Slashdot Mirror
New Tolkien Story To be Published
vingilot writes "CNN reports that Christopher Tolkien has edited and will release a new book by his father. From the article: 'Christopher Tolkien has spent the past 30 years working on "The Children of Hurin," an epic tale his father began in 1918 and later abandoned. Excerpts of "The Children of Hurin," which includes the elves and dwarfs of Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" and other works, have been published before.'"
I guess outrageously long copyright terms really do encourage artists to produce more work after they die.
So the question is, will there actually be anything new in here that readers haven't seen before, or is it merely pulling bits from various texts and stitching them together in a fresh binding? Sounds like the latter to me...
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Fortunately I didn't buy the LOTR trilogy set just yet. What's next? Lost side story of elven child raised by dwarven humans?
for they have largely been found to be "tricksy", not to mention "false".
Well the article at least makes it seem like Tolkein abandoned it due to time pressures or something similar, as opposed to considering the work to be sub-standard. The fact that he included exerpts in his other works would seem to be a good sign.
I think I speak for all true Tolkien fans when I say; This book will give the conclusive, irrefutable evidence that Balrog's indeed have wings. Namely, there will be one with wings on the cover.
May the Maths Be with you!
Like thousands of D&D fans all soiling their pants at the same time, and then falling silent.
fears that the set will be trampled by dwarves run high!
We now have the Really Lost, Unfinished Tales of J.R.R. Tolkien
At last, the true secrets of the Bene Gesserit line of Noldor will be revealed! I LOVE pre-quels!
Look, the guy chose to die rather than have it published. I don't see how anyone could send a clearer signal, sheesh.
there is no need to sign your posts. this isn't usenet. your username is right there above your post. stop it.
and yes, Chris Tolkien has fed off the teat of his late father's creativity for a long time now. still, the literary joy of reading The Silmarillion, The Narn i Hin Hurun, The Lay of Leithian, and more, far outweighs whatever motives young Tolkien may have in editing and publishing these many works.
Prof. Tolkien, while living, tried and failed to publish the Silmarillion. The other works were never even close to publishable. yet he often talked and wrote of these tales having a life of their own, and I don't think he would object to their being shared with millions of fans.
I, for one, am grateful for the opportunity to have read of the First and Second ages of Tolkien's world.
This is the first part of a trilogy, actually. Chris Tolkien is co-writing them with Kevin J. Anderson, who is widely regarded as the finest science fiction and fantasy author in the history of either genre.
I will read it though, that is for sure. I will however, credit the subject material to Tolkien while the rest will go to his son and his 30 years of editing. I doubt anything could be tampered with so much and still hold the same value as the original. Then again, maybe because it was not "finished" he fleshed it out - either way it is not a book authored by Tolkien to me.
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"Dwarfs" is only the plural form of dwarf stars. The plural for dwarf people is "dwarves". Yes, English major.
.. that "hurin" doesn't mean "corn". Cuz that would just be sad.
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Slashdot had a story some time ago that they'd found a copy of Beowulf translated by Tolkien at the bottom of a box of his papers in the Oxford library. Supposedly they were going to publish them as soon as they'd deciphered his terrible handwriting. But I haven't heard of it since.
......Lord save us all.
Now, that's what I'm Tolkien About!
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actually, most of the manuscripts he's worked on are in the library at Marquette(?) University, donated thus by his father.
If you prefer not to have read anything since the appendices to LOTR, then feel free not to.
As for the movies, they sucked, Jackson made significant changes to the plot just because he could, the acting was roundly horrible, the CG was obvious and not very convincing, and Liv Tyler is ugly.
so there.
Long dead corpse, pen glued to hand, 20,000 volts, new novel in dead authors own hand. Profit!
wasnt Christopher Tolkien in that pulp fiction movie?
"he hid that book up his ass for 30 years."
The time you take to complete a job doesn't necessarily correlate to the quality of the job done.
:)
Example: I've been working on cleaning out my house's attic for just over 11 years now, and my wife still says I'm doing a crappy job of it.
Now his greedy kid is capitalizing on his fathers name just to make some cash and hurt Tolkein's reputation by publishing a book not up to his usual quality.
