hmph

[dragonlady7]

Yeah, this is pathetic: I find myself alive with desire to rewrite the Fall of Gondolin as a novel-style narrative, from someone's point of view, in reasonable language. But of course my knowledge of Gondolin is restricted to having skimmed the bit about Tuor in Unfinished Tales and having puzzled through the Fall in LT2, and is heavily, heavily colored by tehta's brilliant but unconventional tales set there.
And, I have other stuff to do.

But. Still. It's a good story and deserves to be better-told than the fragmentary and poorly-revised version Tolkien left us. Not like I'm some genius, but it's not hard to improve upon a manuscript that switches tense so much (apparently Tolkien was halfheartedly revising that mannerism out but never finished) and features sentence constructions like... (OK, respect for the man and all, but a parenthetical aside is hardly called for here after having had about six pages in which to reveal the stature of Balrogs):

Then Glorfindel's left hand sought a dirk, and this he thrust up so that it pierced the Balrog's belly nigh his own face (for that demon was double his stature); and it shrieked, and fell backwards from the rock, and falling clutched Glorfindel's yellow locks beneath his cap, and those twain fell into the abyss.

Yes. Respect for him, and all that, and what an imagination, and he was capable of such great writing, but that right there is the climax of the story, and if I wrote something like that y'all would smack me around. I firmly believe, there's a reason Tolkien didn't publish this stuff himself. I'm glad it's there to read, but this is hardly finished and polished and well-presented.
And it just makes me want to write it in a way that's more in tune with contemporary conventions of how a novel should work.

I won't write it, more likely than not, but I'll sigh over it a bit.

In other news, did this week's math as far as income goes and am just laughing. Do you want to see a chart of the tips I get in a week, and how much the amount varies week to week? It's funny. And yet, agonizing.



Those are the cash tips. The dollar amount isn't as important as the distance between the high ones and the low ones. (Blue is just the airport; red is total; and at the end, they're the same, because the last two are after localbar fired me.) After another week it's going to be even more amusing, because my cash tips are gonna be down at the first week's level.

But how can I set a budget, when I have that crap to deal with? Urgh. At least LocalBar was reasonably consistent-- I could count on a figure within 15% either way, from them. The Airport is far more likely to drastically cut or expand my hours, and the amount one makes there can vary so widely dependent on flight delays and which bar you get sent to, it's driving me nuts.
Eh well. Next week's schedule should be reasonably normal, so I'll use that and try to find a second job. Pain in my ass.

Comments

[p54ch0p9th.livejournal.com]

*timid*

Is it okay if I have added you?

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Sure! :)

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Agreed on weirdness of FoG, although I still love that story with all its gore and tragedy. I even love some of the lines, like

...and so perished the lord of the Fountain after fiery battle in cool waters.

I suspect Tolkien's tense-switching was somewhat intentional, at first: the present tense is meant to be "the historical present," which theoretically shouldn't clash with past tense too much.

Anyway, as far as Fall of Gondolin fics go, some exist already: Zimraphel has a Glorfindel one, for starters, and several people have done Maeglin's take. I've got this unfinished one that interleaves Glorfindel and Glorfindel's Balrog, but it's a bit sentimental for my liking. So my theory on Tolkien's version of it is that he deliberately kept is so distanced and threw in these asides, because he wanted to avoid the sentimentality trap.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

Yeah, i was reading the notes on it and apparently he had second thoughts about the "historical present" bits and some of them have been edited in the manuscript, but not all.
Sometimes it works. Today I was transcribing parts of it for future reference (as I don't expect I'll ever be able to justify purchasing Lost Tales 2, but I expect I'll want to refer to it; also, i'd written myself into yet another "Hm, don't have my notes so can't continue" corner on the Vikingsnovel so I had absolutely nothing better to do at work) and just thought it was beautiful. There are some lines in there that are spectacular.
It's an amazing story, really it is.
But the style is distracting.

>some exist already

I imagine it's been written about quite a bit before. My thoughts on it would hardly be original. Which is why I doubt I'll ever really make a serious go at it.

>I've got this unfinished one

Man... would love to read it, even if it *is* sentimental and unfinished. My imagination is utterly entranced by thinking what on earth Glorfindel would make of all of it. But I don't suppose you'd let me read it... :/


It would be a very difficult story to write without being sentimental. My preliminary thought was that Egalmoth's POV would actually be pretty cool-- he is present for most of the really interesting stuff, witnesses most of the major happenings, and survives, though injured, to die later. So it'd be neat to see his POV. But, probably, sentimental.

Tolkien was going for an 'epic' kinda feel to it, and epics tend to be kinda detached, stylistically. And it's hard to tell epic events without sinking into a viewpoint.

Sigh. Ecthelion makes such a good end, though. I bet he and Glorfindel could have an amusing conversation after all, in mandos-- "You had to outdo me, didn't you." "Er, well-- I didn't actually mean to."

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Actually, don't tell anyone, but I'm not all that impressed with many of the current Fall of Gondolin stories.

I think Egalmoth would be a great POV, too. Not so pleasantly slashy, though.


LOL at the conversation in Mandos. I can see my Glorfindel acting pretty smug over getting such a glorious (and public) death. And I think my old draft has a bit where he envies Ecthelion his end, in part because of the glory of it. I'll have to dig it up again.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>current Fall of Gondolin stories

Y'know, it's kind of an ambitious tale. Which is why I haven't aspired to more than fragments. (There were a few moments that caught my imagination that I wanted to write, and I may do that if I continue to be bored this week.)
The whole thing would probably be a decent novel from Tuor's point of view if one could commit to that and make him sufficiently interesting. i don't know him terribly well, but he seems to me to be a decent fellow-- a bit hot-headed, but practical, and gets things done that need done if he can get his temper under control.
Idril might be a good character too-- I do want to write the scene where she armors Earendel and he is, little-boy-like, totally psyched, but she cries because she knows it is the end of the life she has loved. (It also strikes me that vignettes of her love with Tuor would be interesting.) But then, I think my love of Big Burly Human Men is pretty well-documented (though I don't tend toward that in real life at all...)

