Hats off to C. Tolkien

arianaofimladris:

levade:

chiliadicorum:

I have no clue why or how I started thinking about it but I really think I am going to cry when C. Tolkien passes away. Hearing of his resignation from the Tolkien Estate was like the first time I read the ending of LotR (so frickin sad and heartbreaking but still such a beautiful and respect-inspiring thing), but I know the time’s coming when he’ll be on his own ship into the West and just…ugh.

I am so excited for the book on Gondolin he’s releasing later this year, but then I realized that this might possibly be his actual last book ever (he did say the Beren&Luthien one would be his last). Just thinking about that and his resignation made it hit me just how much he has gifted us.

I mean, he didn’t have to do this. He didn’t have to do any of this. I really do hope he’s somehow aware of how much we absolutely cherish his father’s work, of how much we indescribably appreciate all the work he himself has done to expand on it and provide us what his dad couldn’t before he passed away. This story, this whole legendarium…it had such a profound impact on my life that I can’t imagine a life having not read it, not having dived into it and loving it so damn much.

I wasn’t alive when JRR Tolkien died. And it just feels like with C. Tolkien, the last page of the book will be turned, and closed, a book of an absolute masterpiece that’s been open and explored for decades, all thanks to him.

Really, hats off to you, sir. I really do believe the Tolkien fandom wouldn’t exist as it does today, if at all, if not for you.  

We would never have read The Silmarillion if he hadn’t tackled putting it together. Have to appreciate that!

I actually cried reading Beren and Luthien introduction where he says it may be his last work.