Uh, we're not talking about a snot-nosed punk trying to make a quick buck. The guy's eighty years old and has dedicated much of his life to his father's literary legacy, trying to make sense of his notes and half-finished stories (see the Silmarillion.) Whether his efforts have literary merit is one thing-- I personally think a dead author's notes and partial works should be buried with him-- but he's hardly trying to "make some cash."
He could have engaged in spontaneous human combustion while holding the original manuscript.
Navicula hydraulica plena anguilarum est. Omnes castelli tuus nostri sunt. Ed elli avea del cul fatto trombetta.
Brian Herbert has been doing this with his fathers great worlks also. I hear they are good but I'm scared to read something by an author other then the one who originally developed the story. Though I did read the Paul Preuss version of Arthur C. Clark's Venus Prime and I enjoyed it.
I've been meaning to pick up the Simillarion as I've heard nothing but good things... perhaps this will be the viral marketing ploy that will motivate me enough to grab a copy.
To settle this argument, let's just pretend the plural of "dwarf" is little people. Or would Fisher-Price sue?
I'm pretty sure that, publish or not, J.R.R. Tolkien isn't going to care one way or the other.
And as for "usual standard" -- Chis Tolkien is going to be able to match or exceed his father's writing in every technical way. Being able to write full time and not having to create the mythology will do that.
As a Tolkein fanboy... I really don't care if the kid's makeing money off of his father. A new book... YES!!! *excited*
So, the son of a man so brilliant in imagination, his entire lifespan was not enough to finish his own work, cleans up, releases and generally attempts to carry on his father's work. Yeah, really sounds like a greedy asshole.
And quite frankly, I cheer CT's opinions of the movies. I found myself able to stomach Jackson's Fellowship, at least.. I can see the reasoning for Bombadil's disappearance, and I can even stow away sufficient ire to forgive Xenarwen. (It's a movie; one can only have so many minor characters, after all.)
Jackson's The Two Towers and Return of the Horrible, Hackneyed Fantasy Plot were horrible butchery of Tolkien's work. One must understand that in translations from book to film, things will change. There is absolutely no excuse for the wanton and brutal destruction of characters that Jackson is guilty of. Destruction of characters.. it stretches even far worse. Tolkien devoted a paragraph to describing the crown of Gondor, and Jackson couldn't even manage to get that even remotely correct. My god, when one can't translate a simple prop from book to film, how can one manage to translate the important things, such as the story?
CT is no JRR - there was only one JRR, and unless the world is very fortunate indeed, we'll likely never glimpse another so brilliant. Regardless of this, CT does damned fine work. You claim The Silmarillion lacked editting? Why, pray tell, would it need editting? It was quite obvious in line with what JRR wanted - he had taken it to publishers, who refused it effectively on the grounds of 'people are stupid'. I certainly won't argue with the publishers, but The Silmarillion was JRR's true masterpiece. The Hobbit is a mere children's story, and The Lord of the Rings was 'dumbed down' (for lack of better words) to appeal to a broad audience.
If you want to see a son doing horrible things, go talk to Brian Herbert. CT is far removed from the accusations you baselessly spew at him.
I can't resist correcting this text.. It's either Elfs and Dwarfs (the original official english rule), or the Tolkien style: Elves and Dwarves. Hobbits are still hobbits though ;-)
Amazing how many people can't even get the last name right, yet have so "much" to say. It's Tolkien, not Tolkein.
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"Liv Tyler is ugly."
Get thee to an opthamologist!
STB
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
Not knowing his father nor Chris, I don't think any of the Middle Earth fans have much room for such definitive claims like "he's ruining his father's legacy" or "is a greedy little kid." You really think he NEEDS MORE money?
Some people have a true gift for language, some people are able to master language, and then there are the offspring of respected writers. Whether it be Tolkien or Herbert, the younger generation always manages to trample on the legacy left by their ancestors. Go read some of C. Tolkien's early attempts at extending his father's legacy. You'll quickly see what I mean.
This is really great news! I can't wait for my preciousssss -- oops, I mean -- this new book to come out! ;-)
th.
Most of us, at one time or another, will have started writing some code and then realized that we were going in entirely the wrong direction. It is going to be faster to write it again from scratch than to try to fix the version we already started. We 'abandon' the old code. It's not a total loss though. There are lots of parts of the old code that can be reused.
I dread the thought of one of my children finding some of my old work. "Oh look, here's a program daddy was working on. I think I'll finish it." Oh my gawd.
Good Lord, I want to see the women in YOUR world!
