# The Nature of Middle Earth by JRR Tolkien. My last deep dive into "new" material **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** middle-earth, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [September 5, 2021, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147 "2021-09-05T20:53:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/21 "2021-09-06T15:52:55Z")
From what little I know of what’s in _The Nature of Middle-earth_, it appears that Hostetter makes it clear that it’s impossible to make some of what Tolkien says completely consistent, even if you’re an uber-Tolkien-nerd like Carl. He talks mostly about this problem in regards to languages, but it’s apparently true of other things like Elvish biology. Perhaps Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan can tell us more about this, since he’s the one reading the book at the moment. And if I may be nerdish for a moment, Tolkien always spelled it as Middle-earth rather than Middle Earth. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/22 "2021-09-06T17:00:02Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > it’s impossible to make some of what Tolkien says completely consistent That’s for Damn Sure. Take Dior Eluchîl, son of Beren and Luthien. 1/4 Maiar, 1/4 Quendi, 1/2 mortal. Married a Sindar, Nimloth. Yet he had 3 kids before he died at the Middle-earth year (year of the sun) age of 36. His daughter Elwing had Elrond and Elros at M-e year age 29. Whereas elsewhere JRRT says elven childhood lasted approx 2880 years of the sun. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/23 "2021-09-06T17:03:10Z")
Hostetter’s “Elvish as She is Spoke” [(PDF) "Elvish as She Is Spoke" | Carl F Hostetter - Academia.edu](https://www.academia.edu/10361849/_Elvish_as_She_Is_Spoke_) (as Wendell knows) discusses the problems with trying to translate into Elvish. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/24 "2021-09-06T17:05:07Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > it’s impossible to make some of what Tolkien says completely consistent Well, maybe he should have thought it through a little more before he published it. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/25 "2021-09-06T17:08:44Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Well, maybe he should have thought it through a little more before he published it. He’s made his writings more internally consistent than the Bible, in my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/26 "2021-09-06T17:18:16Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Well, maybe he should have thought it through a little more before he published it. He thought it through from 1914 to 1973. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/27 "2021-09-06T17:30:59Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > > > it’s impossible to make some of what Tolkien says completely consistent > > Well, maybe he should have thought it through a little more before he published it. I assume that’s a major reason he never did publish it. He wasn’t completely satisfied with any of the solutions he came up with, and so couldn’t make those works consistent. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/28 "2021-09-06T17:46:17Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > I assume that’s a major reason he never did publish it. He wasn’t completely satisfied with any of the solutions he came up with, and so couldn’t make those works consistent. I dunno. From Tolkien’s letters and other writings, it seems that he was fairly accepting of inconsistency, as a scholar of medieval literature who was well aware that traditional stories exist in different forms simultaneously. Yes, he worked hard to reconcile contradictions that cropped up in the endless revision and modification process, but he also recognized that not fully resolving them contributed to the complexity and “authenticity” of his imitation mythological tradition. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/29 "2021-09-06T18:56:12Z")
On thinking about it some more… His 300-digit calculation must have been a rational number, and any moderately-educated and moderately-intelligent person (which Tolkien surely was, even if maths weren’t his strongest area) doing the maths by hand would notice long before then that the digits were repeating. But it’s possible that, once he got going, he found the repetitive process of long division soothing or meditative in itself, and was just continuing for that sake, rather than out of a desire for the answer. It’d be not unlike someone praying a rosary, or chanting a mantra. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/30 "2021-09-06T19:02:45Z")
Yes, that was my thought on reading about that. Anyone who calculated a 300 digit number, that didn’t actually matter, by hand, must enjoy the act of calculating additional digits. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2021, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147/31 "2021-09-06T19:25:29Z")
When I was a kid waiting for a doctor’s appointment (or similar waiting) I did lengthy calculations like that (probably made enough errors that the repetition that should have happened didn’t happen, too) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-nature-of-middle-earth-by-jrr-tolkien-my-last-deep-dive-into-new-material/950147.md?page=1)