J.R.R. Tolkien Day 2025 is on Friday, January 3, 2025: How do think J.R.R Tolkien would view the modern world?
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One of Tolkien's main storylines throughout the Middle-earthly tales was the long descriptives of trees, valleys, countrysides wherever the stories landed. His cherished childhood landscape ended up like a Joni Mitchell lyric (paved paradise), and he blamed the industrialization, factories et all for just ruining everything that nature took so long to make perfect. Which is why his descriptives of evil places or where evil had taken hold was always full of smokestacks and machinery and smoke.
He was OK with modern, just not the unnecessary destruction that always seems to go along with a lot of modernization (in his day even moreso).
I think he'd be pretty sad to see the dummying down of kids going through the public school systems in western countries. And the disappearance of properly spoken and written English.
J.R.R. Tolkien's books?
The History of Middle-earth 'series' is a compilation by Christopher Tolkien of his Father's unfinished and other bits....much of it is precursor ideas and things that didn't develop or things that changed before they ended up in the final stories (Strider started off as a boot wearing Hobbit called Stomper). There are 12 Volumes. I would hold off on this series until you have done all the other stuff, and if you're still so inclined. I will recommend reading just the story "The Lost Road" once you've read the Numenor stuff in the other books....it's unfinished, but brilliant. Tolkien and CS Lewis had a pub bet to see who could come up with the best time-travel tale....The Lost Road tied then current day England back to Numenor, and Lewis' effort was the start of the Narnia series.
For all the things related to LOTR & the Hobbit, The Silmarillion (creation of all....very hard to grasp for some, but when the stories start after all the creation stuff, it's very good). Unfinished Tales, Book of Lost Tales, Children of Hurin...Those are what you're looking for.
Total J.R.R Tolkien Books?
The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion (published posthumously)
Tree and Leaf
Farmer Giles of Ham
The Homecoming of Beortnoth, Beorthelm's Son
Smith of Wootton Major
The Adventures of Tom Bombadil (verse collection).
He also published translations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo, along with (I seem to recall) an Anglo-Saxon grammar or dictionary (he was only a fantasy author in his spare time - his day job was Professor of English at Oxford University). I believe his lecture Beowulf - the Monsters and the Critics has also been published.