No, but it does give some indication of motive. If I'm looking to make a quick buck, I sure don't spend 30 years turning it into a rather slow buck.
He didn't finish K.626 on purpose! It wasn't because he died making it, it was because it sucked and he knew it! Stupid Joseph Eybler, trying to make a quick buck off the master's work!
Right, well first, he didn't leave the Silmarillion "untouched". In fact, the Silmarillion, in current form, was a vast collection of disparate notes. Also, the "JRRT" editing you're referring to was more likely the editing of Tolkien's ... what would you call it ... EDITOR. Tolkien himself stated that his personal preference was for swaths of chit-chat between Hobbits, with much less emphasis on the grand literary style that we all love.
I'm just guessing that you really don't have a good idea of how J.R.R. and Christopher really were and are. His son reveres his father's work, and does not claim it as his own. The Unfinished Tales, Silmarillion, and various other books that have been put out under Tolkien's name, are mostly the various stages of Tolkien's works. If you ever bother to read them all (perhaps you have already?) you'll see an amazing cross-section of not only Tolkien's works, but his entire life. And for that, his son deserves thanks, not ridicule.
Exciting Elvish backstories answering questions like "Why is Galadriel so bitter?"
There were several ages during which it was definately not fun to be related to anyone who had ever seen a Silmaril... because they were DOOOOOMED.
Apparently Matt Damon will be playing the Young Aragorn at The Westernesse Academy.
Gilbert Gottried will play the prankish young Gandalf (or, "G-Dalf," as he was known at the time, back when he was wearing his floppy hat all backwards n'stuff).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"...the CG was obvious..."
As opposed to all those movies starring REAL balrogs and cave trolls?
Blog -
...He was only eighteen years dead when he quit publishing.
rj
So I didn't think much of the movies (seemed like roughly 12 hours of people walking), but if Liv Tyler is ugly, that's my kind of ugly!
sic transit gloria mundi
stfu buddhafucker
I am horrified that a blatantly pejorative comment like this could get modded up to 3. I find myself spending less and less time on slashdot lately, this will just about it kill it off. Find some manners!
I know; Hubbard just keeps egging Tolkien on.
"Come on, just crank up that old ectoplasmic typewriter and shoot 'em another one. Herbert is catching up fast, and when Jordan, McCaffrey and Anthony get here, you've got to be wayyy ahead of 'em or you'll never get any respect."
"I thought you were in Hell. Aren't you supposed to be dancing on lava or something?"
"You kidding? My literary agents took care of all that."
Any sufficiently advanced technology is insufficiently documented.
"Wow, that's great," I thought, as I read the title of the article. Then I made the mistake of clicking on "Read more..."
:)
Man are you lot ever a bunch of depressed, jaded people. Almost every single comment has been attacking Mr. Tolkien for doing homage to his father's work. How sad...
(Please, no "You must be new here" comments..
Yeah, like we know what Tolkien would have wanted... A son would know his father the best... i'm sure the tolkiens aren't in dire need of money.
Jesus Saves
I always thought there were (at least) three really solid books to come out of the Silmarillion - the story of Feanor and his kids, the story of Tuor and Gondolin, and the story of Hurin and his kids. All three are much better in the History of Middle Earth series than the Silmarillion (which was an awful book if you liked to follow characters for more than a chapter or two).
I'm looking forward to a newly fleshed out story, although it does feel a little like Christopher Tolkien keeps on discovering just a little more each time, in a way that would ensure a steady flow of books. "Oh look, here's a bit more of the story!" (two years later) "And underneath that bit was even more of the story! It's a shame I didn't think to keep looking before publishing." (two years later) "Well, what do you know! Some more of the story! Who could've imagined! Stap me vitals and so on."
But I'm being unkind here.
I'd also love to see a movie based on this story. Especially since Morgoth would play a prominent role. Unlike Sauron, he actually has a speaking role in the Middle Earth stories, and is a far more complex and interesting character. That, and he's got Balrogs leading his armies. Not that they could fly of course (the eagles of Manwe really hated them doing that).
That's the funniest thing I've read on here in weeks. Bravo, good sir.
http://amethyst-angel.com/bored_of_the_rings.html (WARNING: Stupid popup ads on a site paying homage to a timeless parody, one of whose themes is the effect of crass commercialism on the popular social psyche and mythology.)
