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olorielOK as I may have mentioned, I haven't touched The Hobbit in eleven years.
So the last time I read that book, I hadn't read the Silmarillion. (SHAMEFUL I KNOW)
I have to admit that I did the book a gross injustice; I had filed it in my head as "cute, but not really to be taken serious, totally whimsical 1930s kiddie book, not at all like the LotR". Which is not wholly untrue, but not wholly true either. I mean, there's a lot already in place, just in allusions and paraphrases.
And then there are the bits I just didn't pick up on, back then. (I would have, had the Annotated Hobbit already been in existence and my property back then, because they really explain all the shit. But it wasn't, so I didn't.)
YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MADE ME REALISE.
PJ totally has the chance to do some Silmarillion stuff even though the rights to that book aren't his, BECAUSE OF ALLUSIONS IN THE HOBBIT.
Like, when Thranduil's merry bunch first fool and later arrest the Dwarves, there's a bit of elaboration on the difference between these wood-Elves and THE ELVES WHO HAD GONE TO FAËRIE AND SOME OF THE DEEP ELVES MADE GREAT STUFF AND SOME OF THEM RETURNED TO MIDDLE-EARTH.
...
...
...
CAN WE HAVE THAT IN THE NEXT FILM PLEASE. SOME SPECIFIC DEEP ELVES IF AT ALL POSSIBLE.
(Fun fact aside: The first German Hobbit translator, Walter Scherf, translated "Deep Elves" as die Unterirdischen, "Underground Elves". BWAHAHAH. Noldor = Drow? XD)
Also, allusions to why the Elves can't stand the Dwarves, because "They had fought wars against each other and the Dwarves stole a great treasure from them but to be fair the Dwarves said they had only taken their due because the Elf king had refused them their proper payment". SACK OF DORIATH OMG OMG OMG! CAN WE HAVE THAT TOO. SILMARILLION FLASHBACKS FTW. INCLUDING VENGEFUL FËANORIANS PERHAPS?
...
SQUEE.
Probably not. If the Nauglamir appeared, its Silmaril would forever be confused with the Arkenstone, so PJ will probably avoid that. Still, a girl can dream. I mean, that would certainly explain the "short book = movie trilogy" development...
Crap, now I got my hopes up. :P
- - -
ETA: further fun with the German translation: Drachen wissen zwar mit all ihrem Besitz nicht viel anzufangen, aber in der Regel kennen sie ihn auf Mark und Pfennig....
Tee hee.
(FWIW, I would've translated that as Heller und Pfennig -- even now, Mark feels too modern. These days, of course, we're using Euros and Cents, but I dearly hope nobody is going to change this in current editions! Also, now I can't help wondering whether there were/are editions going Schilling und Groschen or Franken und Rappen...? XD)
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Date: 2012-12-17 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-17 10:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-17 11:04 am (UTC)Like, when Thranduil's merry bunch first fool and later arrest the Dwarves, there's a bit of elaboration on the difference between these wood-Elves and THE ELVES WHO HAD GONE TO FAËRIE AND SOME OF THE DEEP ELVES MADE GREAT STUFF AND SOME OF THEM RETURNED TO MIDDLE-EARTH.
I didn't realize that, I have to admit!
OMG.
SACK OF DORIATH OMG OMG OMG! CAN WE HAVE THAT TOO. SILMARILLION FLASHBACKS FTW. INCLUDING VENGEFUL FËANORIANS PERHAPS?
I wish!!!
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Date: 2012-12-17 11:42 am (UTC)I wish!!!
Yes, me too!
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Date: 2012-12-17 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-17 11:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-17 12:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-17 12:28 pm (UTC)... I hope it's not just some Laketown Dude whom they happened to name Elros because the name conveniently existed. O.ó
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Date: 2012-12-17 01:07 pm (UTC)He looks far younger than Elrond, which would feel very strange, given that he's the one meant to age. :o)
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Date: 2012-12-17 02:05 pm (UTC)He looks far younger than Elrond, which would feel very strange, given that he's the one meant to age. :o)
True, but hoping for the best, personally. You know, all those near-ageless Númenorean genes... and maybe some makeup/movie trickery. *dreams self away* ;)
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Date: 2012-12-17 12:03 pm (UTC)And if they even name-drop Doriath, or even just mention the events of Doriath in the second movie, just... dear Eru.
I mean, it's not like I squeed out loud. In the cinema. Twice. At Elrond name-dropping Gondolin. (Yes, it's in the book, I know. But SILMARILLION.)
(Also, this may possibly be the only time I'll prefer a Krege translation.
Shush, bad Elleth!no subject
Date: 2012-12-17 12:26 pm (UTC)...
...
WHOA!
There definitely should be namedropping at the very least. *WIBBLES*
I squeed at the paraphrase/namedropping in the book, too. Also at the footnote for Elrond ("Their [Elwing and Eärendel[sic!]'s] son is Elrond, who is half-Elven and half-mortal. He was rescued by Maedhros while still a child...".) This is what I have become. A person who squees at footnotes.
