[MaglorRedeemed]

I've been meaning to read the HoME books ever since I learned they existed. Still, despite a game stab at Unfinished Tales and a few glances through the others, it's about 5 years later and I'm no closer to my goal than I was. Mostly, I blame my selective and irritating attention span, but Christopher Tolkien's narration style grates on me no end. It's like "stop talking about the manuscripts these came from and just give us the friggin' stories already!"

Anyway, despite the above factors, I've decided to give the Histories one last try. However, there's one small problem: I have no idea where to start! I don't care about early versions of the plot, I would just like to gain information on the actuality of Middle-Earth that Tolkien didn't incorperate into LoTR/The Sil. I'm planning on starting with Morgoth's Ring in any case, but other than that I really don't know what's what. Could any of you wise, learned people help me out?

[SpaceWeavil]

The first one I got was Morgoth's Ring, to get at the LACE essay. After that, the one I tend to use most is People of Middle Earth, mainly as a reference. I don't have all the volumes yet though. I'm still missing a couple of key ones. I will admit that I've never sat down and read them all thoroughly, but really just dip in when I need to research a particular character or something. I like UT though and read that just for the stories.

PS I would have answered this post quicker only I had to recover from that avatar, MaglorR...

[inglor]

or you could be lazy like me and post a question here and let Andreth answer it.

I have them, you're right, C. T. commentaries are painful. And the multiple plot lines/ancestries are confusing. I bought them for the LaCE and the conversation between Finrod and Andreth.
The only advice I can give is look through the indexes for what you want and wade through your choices. Use them like encyclopedias, not novels

[sindohte]

I started off with reading Morgoth's Ring, then went on to read War of the Jewels. Right now when I can find the time I have been dabbling with the Book of Lost Tales. I found Morgoth's Ring to be a good starting point for me, because I was reading the Silm at the same time. It was a good way for me to compare and contrast what made it into the completed version of the Silm and what was discarded either by Tolkien or by Sonny Boy. Certainly it isn't light reading, but I found it to be enjoyable so long as I kept in mind that I was reading a history. And since I loved history in school, it was just a matter of adjusting my mind to the fact that I was reading a history about a world that was created from the overactive imaginatioin of Tolkien.

[MaglorRedeemed]

Thanks for the info, guys and gals. *puts "go to library as I am too chap to buy these" next on to-do list* Now, where the heck is Andreth? I believe I asked her this question once, but I'd love to hear her opinion again. I'm just weird that way.

[Andreth]

I'm hovering around here in limbo. Between job interviews, and the ending of football season and the beginning of basketball season, I haven't had much time to chat.

I have to say, if you didn't have much luck with Unfinished Tales, then you're probably not going to enjoy HoMe at all. At least UT is something like actual stories, where as HoMe is just a bunch of mish-mash. Although fascinating mish-mash, I have to admit.

I started out with Book of Lost Tales 1 because, well, that was the first HoMe volume published and I got them as they came out. But I still enjoyed that one immensely. The legends still had a fairy tale charm to them back then, and I love reading about Fui Nienna's dreadful halls that Men traveled to and her black ship that took them to the Avathar to wander in the twilight until the end of Arda. Little things like the descriptions of Tol Eressea, Makar and Measse (Valar who got left out in the later versions), the details of the construction of Valinor... Okay, you get the picture, but it really is my favorite HoMe novel, along with BoLT 2.

The ones most used by fan fiction writers are Peoples of Middle-earth, Morgoth's Ring and War of the Jewels. I think most people buy Morgoth's Ring just for LACE, but there are far more interesting and enlightening sections in that book. As you're a Silm fan, I think you'll enjoy the chapter called Myths Transformed, which has an excellent section, 'Motives in the Silmarillion'. The Arabeth of Finrod ah Andreth is an excellent read too, but the olde english style vocabulary drug it down for me.

War of the Jewels has the essay called Quendi and Eldar that has lots of information jewels hidden in between the linguistic discussion. The War of the Jewels also shows the real ending Tolkien had planned for Thingol, instead of the one C. Tolkien threw together for the Silm. While I don't much like reading the behind the scenes stuff about LotR (with a few exceptions of course) I do very much enjoy reading the behind the scenes accounts of the Silm, because those are the ones that Tolkien actually wrote. The published Silm is a very, very edited version that C. Tolkien pieced together as best he could with the information he had at the time. I think if he'd had all the info from HoMe *before* he published the Silm, we'd have a very different Silmarillion.

Peoples of Middle-earth is an excellent resource from cover to cover. The Heirs of Elendil, The Making of Appendix A, The Shibboleth of Feanor, the peek at the sequel to LotR that JRRT abandoned - and what I think is one of the most overlooked chapters of the book - the essay called Of Dwarves and Men. This gives a lot of insight into not only Dwarves, but to the Edain and the Dunedain as well.

The Lost Road (Vol V) is also one to have if you're interested in the linguistic aspect of it, as there's an extensive dictionary in there.

So there's my long winded opinion of HoMe. Another good investment is the Index of the History of Middle-earth. It's one book with an index of all the volumes. You look up your subject and it tells you what book and where to find it. Saves a lot of time.

Anna

PS The main thing I can say about reading HoMe is ALWAYS READ THE FOOTNOTES. Some of the most interesting and useful information can be found in the footnotes. That goes for Unfinished Tales, too.

[inglor]

We luvs the Andreth

[MaglorRedeemed]