* * * * *
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The previous poster was talking about JRR, not Chris.
Now if only Brian Herbert would do that with his own father's unfinished work on the Dune series, rather than writing absolutely awful novels based on them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Christopher Tolkien has been providing Tolkien fans with many volumes of his father's unpublished works. I've found almost all of them to be fascinating and delightful, surpassing both "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings".
I've also found the stories about The Children of Hurin too brief, even the extended version in "Unfinished Tales" and the verse version in "The Lays of Beleriand". I'm looking forward to reading this new book and I think the son sharing these works with the rest of us has honored his father and made the world a better place.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Then Unfinished Tales
Then there was the seemingly endless collection of scraps - was it 12 volumes?
He's been otherwise occupied for the last 30 years, if it wasn't publishable before it's unlikely to be all that good.
What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
- But Gandalf I don't wanna squeeze blood out of a stone!
- Shut up! Daddy needs a new point hat!
CJRT has never released any fiction of his own. What he has done is released the larger part of his father's writings, right from the Book of Lost Tales first written in 1917. It's not easy reading for the casual reader, but for those interested in the evolution of the mythos, it's priceless.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
N/T
On the otherhand, the time spent could also mean he didn't have motivation, not that he wanted it to be "perfect."
Would you kindly mod me +1 insightful?
Another way to ease your yourself in is to first read "Unfinished Tales" which contains details from both the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings. It is an excellent transition from the world of the Lord of the Rings to the much, much larger world of the Silmarillion.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I got a copy of The Complete Guide to Middle Earth (paperback), then listened to the unabridged audiobook of the Sil. on a long road trip. Worked well for me...may be worth a try. The Guide helped when I needed to pause and figure out "Who was that again?".
The Silmarillion was a fantastic compilation of Tolkien's cosmology/myth. I'll even go as far to say that I enjoyed the Silmarillion more than The Lord of the Rings.
why run from Vincenzo?
Kafka's Der Prozess was published post-humously, after being finished (it was almost done) by his friend Max Brod who refused to burn the manuscript as Kafka had wanted. Make of that what you will :)
Is this it? I'm fairly sure I read it in college - the professor went on at length about Tolkien's translation being one of the reasons that the thing was still read today.
That's quite the accusation. Do you have anything to support it besides an opinion?
There are a lots of people here bashing the Tolkien works that were released after J.R.R death. Have any of you actually looked any of these books? Given that most of these books are very dense and very scholarly works, it's highly doubtful that Christopher Tolkien edited them just to make a quick buck. The intended audience for these books was just too small for that.
When J.R.R died, he left literally thousands of pages of unpublished pages, many that he had been working on for decades. It would have been a real shame for this stuff to vanish forever. And Christopher Tolkien's contribution is usually just editing. He is generally very careful to separate his father's words from his commentary (usually with a different font).
So you didn't like the movies, and liked the Silmarillion (so did I). Did you read the rest of the CT ouvre? How did you like that? That's the basis I'm spewing.
--
make install -not war
If his son had someone else with more talent complete the unfinished works of his father, he'd deserve more thanks than ridicule. He's been riding the glory of his father, capturing some for himself, without any claim other than inheritance of the key, not the talent.
--
make install -not war
Personally, any epic tale that has the main character tearing someone's arm off and beating them to death with it has got some serious literary merit in my book!
The story really does have a lot going for it, once you get past the language barrier - Old English really does read a lot more like German than modern English. It was one of the coolest books I'd ever read - full of adventure with tons of gruesome details (like the whole 'tearing someone's arm off and beating them to death with it' bit) that you'd never seen in any other piece of classical literature aside from Dante's Inferno.
The end kind of sucked, as I recall, but as far as adventure and ass-kicking go, Beowulf was one of the best, if not *the* best.
Chris Tolkien hasn't spent 30 years on this book. He's published dozens of other compilations of his fathers' work in that time. I've only read the Silmarilion, which I thought a worthy addition to the published canon. However sometime after that, the seemingly endless stream of variant versions of the same stories seems to have crossed over the line of honouring his legacy to ruthlessly exploiting, and diluting, it.
No. Have you actually read any of their respective writing? JRRT was a professor of English language and literature at Oxford University. His technical command of the language was pretty damn high.
Didn't you see the movie?
