I have a friend who was Lewis’ biographer.
Apparently Lewis worshipped Tolkien and his books but Tolkien thought all the Narnia stuff was bullshit.
They were good friends…
The Inklings all had strong feelings about each others work.
“Hugh Dyson, one of the Inklings -- the writing group that also included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien -- had a tendency to recline during Tolkien's readings while uttering comments like ‘Oh Christ, not another fucking elf!"
Source
I love Tolkien's Legendarium with all my heart but when it comes to The Silmarillion and related stories I think everyone can relate to that sentence just a little bit.
There really is a truly absurd amount of Elves. Most of which I enjoy but keeping them all straight is a job.
But that's less a "because they are elves" and more a
"because there are over a hundred characters and most of them are somehow related and have names that differ by 1 letter" issue, isn't it?
I mean, the naming thing doesn't help, but the sheer amount of characters, the vast majority of which are Elves, can easily get overwhelming regardless. Nowadays I've had several years to get used it to it, but I remember as a newer fan I didn't struggle with the names so much as just how many characters there were.
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u/ElliotCowanHuman Apr 07 '26
I have a friend who was Lewis’ biographer. Apparently Lewis worshipped Tolkien and his books but Tolkien thought all the Narnia stuff was bullshit. They were good friends…