Are the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings Worth Reading?
Sylvia at Classical Bookworm has just finished a second reading of The Lord of the Rings, and she asks about the appendices:
“Does anyone read them? I’ve made a start and have gleaned one or two tidbits to fill in some gaps the story, but I’m not sure I can make it through the “Chronology of the Westlands” or “The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age.” I suppose I should read them once so I can feel that I’ve read the whole book, but it’s a bit painful. Has anyone else out there read them”
Not only have I read them, but to me they’re one of the reasons I love Tolkien so much. He was a world-builder, and he called his philosophy of writing “subcreation.” He believed that when a writer created a text he was imitating God’s creative action in the universe. For more on Tolkien’s beliefs about subcreating see his essay “On Fairy-Stories” and his beautiful but largely unknown story “Leaf by Niggle.” Both can be found in The Tolkien Reader. “Leaf by Niggle” is one of the most poignant and spiritual stories about artistry that I’ve ever read. Anyone who creates anything should read it: writers, painters, architects, and so on.
So when Tolkien added the appendices to The Lord of the Rings it was because there was so much more to his subcreated world than could fit in the narrative. No other author in the world has created as believable a fictional backstory as Tolkien has. Middle-earth is the most comprehensive imaginative world ever developed. The appendices reveal more about that world and its inhabitants.
To enjoy the appendices and Tolkien’s posthumous publications, one needs to approach them in a different manner than one approaches The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. The reader needs to have the mind-set of a historian, or a student of Middle-earth anthropology.
For those interested in reading the entire history of Middle-earth from beginning to end, I’ve put together this “Chronological Middle-earth Reading List.” I give this list out each year to my eighth graders when we read The Hobbit.
So, yes, the appendices are worth reading, but not in the same way the rest of The Lord of the Rings is read.
