[Boromir88]

Great posts, Lal and Kuru.

On the other hand, if I were satisfied with just these glimpses I probably would not be here right now.

Neither would I.

And it's indeed these glimpses that make LOTR so attracting. We have the main story of this quest motif, filled with stories, songs, and poems of the past. And I think what makes it magical, at least for me, is that it left me with a sense of wanting more. It feuled me into reading more. It was sort of like someone was teasing me feeling...you know, like here's a little bit, but you never got enough.

I think with the Silmarillion it was harder to do that...because with the Silmarillion, he had to write something from the beginning, there were no 'back stories.' And he wasn't able to create this simplistic 'quest/journey' as he puts it, because it all had to tie in and progress to LOTR.

That's also kind of why we had Christopher too, or why Christopher did what he did. In the Foreward to Book of Lost Tales, he talks about all his long hours of putting The Silmarillion together, and all his fathers other writings, was for those who were like him and felt the desire to want more and know more.

I never got that feeling of wanting more from the Hobbit, however.

That's interesting...I wouldn't know though, I think that's because I read LOTR first, then I went to The Hobbit.

But it is interesting, why Tolkien abandoned the attempt to edit the Sil for publication? Was it a classic case of scholarly procrastination - a touch of the Casaubons - or did Allen & Unwin not encourage him as much as they could have done, that the work would have a ready market, which might have put him off?

It was probably a bunch of stuff. He knew that revising the Silmarillion to fit with LOTR was going to be a daunting task, especially since many of his stories were written at different times. Also, he seemed to have been a sickly guy and would remark a lot about falling 'under the weather' and his health began to decline in his later ages...and this really starts effecting him a lot around the time he just kind of let the Silmarillion go:

I never recovered form the confusion of my affairs when I had a terrible bout of fibrositis and neuritis of the arm last October.~Letter 22, (1952)

…my wife’s in creasing ill-health ..has involved me in various distresses since November…In addition the ill will of Mordor decreed that I should lose most of the vital Christmas vacation being ill.~Letter 133 (1953)

In 1959 he retires, and is followed by more health problems:

I am glad to say that we are both rather better this year….I had some treatment last September, and have been free and easy on the legs since, though my usual lumbago afflicted me in June.~Letter 236 (1961)

Then once he reaches the age of 70, in Letters 245, 247, 248, and 250, he talks about his rheumatism in his right arm and hand, and he becomes as 'unbendable as an Ent.'

I don't think he ever lost love for his stories, or a desire to write more. Because in Letter 250, he talks about his health, but rather jokingly compares his 'old/unbendable bones' to the Ents. But, I think getting the Silmarillion ready and out there to get published, compounded with his ailing health, and answering his Letters, he just got more or less tired and bogged down.

(Cross-posted with Squatter)