I actually read all of them (and he started getting rather far out with some of the stuff) and they definitely have a different style and feel than his son's work.
While his son's writing isn't crap, it's not as well put together as his father's, nor is it in the same style. While I'm not sure that you can really fault him for the last one, the first one you can. His son's works read like most modern sci-fi stuff, and while it is really fascinating to get a look at the pre-history behind the books (even if he just invented it), it isn't something I'm going to read twice.
More or less, his son isn't horrendously bad like many accuse him of, but neither is he as good a writer as his father (on Dune, anyway) and in the end, that's what makes the new Dune books a 'read once, that's cool' and never read again work vs. what his father wrote - 'read once, wow, read again years later, wow, read again a decade later, wow'.
I for one welcome the return of our, erm, dead Tolkin overlord!
Consider most of Emily Dickinson's work for another superb (collective) example.
How can a post be modded "overrated" or "underrated" when it hasn't been rated yet?
Yes, actually. It comes off as someone trying to put together obscure bits that JRR Tolkien never finished, which... Well, is exactly what it is. It reads like the work of a son who wanted to finish the great many things his father left unfinished after an incredible literary career.
While he may not have the talent his father did, the stuff is better published than unpublished, if only to get a look at the ideas Tolkien had, which are the same feelings as the vast majority of all the other Tolkien fans from what I can tell.
As to greedy - if you were the son of JRR Tolkien, who in the hell would you trust with his writings? Who in the world could do it justice? Anyone? I can't think of a single author that could come close to JRR in terms of knowledge, talent and style. Better his son than anyone else.
So I didn't think much of the movies (seemed like roughly 12 hours of people walking),
Only 12 hours of walking? Thats a huge improvement on the books!
I've read most, but not all, of the volumes of Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle Earth and I've enjoyed them greatly. I felt no hint of exploitation or dilution. I'm very grateful to Christopher for taking the time and effort (and flack) to make all these parts of his father's work available to the rest of us.
If you are interested in exploring these other works, you might want to start with "Unfinished Tales" which provides a nice bridge between what happened in the Lord of the Rings and the larger world of the Silmarillion.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
I don't know about all that. I've always found the Unfinished Tales and the History of Middle Earth series to be a wonderful look behind the scenes -- much like the extras on most DVDs. They're not necessary.. and they're certainly not up to the same standard as the main works.. but I've always found them entertaining and insightful. The depth of analysis and commentary certainly doesn't make it seem like exploitation.. but rather exploration.
Berj
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Did he base it on his father's notes?
Wormtalk
And here's what he says:
He mentions several previously published versions of the tale and points out: "From the press release, it seems as if these variants will be stitched into a coherent whole in the same the way that Christopher Tolkien brought together disparate texts to create the 1977 The Silmarillion."
Prof. Drout is also the editor of The J. R. R. Tolkien Encyclopedia, which due out this October. It's a scholarly reference, which must explain the $199.95 price tag on Amazon. (Maybe you can get your public or school library to get a copy.) Since I contributed several articles, I'm hoping all contributors get free copies.
--Michael W. Perry, author of Untangling Tolkien (The only book-length, day-by-day chronology of LOTR.)
Have you read Lin Carter's "Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord of the Rings" (1969, Ballantine)?
Do yourself the favor - excellent.
"It's time to take life by the cans." ~ Bender ("Bendin' in the Wind", ep. 3-13)
He comes off as quite the opposite of a glory hog, to the point of putting his father on a pedestal (which may have its own problems, but hey).
You're like "OMG CT SUX! I WANT MORE READABLE STORIES ZOMG!!11!" and while that's fine to have as a desire, you also have to temper it with the realization that the odds of it getting f'ed up would be far higher were it anyone else. I don't know about you, but I really don't want to read "Happy Hobbits Go Dragon Hunting!" or find some other book on the stands one day that is a horrific violation of JRR's work: "And then the Balrogs rocked out!"
Good grief! What would they call the elves, "mortality-challenged?"
That's not entirely true. Tolkien was a genius and his mythos is without peer. Some of his prose was outstanding, but in patches, it's pretty clear from the Lord of The Rings that JRRT was not a practiced novellist. Some of the LOTR really stinks. (Disclaimer: I love LOTR)
1$ for the silmarillion. http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts= t&y=0&tn=silmarillion&x=0>
Nothing is good enough for the average slashdot nerd. Frank Herbert and JRR Tolkien could come back from the dead as the new demi-gods of writing, and people on Slashdot would still say "Worst. Resurrection. Ever."
