This is how the book should sound - an old man reading stories to younger people. And Tolkien's knowledge of that story comes through in every word. The ending in particular is chilling - "we hates it forever!"
I have this head-canon of an old man reading the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings to his grandchildren, sometime in England in the 40s (this part probably came from Narnia lol). He's got the Red Book of Westmarch, so I guess he's a distant, distant descendant of one of the charcters in the book. He tells them these stories one night, and little do they know that this is long lost ancient history of a forgotten world.
"He knew, _of course,_ that the riddle game was sacred and of immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played at it" You just got to love the way Tolkien writes and thinks. It's almost the logic of a small child, and it gives it this really fairy-tail like quality.
I agree. I recently rediscovered this when reading the start to Tolkien's _Roverandom_ about a dog turned into a toy. He writes so matter-of-factly that of course toys talk to each other with other toys. Loooong before toy story was even thought of.
This is an invaluable record and it gives us an idea of how J.R.R. Tolkien conceived the voice of Gollum, which is a key aspect of the character. You can almost see his pale, round eyes coldly glittering in the darkness. Kudos to Andy Serkis for his memorable performance.
Tolkien doing the Gollum voice, amazing. I guess it's safe to say this is the authoritative version on what Gollum was supposed to sound like -- voiced by the author himself. It's great to have a recording like this.
He did! Although famously Tolkien wrote out the first line on a whim one afternoon, the rest of the Hobbit's story started as a bedtime story for his 3 boys . He started writing it down when the oldest, Christopher, kept correcting him when he couldn't keep the details consistent.
What a wonderful recording. His voice contains such genuine joy and passion for this story he wrote for children. He seems to have written it for himself even more so. One can tell he's having a lot of fun doing Gollum.
The good news is that if you listen extensively to Tolkien's recordings, you can sort of internalize his speech patterns and voice. After that, you can read just about any passage and 'hear' it in Tolkien's voice, or a mental facsimile thereof.
Or feed an advanced ai as many recordings of his story telling voice as possible, and see if it can create a generated version for us to create audio books of his books with his voice
They are built rather more like Chimps than ordinary humans, and as such are stronger than they might appear for their size - and sink rather readily in water, which is why they fear it.
This was not a formal studio recording. It was not originally intended to be released. It was the 1950s and tape recorders for private use were still uncommon. JRRT was visiting a friend who had purchased a tape recorder, the first one JRRT had ever seen. His readings were just an impromptu tryout of the machine.
Not quite right, I'm afraid. The first part is true, he only learned about tape recorders from a friend. But later he had one of his one and did these recordings for private fun.
While listening to this one scene came to my mind, when Bilbo (in The Lord of the rings movie) is telling the kids his story with the trolls at his birthday party.
I think Tolkien would have appreciated the films. He may not have loved them, but surely appreciated that so many would come to love his work and try their best to remain true to his vision of the characters. Gollum for example. You can totally tell Andy tried to mimic this rendition. Such a great legendarium.
A remarkable talent in reading with drama. I love to read but nowadays my tongue speaks before my brain reads the words and it says what it wants. I have saved this for the grandchildren. Thank you... Both.
That is Golums voice which Andy based hiss from. Andy was the one imitating, not Tolkien. Though Tolkien would likely argue he was providing an example of what he sounds somewhat like, in a similar way to the way he describes making the elvish language and him interpreting one which was already there, saying even if he had his whole life we would never be able to complete the language
I also like to hear Tolkien singing The Troll Song, he sounded like he was having fun being Sam in the song. "It looks like the shin o' me nuncle Jim who should be a lyin' in graveyard"
Still one of my favorite parts in the book because it’s so exciting a chilling. The tense, almost claustrophobic atmosphere Tolkien builds in the scene and the suspense! I get the same sense of eeriness from the Barrow Wight scene in FOTR.
joelandrews successfully makes use of this portrait of the Author, who is opening the Japanese translated version of his work! You can see that the back cover of this hard-back edition has the very pictures that tell each answer of the Riddles in the Dark (if you can get one you can see them more clearly). Fantastic! Thank you, Joel!
How many times he read stories to his children, even stories which he wrote himself for them. You can hear it in his delight in doing the voices. I wish I’d heard his voicing of Gandalf and other characters.
its kinda ironic that Gollums last riddle is something he was in defiance of for awhile. I mean... if you've gone on the exact same for 500 years I imagine you can safely say time isn't a problem for you.
I wonder that as well. Also Martin Freeman as Bilbo going back and forth with Andy Serkis was by far one of the best scenes in movie history. It is so good even with the liberties they take in the story.
