Mark Reads ‘The Lord of the Rings’ Appendices: Part II

It seems there’s quite a bit of this book left, so I’m hoping that I can squeeze another post out of these appendices. It’s more apparent to me now that Tolkien had imagined a world so large that massive parts of the story had to appear in appendices. Like, holy shit, my brain can’t even process that. THIS UNIVERSE IS IMMENSE. WHAT IS HAPPENING.

Let’s continue on with more of the Appendices!

APPENDIX C: Family Trees

• Sam founded a family named Gardner. That’s just so beautiful to me.
• Oh wait, it’s literally family trees. Oh.
• Why was I surprised by that?

APPENDIX D: Shire Calendar For Use in All Years

• How rad would it be if this allowed you to convert our time to Shire time? I am writing this before turning the page, so this BETTER BE RIGHT.
• OH MY GOD I WAS BORN ON THE 23RD OF WINTERFILTH. Well, okay, that’s not an exact science, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE THIS FROM ME. That sounds so badass.
• “I am not skilled in these matters, and may have made many errors.” What dude you invented this you literally cannot be wrong about it what
• You know, I don’t know that I’m gleaming much information from this, but it’s totally fascinating to me that different cultures in Middle-earth measure time differently based on their society’s perception of the world. THIS IS GOOD I LIKE IT A LOT.
• Okay, I was being harsh on Tolkien. I think it’s kind of neat that this is written as if he truly unearthed the Red Book and other documents, and then composed The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit as historical storytelling. yes good.

APPENDIX E: Writing and Spelling

• Oh, this is going to be just riveting, isn’t it? This man INVENTED LANGUAGES. Oh shit, I’m about to be overwhelmed, aren’t I?
• oh
• oh my god
• oh my god
• no
• NO
• MAKE IT STOP
• OKAY I GET IT
• WAIT THERE’S ANOTHER PAGE
• um
• oh my god it’s not ending
• PART II??? oh my god how many parts are there
• “The Fëanorian Letters” about 0% of my body cares about this
• I know many of you have studied this and I think that’s lovely, but this is not meant for me.
• oh my god there is an alphabet table
• It’s still going.
• There’s a Part ii INSIDE the II. FUCK.
• MORE ALPHABETS. WHAT. WHY. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY.
• (For what it’s worth, it’s clear this man is a goddamn genius. Holy shit.)
• Wait, it’s over? Oh!

APPENDIX F

• oh my god i am losing patience
• language
• an appendix solely about the languages
• there aren’t any fun stories in here are there
• i just turned ten pages and it’s still going
• do i really need to know troll language
• I hope most of you went out to get a copy of Trollhunter, by the way. Love that movie.
• i am confused by a section on translation of languages you invented, tolkien.
• wait what if he was actually trying to trick people into believing it was real
• like I met someone on tour who thought House of Leaves was nonfiction
• WHAT IF THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO, TO THIS DAY, BELIEVE IT IS NONFICTION
• OH MY GOD AMAZING
• I skipped a lot of this. Oh well.
• So my Kindle copy of this book has the original printed Index??? WHY IS THIS HERE.
• Oh my god, I just skipped like 50 pages in 5 seconds. I LOVE YOU KINDLE.
• I just realized how ridiculous that sounds because you can just thumb ahead in a book and do the same thing.
• That may be the worst thing I have ever typed, but I’m leaving it there because I deserve to be chastised for it.
• OH MY GOD THERE ARE LOTS OF MAPS. These are the ones Christopher Tolkien finished up, yes?
• oh
• oh my god i finished
• holy shit
• i just finished the book
• what do i do with my life

(I’ll have a surprise up tomorrow since I promised three LOTR posts. Y’all ain’t prepared.)

Mark Links Stuff

– The liveblog for the animated version of The Hobbit is now live! It starts at 12:00pm PST on Saturday, March 24th.
– Check out my eBook store. Mark Reads Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Mark Watches Firefly are both on sale now.
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– I start Mark Reads The Princess Bride on Monday, March 26th!