There are several instances in the Annotated Hobbit (or rather Das große HOBBIT Buch, yes, no hyphen, don't ask me) where they compare between Scherf and Krege, and it's pretty obvious that Krege did the better job. Which probably explains, on hindsight, why they let him do the LotR at all -- because he actually did a good job on The Hobbit. (Well, and some people apparently like his Silm translation? To be fair, it probably is hard to find a matching style in German.)
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Date: 2012-12-17 03:13 pm (UTC)Once the White Council catches on it's Sauron in Dol Guldur, Elrond could do a history of Númenor voiceover speech - Elros embarking to take his throne, ships approaching an island with the star shining above it (http://fav.me/d26yey4), 2,000 years of bliss and glory, and then the Shadow beginning to come upon the Island, the rise of their death cults and ancestor worship, and Ar-Pharazôn later falling to folly entirely and allowing Sauron into his councils... cue a wide, sweeping shot of Sauron's temple and the White Tree burning (that would be a nice visual tie to Pippin's vision in the Palantír as well), and waves rising to impossible heights over green lands, and an abyss of utter dark...
"Númenor could not be allowed to endure. The Island was drowned, and the world changed, and but few of the Faithful escaped to found the Realms in Exile. But Sauron, too, survived, returning to Mordor by virtue of the Ring he had hidden there. That Ring still is lost. Imagine if it were found [cue Gandalf looking up sharply, and Saruman studying Gandalf from across the table], imagine if he were to regain it. We cannot sit idle. We cannot allow him, who has wrought so much ruin, to return to the world. We must strike!"
I might only stop squeeing once I'd passed out from lack of air if that actually happened... but even the mentions of Gondolin and "the High-Elves of the West, my kin", and one other name from the Silmarillion were enough to make me hop around my chair like a mad thing (dops, dops, dops!), and then you are right, there's always the possibility of a narration of Doriath (though I think we're unlikely to actually see that, but all the same!
This is what I have become. A person who squees at footnotes.
Haven't you always done that? ;) And it doesn't sound like a bad thing to me, but then I'm liable to do the same. :D
To be fair, it probably is hard to find a matching style in German.
Yes, I'd imagine so... the Silm translation was decent enough to pull me right in, at any rate, before I'd tackled the original. Heavy and epic, at any rate, so maybe not entirely inappropriate, but I've not touched it for years, so this is all from memory. And I'm actually fairly sure that he would have done a decent job with LotR as well (nevermind that Caroux had worked with Tolkien so the translation was probably as true as it could possibly be), if not the forced "innovations/rejuvenations" - painful anachronisms, rather. I could have forgiven him Lothlórien's Lämpchen, if it hadn't been for Chefchen Frodo.
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Date: 2012-12-17 05:00 pm (UTC)Now, can you osanwë-quenta that into PJs mind, please?
Haven't you always done that? ;)
Never! Well, maybe sometimes. Very rarely. :P
(Seriously though, I was so excited that I could hardly sleep this night, and THAT really means something. Oh dear!)
Heavy and epic, at any rate, so maybe not entirely inappropriate, but I've not touched it for years, so this is all from memory.
Heavy and epic, yes, but (to my taste) a bit too much so - artificially, OTT romantic epic. It sort of makes me cringe. I dunno, have you read some Morris? I know he was a major influence on Tolkien, but TBH, I think the latter pulled the epic off a lot better. Anyway, Krege's Silm style fits Morris' style quite well, but not the more genuine, naturally epic style of Tolkien's. Maybe I'm imagining things, but it feels as though one is based on Grimm's Fairy-Tales, and one is based on actual medieval sources.
But as I said, it probably would be hard to find a matching style in German, even if one happened to be an obsessed mediævist with superb linguistic intuition for languages present, past and imaginary. So I try not to criticise Krege too much for that (although he's beyond caring, of course).
I sometimes call Felix Chefchen, these days. Him, it fits! XD
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Date: 2012-12-17 07:20 pm (UTC)Ten years later, I realise I'm still full of Silmarillion squee.......and trivia. ALL THOSE NAMES. THEY'RE ALL COMING BACK TO ME, along with associated memories D: Dior's children...;_;
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Date: 2012-12-17 11:31 pm (UTC)The Noldor as drow? That made me grin, although actually, one of my favourite characters in a fantasy novel ever is a drow.
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Date: 2012-12-18 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-23 11:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-12-25 04:02 pm (UTC)Same for the Noldorin Elves, who are still called "gnomes" in the early works. (Noldor technically means "knowledgeable ones", so purely etymologically, "gnomes" is a pretty good match.) But as everyone has Paracelsic/ garden gnomes in mind rather than Intelligent Elvish Spirit, he later dropped the translation.
ETA: I think in the German edition they first tried to solve the problem by "translating" the word not as Kobold, but as Goblin (a word German didn't actually feature up to that point). However, in the latest edition (don't know about the "old" Krege version?) they went for Orks from the start. Hindsight...
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Date: 2012-12-26 09:44 pm (UTC)... you mean the Krege translation of the Hobbit? Is there a newer one than the Krege version?
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Date: 2012-12-27 12:21 pm (UTC)