Customer Reviews

A Tolkienian Mathomium: A Collection Of Articles On J.R.R. Tolkien And His Legendarium (The Lord Of The Rings & The Hobbit)

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A lot of fun

The writer is mad of course - to be studying words so closely!

An enjoyable read nonetheless.

It should be noted too, this is post The Lord of the Rings Readers Companion, so thats important to (the companion has a concordance, which is invaluable when studying words)

Softcover. 274 pages. Preface by the author

List of articles herein:

What is a Mathom? 1
The Linguistic Landscape of Bree 7
Esgaroth 15
The Linguistic Landscape of Tolkien's Shire 19
The Water 65
Stock 69
"And why is it called the Carrock?" 79
In Search of the Origin of the River Lune 83
In League with Miles 93
Fractured Fairy Tales from Middle-earth 101
Tolkien's Use of the Word "Garn!" 105
Spit, Spat, Spittle: Those Whom Tolkien Wouldst Belittle 113
The Leaf Mold of Tolkien's Mind 117
Frodo Quatermain 123
Tolkien and Haggard: Immortality 133
Tolkien and Haggard: The Dead Marshes 147
The Feigned-manuscript Topos 153
In a Hole in the Ground There Lived a ... 179
In a Fogou in the Ground There Lived a Cornish Hobbit 189
A Tale of Tolkien's Woods 191
The Bounders 203
The Cinematographer of Waverly 207
Estel 217
Bracegirdle 227
Whence an Oliphaunt? 233
Tolkien in Chinese: A Thesis Review 237
Appendix `A': The 39 Historic Counties of England 247
Appendix `B': A Brief Guide to the Translations Cited 249
Illustration Credits 251
About the Artist 255
About the Art 256
Index 259
About the Author 275

As described, this is a set of essays. It is one of most unique set of essays on Tolkien I have read in the past 10 years. Some are about language and others about literature references. The book is attractive because each chapter is a unique essay. You don't need to commit yourself to a book-length essay. A second positive aspect is that the essays are written during the post-HOME (History of Middle Earth) era. Many essays written pre-HOME are necessarily incomplete or incorrect because the author did not have the extensive material in the HOME series. I preferred the material on language in the book. Sometimes the authors who discuss literature references associated with Tolkien's work appear to make free associations between works "Tolkien must have known about", e.g. Dickens, John Buchan etc and Tolkien's work. These are usually just the associations between the essay author and Tolkien's work that are not substantiated by reference to Tolkien's own statements about his work. This is harder to accomplish now that the HOME series and Tolkien's letters have been published.

A must-have for any Tolkien fan. You will enjoy the essays, you will have inner debates inside your head over the insights that are drawn, and you will be able to spark up new conversations with fellow Tolkien fans.

This book will help add to your Tolkien knowledge, and will make rereading the collection of books even more enjoyable when you sit back down with one of Tolkien's novels.

Enjoy!