Book Two

Any bets yet about the number of weeks to get through the Council of Elrond? There are SO many rabbit holes for the discussion to fall into. It would take mythical focus to stay on the main subject... but who really wants to do that? :D
 
So, going by page numbers alone, we have gone roughly 36 pages since the hobbits left Bree, which occurred about mid-summer 2018. Given that the Council of Elrond itself is 36 pages and is MUCH more dense than the party's traipse through the wilderness, I'm thinking that 7 weeks is very much low-balling the estimate.

I seriously think the Professor might set some "rules" or "boundaries" over the discussion, limiting the number of rabbit-holes we allow ourselves. BUT if we over-limit, we may feel cheated and need to return to the chapter at a later point, which does not sound like a satisfactory solution.
 
Zephen12 said:
So, going by page numbers alone, we have gone roughly 36 pages since the hobbits left Bree, which occurred about mid-summer 2018. Given that the Council of Elrond itself is 36 pages and is MUCH more dense than the party's traipse through the wilderness, I'm thinking that 7 weeks is very much low-balling the estimate.

I seriously think the Professor might set some "rules" or "boundaries" over the discussion, limiting the number of rabbit-holes we allow ourselves. BUT if we over-limit, we may feel cheated and need to return to the chapter at a later point, which does not sound like a satisfactory solution.
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Yeah, 7 weeks might be a bit optimistic. What's your estimate?

No restrictions! Like the prof. says, this is a once in a life time thing. Let's not hold back. It's not like we have a deadline.
 
I am reminded of Professor Shippey's comment that Elrond was a terrible chair, for letting the meeting digress and get so out of hand. But if he can't manage to keep it limited in scope and linear in direction, how could we? (I'm excited.)
 
Very excited! Gee, I'm going to guess high. I'm thinking 16 weeks. You've heard it here first. Now watch THIS number be low-balling it!
 
I kind of don't know how to gauge it.

With the caveat that we can find ways to spend quite a lot of time on almost any part of it, just strictly mathematically speaking some topics go longer than others. We kind of tend to spend more time on language, word choices, and LotR-specific background stuff, and less (but still lots of!) time talking about history/legendarium stuff. The discussion of the Beren and Luthien poem (and especially of the prose recap) was I think a great deal shorter than the discussion about the confrontation at Weathertop, which dragged on for weeeeeeks (in an awesome way). I can imagine spending more time looking at Gandalf's abridged story to Frodo and what he answers and doesn't answer, than at, say, Boromir's report from Gondor which is sort of a complete package and I'm not sure relatively how much there is to spend a lot of time on.

Basically, I'm taking the controversial position that the weeks/page of text ratio will have been higher for many parts of Book One (and will be for Many Meetings in Book Two) than it will be for the Council of Elrond in particular.
 
JJ48 said:
I think we'll set out from Rivendell again around Christmas 2019.
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In my copy, we've covered just about 200 pages over 85 sessions, and there's about another 75 pages until they depart Rivendell. I don't think it would be outrageous if our hectic plunge through the book slowed somewhat, particularly when you take into account the unconscionable hustle with which we treated the early chapters :eek:
 
NotACat said:
In my copy, we've covered just about 200 pages over 85 sessions, and there's about another 75 pages until they depart Rivendell. I don't think it would be outrageous if our hectic plunge through the book slowed somewhat, particularly when you take into account the unconscionable hustle with which we treated the early chapters :eek:
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Not to mention, it's going to take no little time for everyone who participates live to explain how and why they were called to attend class (though it was not the Professor who called them), and then decide what our plan will be for discussing the remainder of the trilogy, and who should be sent off to their certain deaths in the meantime.
 
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