094 - This Shire is Your Shire

09/16/18 • 126 min

3 Listeners

Never ones to skip over the pages with Roman numerals, we begin reading The Lord of the Rings at the famous Foreword, where Tolkien offered his most well-known comments on his own work, including his thoughts about allegory. Next, the Prologue explains in rich detail the history of the Shire, pipe-weed, and the sticky story of how Bilbo found his ring. Along the way, we discuss the origins (and, uh, the 'final destination') of Hobbits, the Red Book of Westmarch, and lob more classic movie references than your best friend from high school on a Saturday night.

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Previous Episode

093 - We're In the Same Tale Still!

2 Recommendations

At long last, we finally... really this time... begin The Lord of the Rings! In this episode, we introduce the novel (not a trilogy) with the epic story of its composition and publication. Almost immediately after The Hobbit was published, Tolkien’s publishers demanded a sequel; but the road from idea to publication took the Professor seventeen long years, with more twists and turns than a goblin-tunnel. Plus, the story of the Professor’s appearance at a hobbit-themed dinner in 1958 in a combined Tolkien Quote of the Day / Tolkien Fun Fact.

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Next Episode

095 - They Say It's Your Birthday

4 Recommendations

In the first pages of Book I, Chapter 1 of The Lord of the Rings, “A Long-Expected Party”, we see Bilbo Baggins through the eyes of the hobbits of the Shire, not all of whom view him kindly. Seeming eccentric to some and suspicious to others, Bilbo is nevertheless the chief topic of conversation as the occasion of his eleventy-first birthday approaches. While the Gaffer gabs in the Ivy Bush, we discuss the secret ambitions of the Sackville-Bagginses, admire Tolkien’s intractability towards proofreaders, and have fun with numbers in Old English.

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