I’ve obviously been re-reading Lord of the Rings, and then The Hobbit and I was about to read The Children of Húrin when I took a detour and purchased The Silmarillion. (and I think I figured out how to say it: SILL*mah*RILL*yun) I’ve only gotten past the intro by Christopher Tolkien and part way through the letter by JRR to his publisher. If you’d been outside my window last night you would have heard me saying wow. wow. wow. Repeatedly.
I always wonder how people write novels – to keep characters and places and timelines in order and yet here is this person who truly created not only a story line with a lot of characters (holy Tolstoy batman!) but a whole world and history and mythology surrounding it, and, it turns out, a lot of rather philosophical basis for why things happened when and how they did. That was a rather large WOW. And oh by the way – all rather due to a perceived lack of English mythology. Wow.
So yeah. That will keep me busy for awhile.
So what big reads do you read? What brings you back? Do you long for more info about what went on with the writer? (I’ll confess to similar questions about the writing of Kristin Lavransdatter) although the story line there is much simpler. I remember taking notes about characters in War and Peace LOL.
