J.R.R. Tolkien discussion

Greetings, everyone!

For the next Group Read, we've decided to do something a little different. Because the amount of Tolkien available to read is limited, Anne and I thought that mixing it up by reading something non-Tolkien might be beneficial to the group. For this quarter, I'm calling our group read: A Book That You Might Recommend to Tolkien. I am well aware that Tolkien did not read fiction, but I thought that it might be fun to try this as a nice way to mix things up and to maybe introduce our group to some different, quality authors.

For this first A Book That You Might Recommend to Tolkien Anne and I thought that we would go with The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. We feel that with Tolkien's interest in Arthurian legend and the recent group read of The Fall of Arthur that this entry would fit the group well.

As usual, any edition that you have access to will do. If you don't already own it, I'm sure that most public libraries and used book-shops have a copy and it is readily available via the usual online outlets.

I am also reading the Crystal Cave. I checked it out from the library on Saturday. I am enjoying it do far..

Sorry, I meant to say so far.

I'm in, too--got a copy from the library yesterday. It's been on my list for a long time.

It's probably been 30 years since I last read those...I think I'm due

This is the first group read I've been in, so I'm not sure how it works. But I finished the book and have written a bit of a review (here), if that's helpful as a discussion starter. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

I also read through the second and third books in the trilogy (Stewart also added a fourth and fifth to the series years later). I recommend the whole trilogy, though by midway through the third (and, I think, weakest) book, I was ready to move on to something else. The second and third books each include a long, clunky "here's what's happened in the story so far" section near the beginning, so if you take a break between books it won't hurt you too much.

I feel like authors who enjoy writing about the origins and rise of Merlin then have difficulty once Arthur becomes king. This definitely happened in Lawhead's series (he later added two more books to the original trilogy, to fill in more details of Arthur's adventures!), and I think it happens with Stewart's series as well. On the other side, maybe authors who write about the adventures of Arthur and his knights don't know what to do with Merlin? I don't know.

So what connections did you notice between The Crystal Cave and Tolkien? Or what elements of Stewart do you think Tolkien might have appreciated?