Tolkien Thoughts

A couple of references, quite pleasing and enlightening in themselves, have stirred me to an important question: is it time to re-read the Tolkien Middle Earth works again (The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings)? Every few years I read them again, though only the last time in this particular order.

The older order in which I used to read them was the order of publication (The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion). But it occurred to me that so many references in the first two (particularly The Lord of the Rings) might have more depth if the background history was read first. Admittedly the Professor fleshed out some details after the publication of The Lord of the Rings, but the overall myth of Middle Earth was in place.

I'm just mildly disappointed that he didn't work out some of the minor discrepancies. He never quite finished the history of Galadriel. And I have feeling that Glorfindel (apparently two different High-Elves, one in The Silmarillion, the other in The Lord of the Rings) was a project he meant to get to eventually. But I'm still in awe of his creative genius. The whole project, even incomplete as it is, is a landmark in English literature.