I think he had to have heard them. Jackson and co surely had tons of Tolkien material, no doubt including excerpts like these of him reading some of the characters. With how similar Serkis's voice is, I think he definitely lifted directly from Tolkien's impression.
Yeah, there is. The person who wrote the books. This version is how the creative mind that created the character imagined he would sound, so therefore it's the best candidate for "this is the most accurate version"
I've been watching so many Middle Earth videos lately that the TH-cam algorithm blessed me with this brilliant and, yes, precious recording of Tolkien reading Riddles in the Dark. I found the Andy Serkis version of this chapter for those who might enjoy the comparison. Nothing as good as the original but fantastic in his own way. th-cam.com/video/Od6djtdteRY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=pH7ddLVkLpNZUaoA
@@JonGunnarssonDotA it's funny... Lmao... It's funny how even the resource you used.. the link.... The web site... Has... Lord of the Rings... In the fuking link. . . That you chose... How... Now that's true stupidity. Lol
JRR Tolkien’s official vocalization of “Gollum” alone makes this one of the most valuable recordings in human history. So glad it’s preserved here.
This is how the book should sound - an old man reading stories to younger people. And Tolkien's knowledge of that story comes through in every word. The ending in particular is chilling - "we hates it forever!"
Paul Wayper He reminds me of my grandad reading.
I have this head-canon of an old man reading the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings to his grandchildren, sometime in England in the 40s (this part probably came from Narnia lol). He's got the Red Book of Westmarch, so I guess he's a distant, distant descendant of one of the charcters in the book. He tells them these stories one night, and little do they know that this is long lost ancient history of a forgotten world.
Rob Ingles narrated the entire series and it was amazing, it felt like Tolkien reading.
@@jaygon8656 Exactly my feelings about Tolkien...
"Long, long ago before the goblins came, and he was cut off from his friends far under the mountains."
That is hauntingly mysterious.
Great to see how "gollum" really sounds from Tolkien himself
I think this version of Gollum sounds like Yoda. 😏
best gollum voice is brother theodore in the 1977 animated version 🧌
No disrespect to the man, but it sounds like a cartoon character. This is the reason for voice actors.
@@MistaGrim so did andy serkis
@@meshzzizk Nope.
"He knew, _of course,_ that the riddle game was sacred and of immense antiquity, and even wicked creatures were afraid to cheat when they played at it"
You just got to love the way Tolkien writes and thinks. It's almost the logic of a small child, and it gives it this really fairy-tail like quality.
I agree. I recently rediscovered this when reading the start to Tolkien's _Roverandom_ about a dog turned into a toy. He writes so matter-of-factly that of course toys talk to each other with other toys. Loooong before toy story was even thought of.
@@LordQueezle When I first read the Roverandom, I felt so weird. It was a book that is weird as amazing.
The Hobbit is a children's book
@@letz5464 And? Everybody knows that, i guess.
@@LordQueezle I particularily liked the line: „Rover wanted to blush but he couldn‘t because he was a dog“ that one really caught me off guard
Sir Ian McKellen based his performance of Gandalf on Professor Tolkien, and he nailed it.
Sir Ian McKellen has a habit of nailing it, whatever it may be. From Shakespeare over Tolkien to the Wolf Brother series and everything in between.
This is an invaluable record and it gives us an idea of how J.R.R. Tolkien conceived the voice of Gollum, which is a key aspect of the character. You can almost see his pale, round eyes coldly glittering in the darkness. Kudos to Andy Serkis for his memorable performance.
Tolkien doing the Gollum voice, amazing. I guess it's safe to say this is the authoritative version on what Gollum was supposed to sound like -- voiced by the author himself. It's great to have a recording like this.
Yeah and I think it's fantastic how much it shows Andy analyzed and mastered the voice
Andy Serkis's Gollum reminds me of Stitch.
This recordings so atmospheric, he brings Gollum alive.
The story seems to come alive when hearing it from the mouth of the author himself.
I have known this recording since I was a child, but something has just struck me for the first time: Tolkien is doing a welsh accent for Gollum.
Mhm. And idk, it seems like with goblins and other such creatures, that he almost writes them in a Welsh "commoner" tongue.
Are they hissing a lot in Wales?
@@rimservices Yes
Well, Celtic, anyway; but whatever the dialect, it adds a deliciously chilling tone to the story.
Gollum is from an older world and so speaks with an older tongue.
We are so lucky to have recordings like this, getting to hear Tolkien do Gollums voice.
I like to think Tolkien read this to his children and grandchildren like this
Bunson Baker He has....for generations.
He did! Although famously Tolkien wrote out the first line on a whim one afternoon, the rest of the Hobbit's story started as a bedtime story for his 3 boys . He started writing it down when the oldest, Christopher, kept correcting him when he couldn't keep the details consistent.
