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JRR Tolkien Book 'Beren and Luthien' Published After 100 Years (bbc.com)
seoras quotes a report from BBC: A new book by Lord of the Rings author JRR Tolkien is going on sale -- 100 years after it was first conceived. Beren and Luthien has been described as a "very personal story" that the Oxford professor thought up after returning from the Battle of the Somme. It was edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and contains versions of a tale that became part of The Silmarillion. The book features illustrations by Alan Lee, who won an Academy Award for his work on Peter Jackson's film trilogy. It is being published on Thursday by HarperCollins on the 10th anniversary of the last Middle Earth book, The Children of Hurin.
I'll probably buy it.
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Meanwhile, movie industry starts planning to make 2 trilogies of 150min films out of this book.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The Silmarillion is worth a read if you have enough imagination to fill in some of the visual details yourself; it is in a sort of abstract epic writing style one level more removed from the writing in LOTR, so many people have trouble with it, but there are beautiful moments in it if you can read it. For example, it opens with a description of music sung by beings of great power at the beginning of time, and also of the discord that the great enemy tries to sing into the music.
And there are high hosts of elves, and fights of elven-kings, and brave acts of love.
Beren and Luthien is one of the classic grand love stories of high fantasy. I hope this version is a good one, but whether it is or isn't you should still check out the other one.
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Did you not read his books?
Death is to be feared by the young but welcomed by the wise and old. We are to fill our lives, and the lives of those around us, with adventures, song, stories, food, and love. After we've filled ourselves up and spread ourselves thin we should embrace the next life that awaits us all.
Trying to extend our lives beyond it's natural course is a path leading to pain, suffering, and evil. Those that are successful lose their humanity.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
You're already pegged at -1, so this won't help:
Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic; there is a difference, and this caused problems even in his early life. Read Carpenter's Biography for the _official_ version. Unofficially, Tolkien struggled with the Church his entire life, and pretty much broke away from it after Vatican II, including walking out of Services when English was spoken instead of Latin.
That is not to say that he became a Protestant Christian; he believed in the old Fairy Tales and the way that they were told. In other words, Tolkien was a nutter. There were those close to him that had serious doubts about his sanity at times, especially when he retreated into his own World, and neglected to do such things as paying Taxes. (Which is the very reason why Jackson was able to make his Films; Tolkien sold the Rights off for a pittance when it finally came to pay Inland Revenue.)
As a devout Atheist, I quite like the old fossil. I really appreciate the way that he viewed His Church. But it was still based on Fairy Tales, and believing in them does not make them true.
Trying to extend our lives beyond it's natural course is a path leading to pain, suffering, and evil.
What natural course? The one where your mother died giving you birth and you die at forty because of a massive dental infection? Or the one where you're born in a sterile hospital and get to live to eighty five thanks to antibiotics, heart drugs, and/or chemotherapy?
Ezekiel 23:20
Say what you like about milking a legacy with copyright, you can't really accuse Christopher Tolkein of failing to earn his share of it or putting the time in - he's in his 90s and still going! Not only did he draw the original maps for Lord of the Rings (they are signed with his initials, C.J.R.T.) but he put in a huge amount of effort editing his father's writings to produce 12-volumes of The History of Middle-earth, on top of the effort to finish the various other posthumously published works by JRR Tolkein.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Non-mainstream or deeply religious people that don't simply follow doctrine are excellent fantasy writers, not just Tolkien but for example look at Lewis Carroll and the Chronicles of Narnia,...
Read about The Inklings:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Tolkein and C. S. Lewis where both members. G. K. Chesterton was an occasional guest. Charles Williams is probably less well-known at this point (possibly because his prose was more unabashedly Christian -- e.g. "War in Heaven": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00R... etc).
I've always found it interesting that both Lewis -- arguably one of the most famous of the Christian Apologists of his time, although Chesterton was no slouch -- and Williams wrote books that were either thinly disguised Christian fantasy or openly fantasies about biblical/apocryphal fantasy, while in the Hobbit and LOTR, the characters (with the exception of the Elves, maybe) HAVE no overt religion. Yes, there is a fantasy connection with the supernatural and magic, but there are no descriptions of worship or prayer -- it is more a matter of "invoking" the protection (or sometime receiving it gratis) of e.g. Elbereth. Elves are immortal (but not unkillable), they don't die they "return" to "the west" (a.k.a. "heaven") through some sort of dimensional barrier. And although there is magic in LOTR, for the most part in the BOOKS (as opposed to the overheated movie) it isn't "telekinetic" magic like battling with wand-based thunderbolts or using a ring to stop the heart of an enemy, it is more "perceptual" magic -- making somebody invisible, generating light, extending life, healing, harming. The closest you come to religion is probably the "resurrection" of Gandalf, "sent back" from death because his work "isn't finished".
This has the effect of making it remarkably uncomplicated and ecumenical. We don't really understand why Sauron is so horribly evil, or how he manages to get killed but come back from the dead to try to take over the world -- again -- or just what he wants to do with the world when he wins that he can't do already. We don't really understand why or how "rings" can be given power (or what power they actually grant, since nobody actually USES a ring to do ANYTHING overt anywhere in the story). We don't understand where Ents come from, we don't understand Bombadil, we don't see why or how barrow-wights could come to be. We don't even understand Saruman -- supposedly good guy turned bad.
We don't need to. It's just a damn good story about a war between cartoon good (so very very good, so very very uncomplicated) and cartoon evil (so horribly unredeemably bad, so very very uncomplicated). Not at all like real life, where evil doesn't come with such a clear label -- and neither does good.
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Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.