My point is that if it wasn't worth putting out earlier (in one of the previous 14 IIRC posthumous Tolkien books) this new stuff probably does suck.
What are you listening to? (http://megamanic.blogetery.com/)
This is slashdot. There doesn't need to be support. All he needed to do is somehow work in a bash on microsoft, a mention of vista, and a link to DRM and it would be rated informative.
If you mention that he wasn't a fan of it, that just really kills the funny.
Perhaps I'm too cynical, after seeing how Robert E Howard, Frank Herbert's, for example, works have been treated. It seemed to me that JRR covered the entire history of Middle Earth in Silmarillion, I couldn't imagine the succeeding volumes had any more to add. I briefly looked through some and found them impenetrable. But that's just me. There's definitely much worse published.
Christopher Tolkien taught English at Oxford, too. Can anyone else in this forum claim such high credentials in the field of English Language and Literature as Christopher Tolkien? And yet people speak of him as if he had no credentials at all beyond his ancestry.
Christopher's technical command of the language may not be as high as his father's, nor his creativity so great; but as Planesdragon pointed out, Christopher has the time and focus for the task that JRR always wished to have. I am sorry that JRR did not give us a second or third or fourth series as good as LOTR; but such disappointment does not make any of us better qualified than Christopher Tolkien to manage his father's literary estate. I think it unlikely that a publisher would have or could have assigned so good a caretaker of JRR's work as Christopher Tolkien. Who else on this Earth is more qualified to interpret JRR's intent and meaning than the son to whom JRR confided these things?
Christopher Tolkien has given us all a "backstage pass" to his father's creativity. If you are the sort who cares not for such things, then do not read them. It is in the nature of such a unique and voluminous body of work that there should be much left unfinished; and I for one want to see it all. I am grateful to Christopher Tolkien for giving to me both whole stories and glimpses of "roads not taken" that either would have mouldered, forgotten in deep dust long ago; or would have been "improved" at the behest of some publishing house.
Adherence to the truth is a form of disloyalty.
- The literary estate will often consist mainly of the copyright and other intellectual property rights of published works . . . It may well also include: original manuscripts of published work, which potentially have a market value; unpublished work in a finished state or partially completed
- The position of literary executor has more to it than the simple monetary aspect, though. Appointment to such a position, perhaps informally, is often a matter of the author's choice during his or her lifetime. . . What is to be managed is not just a portfolio of intellectual property, but a posthumous reputation. Wishes of the deceased author may have been clearly expressed, but are not always respected
.I think the GeorgeLucasitis endemic to this site has tainted the Slashdot groupthink on this issue. While I haven't had a chance yet to search for details, I'm sure Mr. Tolkien keeps his father's vision close to heart and true.
Ohhhh pulllleze! The same Christopher Tolkein who boycotted the LOTR movies for treading on his fathers memory, discovers *YET ANOTHER* unpublished manuscript. His old man could write. He can't. The Sillmarilion read like Aldus Huxley on a bad day. "Hey man! I can *SEE* the music!"
Well, It so turns out I have an unpublished Tolkein manuscript and and so does my wife.
I'm calling my "The Cashmarillion". My wife's is "The Tolkein Codes".
You read it here first. On Slashdirt!
That's right, radarsat1! And when the RIAA busts you for ripping CDs and warezing them on eDonkey, tell them "I was just paying homage to the artists."
As I said before, I feel very grateful towards Christopher Tolkien for making so much of his father's work available to the public. These books are not for everyone, perhaps they're not to your taste but that doesn't make them bad and exploitive.
IMO Christopher Tolkien is not being greedy. He could probably have just sat back out of the fray and lived comfortably off of royalties. Or he could have pursued his own career totally separate from his father's work and fame. I think he truly wants to get his father's works into the hands of the public and further, I think he is responding to a clammer from the fans of these works for more, more, more.
We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
-- Anais Nin
Isn't that sort of what happened to Feanor in the Silmarillion? (s/human/elvish)
our new children of whorin'.
Don't judge others by their origin.