His work...his voice...This is one of the best things I have ever heard. Tolkien, you never cease to blow my mind.
What a wonderful recording. His voice contains such genuine joy and passion for this story he wrote for children. He seems to have written it for himself even more so. One can tell he's having a lot of fun doing Gollum.
I could listen to him read the entire book. ❤
The good news is that if you listen extensively to Tolkien's recordings, you can sort of internalize his speech patterns and voice. After that, you can read just about any passage and 'hear' it in Tolkien's voice, or a mental facsimile thereof.
Or feed an advanced ai as many recordings of his story telling voice as possible, and see if it can create a generated version for us to create audio books of his books with his voice
a three-foot high jump is actually pretty impressive, especially for a hobbit
They are built rather more like Chimps than ordinary humans, and as such are stronger than they might appear for their size - and sink rather readily in water, which is why they fear it.
the ring already granting him power
Yeah, that's as high as Bilbo is tall!
@@Blokewood3 3 6 actually
This was not a formal studio recording. It was not originally intended to be released. It was the 1950s and tape recorders for private use were still uncommon. JRRT was visiting a friend who had purchased a tape recorder, the first one JRRT had ever seen. His readings were just an impromptu tryout of the machine.
Thanks for the background! 😉🤔
And now it is priceless.
Not quite right, I'm afraid. The first part is true, he only learned about tape recorders from a friend. But later he had one of his one and did these recordings for private fun.
his voice is so majestic
While listening to this one scene came to my mind, when Bilbo (in The Lord of the rings movie) is telling the kids his story with the trolls at his birthday party.
Thank you, Tolkien.
His Gollum voice actually reminds me of Yoda a lot of the time, when he's pretending to be an old loon to test Luke.
1 dislike. Must be Sauron.
probably melkor
Melkor used Grond as a staff!
zindi1138 But not that Grond, the great battering ram was merely named after the original
Probably a troll
Kinshira who’s Melkor
Hearing this from the mouth of the master himself is such a wonderful treat! Thank you for posting this. I love Tolkien's voice for Gollum.
I think Tolkien would have appreciated the films. He may not have loved them, but surely appreciated that so many would come to love his work and try their best to remain true to his vision of the characters. Gollum for example. You can totally tell Andy tried to mimic this rendition. Such a great legendarium.
i heard this in 77"
my brother bought 2 cassettes, originals.
it changed everything!
A remarkable talent in reading with drama. I love to read but nowadays my tongue speaks before my brain reads the words and it says what it wants. I have saved this for the grandchildren. Thank you... Both.
25:32 "... by accident", the way he says that is pure genius!
it is highly amusing hearing him imitate Gollum's shrill and fiendish voice
That is Golums voice which Andy based hiss from. Andy was the one imitating, not Tolkien. Though Tolkien would likely argue he was providing an example of what he sounds somewhat like, in a similar way to the way he describes making the elvish language and him interpreting one which was already there, saying even if he had his whole life we would never be able to complete the language
Before Andy Serkis, before (Brother) Theodore Gottlieb...the horrid voice of Smeagol was Tolkien himself.
I think Andy sounds ALOT like Tolkien's version.
I am so happy to have come across this today!! Very precious it is!!!
I first heard Tolkien read it a couple of decades ago, and am so glad I rediscovered it -- exactly as I remembered it! 😊😉
I also like to hear Tolkien singing The Troll Song, he sounded like he was having fun being Sam in the song. "It looks like the shin o' me nuncle Jim who should be a lyin' in graveyard"
Thank you for uploading this to TH-cam, so that we all could hear it when we wanted to!
This needs all the views. Bring classiness back to the world.
Still one of my favorite parts in the book because it’s so exciting a chilling. The tense, almost claustrophobic atmosphere Tolkien builds in the scene and the suspense! I get the same sense of eeriness from the Barrow Wight scene in FOTR.
I was going to do homework... but I found this...
best way to procrastinate, ever!
How wonderful to hear Tolkien read his own word! Thanks for posting!
joelandrews successfully makes use of this portrait of the Author, who is opening the Japanese translated version of his work! You can see that the back cover of this hard-back edition has the very pictures that tell each answer of the Riddles in the Dark (if you can get one you can see them more clearly). Fantastic! Thank you, Joel!
How many times he read stories to his children, even stories which he wrote himself for them. You can hear it in his delight in doing the voices. I wish I’d heard his voicing of Gandalf and other characters.
The Professor always amazes
The voice of the man himself...
Quite mystical to hear 📖✨
The audiobooks by Rob Inglis are really good! They have that "English old man" quality.
