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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!
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.
Disturbance, not tremor, you fucking philistine!
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.
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.
wasnt Christopher Tolkien in that pulp fiction movie?
"he hid that book up his ass for 30 years."
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.
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 ;-)
"Liv Tyler is ugly."
Get thee to an opthamologist!
STB
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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.
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.
"...the CG was obvious..."
As opposed to all those movies starring REAL balrogs and cave trolls?
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"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..
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).
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.
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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.
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?
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?
According to the sellers, that book is in German. I suppose Beowulf may well translate into German better than English.
As I understand it, Tolkein's contribution to Beowulf wasn't so much the translation but an essay called The Monsters And The Critics, back in the 30s. Apparently it was the first time anybody had looked at Beowulf as a thing with literary merit, rather than just a piece of linguistic evidence.
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).
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.
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.
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
Dude, he's 80 years old. I highly doubt he's greedy. He (as far as I can tell) doesn't do any actual writing, but rather editing, and given his father's incredibly messy and convoluted notes and considering CT's experience with his father's work, I don't think you could find anyone who could do a better job.
Donaldson and White are both good, and Gaiman is excellent, but none of them are anything close to JRR in terms of literary backgrounds and depth of talent.
Basically, you have one guy who knows the inside of his father's head better than anyone else and is the best editor you're going to get on the subject. No other writer would have the experience or the background to do it justice, and no editor would have enough context.
Basically, while CT isn't the world's best editor, he's as good as you're going to get given the circumstances. Anyone else would do a worse job, in one way or another - maybe X editor would make it more readable, but screw up some minute detail and maybe X writing would make it more interesting and digestible, but be a hack in the end in comparison.
In the long run, you want the person who will do it the best justice and CT is the only candidate when it comes to that. Anyone else would be worse, in one fashion or another. Would you really want that?
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.)
- 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.
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)
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.