While the Silmarillion was pretty complete when tolkien died, and the books of Lost Tales had enough original Tolkien content, I stopped at the Tales of Beleriand, this cash milking got out of hand. The newer fragment books were basically short 10 liners with pages and pages of Christopher Tolkien interpretations and extensions. I am not eager to pay yet for another book which is based on short text fragments of Tolkien. All this just shows Tolkien had lots of ideas and never was able for one reason or the other to make books out of it. I just wonder why exactly this book made it into the news, there have been a handful of those fragement and lets fill in the gaps books, the problem was that the later ones mainly were gaps filler with a few lines of fragements per book.
Or maybe he really has been polishing this for 30 years and has just been giving the ravenous fanatics their fix in the meantime. Well, we can hope...
The Silmarillion was not just a vast collection of disparate notes. The majority of the Silmarillion published in 1977 was based very closely on the latest version JRR was working on. The majority of work Christopher did was editing (nspelling of names etc). The latter part of the Silmarillion was more tricky (JRR almost never finished any version of the Sil) - so Christopher and Guy Kay had to reconstruct the ending of Turin and the Fall of Doriath. I know from your post you are largely supportive of what Christopher has done for us by making his father's work available, but I think a lot of the critical posts are based on this misconception. Christopher Tolkien did NOT write the Silmarillion based of a set of author's notes. He edited a work that the author had already attempted to publish.
So, who would make best Beowulf: Schwarzenegger, Diesel or Stallone ?-)
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
I was actually talking to my wife about that tonight - I was thinking Bruce Willis (her vote was for Hugh Jackman or Russel Crowe), just because he seems to exude the attitude that would be perfect for the role. Well, anything would be better that that wretched abortion that was Antonio Banderas' "13th Warrior".
Are we gonna do "Stonehenge" tomorrow?
Please give this man one more mod point up and complete his "5" so that the universe will make sense. He is spot on....
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
theyre tricsy nassty hobittsess!!!
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
Russell Crowe would be perfect. I would have said that your wife has very good taste, but she blew it when she married you :-).
True, but I misrepresented my point. The Silmarillion was actually several different books, rather than notes, that Tolkien had been trying to work into comprehensive English mythology. But because of the never-ending editing that Tolkien performed on his own work, he was never satisfied and, despite his efforts to publish it, continued his editing notation on all of the books until the time of his death.
The Silmarillion was Christopher's "best guess" at the time it was published, and even he has said that, if had were able to do it over, the Silmarillion would be in very different form than it is today.
The Children of Hurin, from what I remember from the previously published excerpts, is a tragic epic. The children are separated, there's amnesia, revenge, killing, bloodshed, betrayal, more killing, grief, backstabbing, and ultimately suicide. A compelling story, but not a happy story where the good guys win in the end. Actually, I'm not sure you could say there are any good guys in the whole thing.
*Sigh* Christopher Tolkien is not at all interested in "complet[ing] the unfinished works of his father", your desire for readable stories notwithstanding. The Silmarillion is the sole example of Christopher Tolkien actively completing something of his fathers work on Middle Earth, and that was only by necessity. Your assertion that Christopher "barely touched" Silmarillion is funny, since the legendarium at the end of Tolkien's life was in such a disarray that JRR Tolkien himself realized he could never complete it. At the request of his father, Christopher nevertheless tried to edit together and resolve conflicts in manuscripts from as separate dates as the 1910s until the 1970s. The Silmarillion is where Christopher Tolkien in fact had to exercise the most of his editorial role. He had to change, edit and even invent and write a story himself at one point, because there was a gap in the original manuscripts. The purpose of the History of Middle Earth reproduces the contents of the original manuscripts that were used in the compilation of the Silmarillion, as well as other short writings and essays. They are not meant to be complete. Christopher Tolkien presents the texts raw and then discusses them and gives information *for scholarly purposes*! Maybe you find it boring, but many people are very grateful to be able to follow and understand the history behind the manuscripts, and learn new information about Tolkien's mythology and that is exactly why Christopher Tolkien wanted to publish them.
"Give me six lines of C++ code written by the most competent programmer, and I will find enough in there to hang him."
>but he has not shit on his grave just yet
Last time I was at his grave ( www.drivesentinel.co.uk/personal/jrr1.jpg ) there wasn't any evidence of it!
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
and still out before Duke Nukem Forever...
