I brought a copy of JRR Tolkien’s The Silmarillion with me to the event because I couldn’t be social or tell people where to pitch their tents all day. It has been a while since I read it – and I suspect that I wasn’t as intelligent back then as I am now, because I definitely missed bits. I need hardly state that it’s a damn brilliant book. But I will, anyway: it’s a damn brilliant book… which encouraged more than a few lesser ones. Not Tolkien’s fault, mind you.
Oh, and regular posting tomorrow. I am beat.
It’s brilliant. But it’s also very, very depressing.
Pride kills, as the book makes perfectly clear. Over, and over,and over again.
Tolkein was writing rather closer to the ground on the many, many wars spawned by the ego of this or that noblemen than we are.
Not that our era and place is in any way immune from similar issues – just that it was a bit more of visceral experience for him, but by era and by vocation.