Eh well. We'll see how far I go in all this. I don't actually know Gondolin at all, and I'm not even sure of the characters' names, since apparently what I'm reading is the early draft. (I read the Silm but didn't retain much.) (Is Penlod the same dude as Pengolodh, or am I barking up the wrong tree?)

Why is Glorfindel so often made so utterly silly? (Have not really delved into fics about him much before and am thinking I may keep it that way, having read a couple during my attempts to fall asleep last night.) I just checked FotR and he only smiles once there, but many of these In Rivendell fics are utterly, utterly silly.

>envies Ecthelion his end

It is a pretty $()%*ing dramatic end. Stabbing a dude with your helmet because you don't have any hands left?
And I'm having trouble envisioning the 'twining about the thighs' bit, especially if he's still got the helmet-spike in there. And a Balrog should be roughly twice his height. Which makes it that much odder. I... confess I can't see it. Not without it looking somewhat silly.
But then, this is Ecthelion. He's not exactly going to devote thought to the look of it. But he'll manage to look good anyway.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

If you've read the Fall and Voronwe's coming to Gondolin, then you're pretty much a Gondolin expert. (The Silm version is much shorter, and mentions only the most siginificant events.) Most of the names appear only in the Fall--apart from Glorfi, Ecthelion, and Egalmoth. (Both of the latter are used as names of Gondorian stewarts--bu then I suppose you knew that.)

We don't know about Pengolodh and Penlod. Pengolodh is a scholar, said to have written much of the material in the Silm.

Glorfindel does seem to have a rather strange personality in fanon. Actually, everyone in a certain type of Rivendell fic does. I would stay away from such fics, unless written by an author you trust.

I can see why people make him smile a lot, though--he *is* described as 'full of joy.' However, he is also described as 'wise.' I am not sure that this applies to my Glorfindel, but I can always claim that he will acquire much wisdom later, after his death. (And I think he is pretty good with people, already. Actually, he is the only one of my Gondolin POV chars who frequently understands others' feelings correctly.)

I like Tyellas' interpretation of him--although he's featured mostly in her heavy BDSM stories, so you may want to avoid them. I also like the Glorfindel in Afterever's Gilraen fics. He's very elfy.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

>heavy BDSM

I immediately went to check that out, which probably says more about me than it should. (Whoa, dude. Good stuff.)

>elfy
I like that word.

I have never been into fanfic elves. It's just a recent thing. When I was in 4th grade Legolas was my favorite character but I haven't liked him in forever. I dunno, but I just suddenly like Gondolin. We'll see where that goes.

>expert

I haven't actually read the whole Voronwe thing and am rather confused by the bits of it I have. (I mean, i get the gist of what Tuor's up to, but Voronwe confuses me and I think I've missed something in that bit.) I also seem not to have borrowed an edition with any maps in it, and so I am hideously confused as to the layout of the city (and Google is not being very helpful at the moment). But that's probably all right. At least I have most of the people straight. :)

>names of Gondorian stewards

Yes, i had noticed that. I have wondered if it would give Glorfindel a jolt to hear of the latest deeds of Ecthelion II.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Tyellas is v.v.good, overall. (And I myself am quite fond of her porn. Also, "Chains of Anghabar" is worth studying closely as it is a great example of a story that switches POV a lot and succeeds.)

I don't like all fanfic Elves. Just those written by the people on my flist--powerful, tragic Elves, often based on the Silm. There's another (much larger) culture out there that writes them as, well, teenage girls. Anyway, I suspect that the distance between First Age Elves and later age Men is not so great. It was before Elves got all refined.

Voronwe comes from one of the groups of Elves Turgon sent out of Gondolin to sail across the sea and plead with the Valar. They got shipwrecked, and he was the only survivor. He met Tuor by the seashore, and helped him find the city.

And I don't think a map of Gondolin exists--at least I have never seen one. I just remember where the markets are, and the main square, and the Place of the Gods. Oh, and that there are more fountains in the south of the city, where Tuor eventually settles. (And where I have Ecthelion living in my story.)

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

I think LT2 specifies that Ecthelion and the men of the Fountain are from the south of the city.
Yep, p. 173:
"Then came there from the south of the city the people of the Fountain, and Ecthelion was their lord,"

Which is handy, as the south of the city sounds nicer anyway.

>before Elves got all refined

I am not so sure they had to go and get so refined. I had a few plans for incorporating not-so-prissified Elves into various of my fics but there really aren't many left by the 4th Age so they wouldn't be much fun really. So I've abandoned that. (Also, I read more fanfic, and determined that the sons of Elrond have way too much badfic written about them that just highlights how unlikely they are to be Light-Hearted And Elfy.)

>Tyellas is v.v.good

Yes, yes she is. I am saving the Elvish-Word-Pengolodh up as a special thing to read the next time I am sad.

>Voronwe

Ohhhhh. That makes way more sense.

>map of Gondolin

Crap. I can't really envision the layout. I'm terrible at geography from descriptions. I'll have to sit down and draw one. I've seen maps of Gondolin's neighborhood, but none of the city itself, and that's a pain.

[tehta.livejournal.com]

Just remembered--Tyellas has a v. good Fall of Gondolin, from Pengolodh's POV, in her genfic Mangweth Pengolodh.

[dragonlady7.livejournal.com]

What's a genfic?
No wait!! Be proud of me. I went to her website and she explains. Look at me! Using the Internet to find stuff out! *struts like a peacock*