, and it looks pretty damn cool.
For the rest of us, there’s always YouTube, where you can find some amazing Tolkien explainers. This one has some more info on the Elven rings.
And this may be the best Tolkien channel out there. Deep Geek.
If you’re anything like me, this post will send you down some fun Tolkien rabbit holes and I didn’t even mention Tolkien merch or Tolkien games. The world of Tolkien is VAST. Have fun exploring it on your own.
