Chronological Tolkien

Back in 2001, I recall being in a movie theater and seeing the Trailer for the upcoming Fellowship of the Ring film and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I had never read anything by JRR Tolkien growing up and had no idea that The Hobbit animated movie I used to watch at my cousins' house had anything to do with LotR. But I was quite taken with the trailer - I have a thing for big, epic movies. Like the rest of the country, I was mesmerized when I saw Fellowship of the Ring that December and ended up seeing it in the theater three times.

Later that month my wife Sarah bought me the massive paperback for Christmas since she knew I wanted to read the books before the next movie came out. That paperback is to this day my favorite gift Sarah has ever given me. I loved reading the trilogy and seeing the rest of the movies come out in 2002 and 2003. It was a neat experience and a special time. Years later in December 2006 I finally took the plunge of watching every behind-the-scenes featurette on the extended edition DVDs. In those DVD "appendices," the screenwriters touched upon the backstory of Lord of the Rings and briefly mentioned The Silmarillion, Tolkien's book where that intriguing backstory comes from.

Before our son Aidan was born in April 2007, I bought a copy of The Silmarillion and read it in a week. To some people, The Silmarillion is too dense and too much history - a bit like reading through the Old Testament or old Greek myths. But I loved it! With subsequent readings over the years, it has easily become my favorite book of Tolkien's. To those who have never read it, The Silmarillion recounts Middle Earth's "creation story" and how Elves, Dwarves, and Men came to be. As you hear Bilbo say in the prologue to Fellowship of the Ring, Lord of the Rings takes place in Middle Earth's Third Age. The bulk of The Silmarillion delves into the first two. There are so many terms and names in the movies that are just mentioned in passing: The Valar, The Eldar, Morgoth, Beren and Luthien, etc. By reading The Silmarillion you get to learn just who these characters are.

In addition to The Silmarillion, Tolkien's son Christopher also published Unfinished Tales, a book of stories that expound on certain plot points and connect certain stories together. Unlike The Silmarillion, I can't recommend reading Unfinished Tales on its own - it's too disjointed. JRR Tolkien had intended for all these stories from his various books to eventually be published in a chronological reading order, he just never got around to it. Thankfully, putting the stories into proper order is doable, and a few websites have made it really easy. The website I use is Chronological Tolkien. If you have Tolkien's books, you simply enter the editions you possess into its calculator, and it arranges your readings for you. The website originally arranged the readings just for those with the physical books. Last year I contributed the Kindle versions' location numbers so folks with the digital books could read along. (My name is in the Credits at the bottom of the page!)

For anyone who enjoys Tolkien, I can't recommend enough giving Chronological Tolkien a try. For my friends here, I'd gladly let you borrow my marked-up books or my Kindle to allow you to do so. And what better time than now, 6 months before the first Hobbit movie comes out in theaters? Peter Jackson has indicated that the movie they are making is not only The Hobbit proper, but the strands of story surrounding it that tie it to Tolkien's larger work.

I can't wait for The Hobbit's release in December though I'll probably be more critical this time around. Whereas I knew nothing of Lord of the Rings when I saw the first movie 11 years ago, I have since become a Tolkien aficionado (I know I'm not alone). But I think working in the other plot points to make The Hobbit a more robust story is the way to go. If you read Chronological Tolkien before the movie comes out (at least the first half - Creation through just before the events of LotR), I guarantee it'll be a much better experience.