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Balrog is a sindarin (language of the grey-elves aka Sindar) term, coming from the quendi (noble language of the high-elves aka Quenya, who lived in Valinor at some point then returned) term "Valaraukor" meaning "powerful daemon" (vala meaning power, just like in the Valar, the most powerful Ainur [ie, "blessed" beings], and rauk, daemon, just like in "uruk", from which the sindar term "Orch" [plur Yrch] come, translated to Orc or Goblins in Westron (common speech, with roots from the sindarin)) whose plural form is Balryg. There is no such thing as "balrogs". Had to be said for all those times I saw it spelt badly :D
Fag.
And don't try to memorize character/place names; that way lies madness. Just go with the flow and digest the tales as a whole, rather than worrying about the details.
Then, once you've done that, if you REALLY want to be a Tolkien geek, you can go back and re-read it for the details. But once was enough for me.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
NT
Comment of the year
There's a new printing of the Conan stories by Ballantine under the Del Rey mark that seems to have been edited with an eye towards presenting Conan as Howard intended. The appendices to the first collection, "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian", include an essay analyzing the evolution of Conan and his Hyborian Age and the influence of contemporary writers on Howard's work, as well as a list of Howard's drafts used as sources for reconstruction of the Conan stories.
I have read that L. Sprague de Camp took significant liberties with the Conan stories when he had editorial control. I believe it - particularly considering parent's complaint, which I've heard echoed elsewhere - but I don't get it. I've found de Camp's own work to be of fairly decent quality; I have some respect for him as a writer. Particularly since he wrote a biography of Howard, I would have expected greater respect for and adherence to the text of Howard's work.
Brian Herbert, though... ugh. His father's work ranked with the best of science fiction's golden age; but Brian's product sits foursquare in the middle of mass market trash.
And I still don't know what most of the people here are talking about. :) Too many of the names were too close to the others! Feanor I remember... Beren & Luthien I remember... Even Thingol. But if it weren't for Luthien, I wouldn't've been able to distinguish between Beren and Beleg ... too freakin' similar... Be[lr]e[ng].
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
John Ronald Reuel, is that you?
www.clarke.ca
West Hollywood, California Spokes person for Hobitnetics, Sparki "Red" Balrog stated, "Our religion is one of peaceful living in holes in the ground. Our foods are biscuts, cakes, and beer. We eat several meals a day, and Crispy Beacon is a favorite night time snack." Red went on to say very positive things that Hobitnetics can do for everyone in general. "Live Your Life One Step at a Time," was a favored saying by Red.
J.R.R. Tolkien's THE CHILDREN OF HURIN, one of his three Great Tales, reconstructed from its "unfinished state" by Christopher Tolkien, edited together from multiple drafts, to Harper UK, by the Tolkien Estate, for publication in April 2007 (world). US rights to Houghton Mifflin, for simultaneous publication with Harper.
--Michael W. Perry, Untangling Tolkien
This was my favorite work of JRRT. I've read it 5 times, LOTR 4 and The Hobbit 3 times. Maybe it's because I got into Norse Mythology in 5th grade and it seemed so similar.
The thing to remember is that the stories are seperate but they may build on the others. The characters are essential immortal. People change clothes and hair styles over time asevents happens. Why not names?
JRRT died with much work left unfinished. Since then, starting with The Silmarillion, CT has been completing them, even producing finished works that are only a tiny percentage contributed by JRRT. TS is much less JRRT work than is, say, Translations from the Elvish. If all CT did were to compile manuscripts in quality editions, perhaps sponsor critical analyses, even extract timelines, geneologies and other analysis, he would have served the scholastic role you mention. But he did even more, turning "editing" into coauthorship, diluting with his untalented hand one of the 20th Century's greatest writing talents.
I'm not complaining about Tolkienia being "boring". I've got a shelf of Tolkien nonfiction, including two editions of The Tolkien Companion and even a "Middle Earth Quiz book". I'm complaining about Christopher Tolkien passing himself off as a coauthor with JRR solely on the merits of JRR's last will and testament, rather than merit. I read TS, Unfinished Tales and much of the Translations from the Elvish before I realized that I was doing myself, and JRR's legacy, a disservice by treating them the same as "Smith of Wooton Major", The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, "Leaf by Niggle" or other actual "extra stories" by JRR. Now that CT has muddied the waters with his editions of History of Middle Earth, we might never get a truly clean compilation of just JRR's actual work for scholars and enthusiasts to enjoy "uncut".
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make install -not war