michael dennis
Member
I was just doing some number crunching for fun. The result was less than fun....
According to the internet, LoTR has approx. 450,000 words (more, depending on whether you include the forward and appendices). Last week we spent roughly 70 minutes in actual discussion, on a single slide with 113 words.
At that rate, it would take a grand total of more than 3,900 episodes (76 years, assuming we never take a break). Adjusting for the shortness of the episode takes it down to maybe 65 years. So, what's the long-term plan? I love what we're doing but my life expectancy won't take me THAT far. We're only up to number 221.
Looked at another way, we have covered 14.4 chapters, at an average rate of about 15 episodes per chapter. The work has 62 chapters (I think), which works out to only 930 episodes and a total of 18 years. But there's SO MUCH poetry still to come, and a "rate by chapter" is thrown off by our incredibly hasty reading of the first two chapters. On the other hand, we spent over a year longing for lunch with Bilbo during the Council of Elrond. I didn't object (it's my second favorite chapter), but do we really expect to get through Lothlorien, Helm's Deep, or the Pelennor Fields any faster?.
In any event, 18 years is preferable to 76. How can we help the professor keep this within our lifetimes? For me, there have been a lot of diversions: Should Glorfindel be held to 21st-century liberal standards of animal husbandry, or should he have saved the Black Riders' horses at any cost? Can we redeem Galdor for his parochial comments? (Personally, I found both of those questions to be a failure to engage with the text on its own terms). Prof seems to want to set things up for the future - like the payoff he's looking forward to with Sam's interactions with Gollum - but does all the 'remembering ahead' mean we'll just end up covering the same ground twice? What is the payoff if it's 20-30 years in the future and we've forgotten anyway?
Bringing all this up because as much as I love the idea of a close reading, I don't think I can "catch down" to this pace forever. I'm hoping we can find ways to increase efficiency somehow.
According to the internet, LoTR has approx. 450,000 words (more, depending on whether you include the forward and appendices). Last week we spent roughly 70 minutes in actual discussion, on a single slide with 113 words.
At that rate, it would take a grand total of more than 3,900 episodes (76 years, assuming we never take a break). Adjusting for the shortness of the episode takes it down to maybe 65 years. So, what's the long-term plan? I love what we're doing but my life expectancy won't take me THAT far. We're only up to number 221.
Looked at another way, we have covered 14.4 chapters, at an average rate of about 15 episodes per chapter. The work has 62 chapters (I think), which works out to only 930 episodes and a total of 18 years. But there's SO MUCH poetry still to come, and a "rate by chapter" is thrown off by our incredibly hasty reading of the first two chapters. On the other hand, we spent over a year longing for lunch with Bilbo during the Council of Elrond. I didn't object (it's my second favorite chapter), but do we really expect to get through Lothlorien, Helm's Deep, or the Pelennor Fields any faster?.
In any event, 18 years is preferable to 76. How can we help the professor keep this within our lifetimes? For me, there have been a lot of diversions: Should Glorfindel be held to 21st-century liberal standards of animal husbandry, or should he have saved the Black Riders' horses at any cost? Can we redeem Galdor for his parochial comments? (Personally, I found both of those questions to be a failure to engage with the text on its own terms). Prof seems to want to set things up for the future - like the payoff he's looking forward to with Sam's interactions with Gollum - but does all the 'remembering ahead' mean we'll just end up covering the same ground twice? What is the payoff if it's 20-30 years in the future and we've forgotten anyway?
Bringing all this up because as much as I love the idea of a close reading, I don't think I can "catch down" to this pace forever. I'm hoping we can find ways to increase efficiency somehow.