The pronunciation is all messed up
I like his Zoom background. That's probably one bookcase worth checking out.
its kinda ironic that Gollums last riddle is something he was in defiance of for awhile. I mean... if you've gone on the exact same for 500 years I imagine you can safely say time isn't a problem for you.
This just shows how andy serkis NAILED gollum's voice
"What has it got in its pocketses?!"
I sure hope I haven't violated any rights by watching this video, but it is wonderful to hear this masterpiece read by its creator!
3 dislikes, must be Sauron, Saruman and Melkor.
There's 5 now. Gollum and Smeagol joined the party
Sorry to bring the films up on this hallowed ground, but I can't help but wonder if Andy Serkis ever heard these.
I know right? It's how he does the Smeagol voice!
I wonder that as well. Also Martin Freeman as Bilbo going back and forth with Andy Serkis was by far one of the best scenes in movie history. It is so good even with the liberties they take in the story.
I think he had to have heard them. Jackson and co surely had tons of Tolkien material, no doubt including excerpts like these of him reading some of the characters. With how similar Serkis's voice is, I think he definitely lifted directly from Tolkien's impression.
When he does the Smeagol voice...
My favorite passage of all this Master Storyteller's tales, so perfectly recited by its author !!!🤔🤔😳😮😯 Thanks, JRRT !!
I got this on a cassette tape in the 80s. I listened to it over and over.
How fantastic! Reminds me of 1960/70s children's TV - Oliver Postgate and Michael Horden.
I think someone who's amazing at impressions should record a whole audiobook "narrated by Tolkien"
That's precious
0:05 Excuse me, but I do believe you are quite aware of where Gollum came from, Prof. Tolkien.!
Not at the point he originally wrote the hobbit.
They’re gonna use this audio to train an AI to imitate his voice, and then we’ll get a bunch of Tolkien readings entirely high and shrill like Gollum
This need to have more volume
crank it!
Compression, noise reduction are all common-place things in all DAWs
@blindwillie99 Why would you lose your manners over such a thing?
I love this man !!!!!
Marvelous!
ya know, someone could probably use this to make a tolkien ai voice and make him read the whole book.
An excellent narrator
The voice of Gollum from Tolkien himself sounds like Master Yoda. 😁
Who knew Gollum was Welsh.
I feel like I finally know what Gollum is supposed to sound like. Andy did a good job but Tolkien's voicing of the character is certainly different
It’s totally fine to have your own interpretation. There’s no “supposed to.”
Yeah, there is. The person who wrote the books. This version is how the creative mind that created the character imagined he would sound, so therefore it's the best candidate for "this is the most accurate version"
I wonder who was doing the snoring? Listen at 25:26, for example.
genius...
Why can't I find him reading Beowulf in old English?
Was he ever recorded doing it? I was led to believe only his class was privvy to that majesty
@@azazelreeds Not that I can see, but he would belt it out at the beginning of every semester.
Anyone else find that Bilbo's riddles are sort of BS.
Gollum's riddles were all very logical.
I've been watching so many Middle Earth videos lately that the TH-cam algorithm blessed me with this brilliant and, yes, precious recording of Tolkien reading Riddles in the Dark.
I found the Andy Serkis version of this chapter for those who might enjoy the comparison. Nothing as good as the original but fantastic in his own way.
th-cam.com/video/Od6djtdteRY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=pH7ddLVkLpNZUaoA
11:00 to 11:05
I wish Andy Serkis had listened to this. Would have saved us from three movies of Jar Jar Gollum.
One minus. Nice try Sauron.
That is sad…
Gonzalez Susan Martinez Sharon Lee Frank
This is why I never got an A in English. I deserved the D.
Damn Rob Inglis sounds exactly like him
Williams Matthew Jones David Davis Helen
: )
9 dislike.must be nasguls
It is not the whole chapter.
Sup
In case someone doesn't know what riddles in the Dark is...it's a chapter name... In TLoTR
It's a chapter from The Hobbit, not Lord of the Rings.
@@JonGunnarssonDotA ummm. Sorry... No
@@strydyrhellzrydyr1345 Uhmm, sorry, yes. lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Riddles_in_the_Dark_(chapter)
@@JonGunnarssonDotA it's funny... Lmao... It's funny how even the resource you used.. the link.... The web site...
Has... Lord of the Rings... In the fuking link. . . That you chose...
How... Now that's true stupidity. Lol
@@JonGunnarssonDotA just proves my point... Even more so. But thanks for trying
Andy Serkis' voice performance was grating & annoying - just one of the myriad things wrong with Jackson's films.
I don't think Gollum is supposed to have a beautiful voice.