Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One

[sigridhr]

 *smashes a bottle of champagne over the post* And we're off!

Epic Tolkien Bookclub: Week One (The Hobbit)
Chapter I: An Unexpected Party
Chapter II: Roast Mutton

Rules

I very much doubt we'll require much in the way of formal rules, but just for the sake of formality and clarity:

• Discussion is welcome and encouraged, as is disagreement. Name-calling and personal attacks will be punished by a barefoot gauntlet walk across a set of lego pieces. 
  
• There is no spoiler policy in place. Although we're reading the Hobbit, please feel free to bring in things from other Tolkien works, any of the films, the History of Middle Earth, the Letters of JRR Tolkien, and, if you should like, other literary sources. 
• There is no such thing as too nerdy. Or too excited. 
• If you have any concerns at any point, I'm the closest thing this gong show has to a mod, so feel free to get in touch. I can be reached either by PM through this site, or directly by email at sigridhr.lokidottir@gmail.com. 

Discussion on this post will officially run from Friday 11th January 2013 to Friday 18th January 2013. However, the post will remain open after that point, so you're more than welcome to continue discussions on. 

(I'm cheating a bit, as it's not quite the 11th here yet, but I want to get this up before I go to work tomorrow, and 6am posting is just asking for disaster). Have at it, guys! :) 

Comments

[anki_koda]

Oh, can I get a reference to the Dwarf please? Also, that's a huge surprise for me.
Tolkien has a way to connect everything in a way you have to read carefully to discover this little bits.

[j_quadrifrons]

Aragorn mentions it when he's reciting his lineage at the Golden Hall - "In this sheath dwells the Blade that was Broken and has been made again. Telchar first wrought it in the deeps of time."

Telchar is first mentioned in "On the Sindar," the chapter of the Silmarillion that deals with Thingol and the other Sindarin Elves - "Therefore Thingol took thought for arms, which before his people had not needed, and these at first the Naugrim smithied for him; for they were greatly skilled in such work, though none among them surpassed the craftsmen of Nogrod, of whom Telchar the smith was greatest in renown."

It's easy to miss that he's a Dwarf, since there's almost no Kudzul in the Silmarillion and everything is referred to by Elvish names: "Naugrim" means "stunted people," because Elves are spectacularly rude, and Nogrod is the Dwarvish city of Tumunzahar in Ered Luin. (Even Telchar's name is Elvish; as explained in the appendices, Dwarves do not share their Kudzul names with non-Dwarves and go by Elvish or Human names for general purposes.)

I learned this entirely by accident, as I was working on that chapter for my Silmarillion Rewrite and rereading Two Towers at the same time; it's little details like that that just blow me away about this universe.