LOTR Or The Hobbit II?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by davem

My feeling is that if JRRT had produced another book in the style of TH then both books would quite possibly have been long forgotten - yes, the Narnia Chronicles are still around, but many, many childrens' books from that period are not.

I agree that a direct emulation of TH would probably not have been nearly as memorable as LOTR. I wonder too if TH itself would not have suffered from such a clone: LOTR to me enhanced the earlier book, brought it to a level above its contemporaries.

Originally Posted by Lollipop010900

I think that the Hobbit sort of became "more serious" towards the end of the book, so it would make sense for the sequel to either stay serious or get more serious.

True, and that seems in line with Bilbo's increasing maturity and wisdom as the book progresses.
Frodo does the same thing, of course. However, when he was Bingo the Hobbit in the earlier conceptions, the "hobbitishness" of him and his companions seems over the top to me, even by TH standards. The Professor seems to have thought the same way.

Originally Posted by Lollipop010900

Like others have already posted, Tolkien tried many different ideas before settling on the final idea and good authers know when they have a really good idea, and if they can figure out a bit of the story in their head, they usually go with that idea. As a part-time author myself (i'm still trying to get published) i know that when you get an idea it either "clicks" or it just doesn't feel right. I think Tolkien sort of "used hs instincts" when it came to LotR and maybe he just though that it'd be nice to try something new or maybe he just liked the idea i don't know but my best guess is that he just went with what he felt was right, not what other people told him to do.

Well, he apparently got some criticism from Raynor Unwin, among others, who disliked all the "hobbit talk" in the early drafts, and that was certainly a consideration for him. According to letters he wrote, he had meant to write something more "grown up" to follow TH from the start, as the Necromancer wasn't really a matter for light-hearted fancy. It seems curious that even with that intent, he still retained the desire to focus on the hobbits, as I said, making the Strider character one.

I believe that had Tolkien continued on the vein of the early LOTR drafts, the book would have been much shorter, and would have ultimately lacked the depth and sense of immensity the finished work contained. We might hear of Tolkien today spoken in the same breath as a Kenneth Graham or an A.A. Milne, and the even larger compendium of works brought to some form of completion by CJRT would likely have remained private papers for the family. So perhaps the critics of "hobbit-talk" did more good than they ever knew.