New Tolkien Book Released 'The Children of Hurin' 260
Zoolander writes "Christopher Tolkien has completed the last book of J.R.R. Tolkien from notes left from his father." The ultimate question is how much of a quality difference will there be; for instance the difference between Dune and Dune: House Atriedes is a pretty big gap. But in my experience, Christopher Tolkien has always taken a good, cautious approach when it comes to his father's work so here's to hoping.
Written to Spec (Score:5, Interesting)
Heard about this on the radio. According to 'the experts' it features several large battle scenes, and "would make a good movie".
Go figure.
question about the "other" Tolkien books ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Do any of the hobbits, Gandalf, the Shire, or any other "Rings" characters appear in the other books?
Re:Excellent!~ (Score:5, Interesting)
Like a wine fine, you have to let it age a bit.
TÚRIN TURAMBAR DAGNIR GLAURUNGA
Re:Written to Spec (Score:4, Interesting)
The tale of Turin Turambar certainly would. Nargothrond ruined, dragonfire and orcs all around, our hero living in the wild as a bandit hunting monsters, reclaims birthright, slays dragon, discovers appalling truth, kills self... that would rule.
Re:Written to Spec (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Excellent!~ (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Excellent!~ (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Excellent!~ (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Same Difference (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, with that information clearly laid-out, how can you say his writing is so bad? You can't base that on the Silmarillion, because you exclude it yourself, and even if you didn't, the amount of actual "original" material in the Sil would fill at most a few pages, as could be discerned by anyone who had read Vol 4-5 & 10-11 of HoME. He did a lot of editing, taking from sources wide apart in age and style, which explais a lot of the idiosyncrasies of the Sil, but it was editorial decisions warranted by the material at hand. But to say Unfinished Tales or HoME is "bad writing" is calling JRR's unfinished, unpolished writing "bad writing".
Regarding this new book, I'm not sure what to think of it. To be quite honest, the Narn has never been my favorite story of the Tolkien legendarium (always been a fan of Beren & Luthien), but it's still enjoyable, and would be nice to be able to finally read it as a complete and homogeneous story. although I get the feeling I've almost certainly read most of the parts in that book from other sources (HoME and others) over the years, I'm not sure how much new material is in there, and how much Christopher wrote himself, and how good it will be.
*History of Middle-Earth is a 12-volume collection of the unfinished writings of JRR Tolkien edited by Christopher Tolkien. It covers most of his hitherto unpublished writings that relate to the "legendarium".
Re:Does it answer the two most important questions (Score:3, Interesting)
It's like how after the Ring is destroyed how Gandalf just laughs about everything. Gandalf *could* help the hobbits with their little problem in the Shire, but he knows they can handle it, and the world can't go running to him whenever it has a problem. He turns out to be right, too.
See, in this mythology that Tolkein put together it's very important that each set of players confront and defeat its own direst enemy. The humans and hobbits must defeat Saruman in the Shire. Gandalf and the humans must defeat Saruman's boss, Sauron. When you start reading the appendices and other materials, you find out how far back this pattern goes. Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.
Thus we see what Bombadil *must* be. He is the corporal manifestation of a god. Supposedly, there are even enough clues to figure out which gods he and Goldberry are.
Only when we see how the pattern of conflict reaches back into deepest history to the creation of Middle earth does it mean anything that it ends in the Shire with the death of Wormtongue.
Re:You know they have really old out when... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Does it answer the two most important questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Gandalf's folk were minor players in the fight against Sauron's boss. As the humans are to Gandalf, so Gandalf is to his superiors, the gods.
Right. In fact, IIRC, there's even something like "THE God", which doesn't interfere in the conflict between the various gods. It's clear from the stories that God (upper-case, THE god) has planned the conflicts to have a purpose which no one but himself can see.
And this is part of why Gandalf holds back his full power. He is acknowledging that he can't just go around solving other people's problems for them, since the problems, conflicts, fighting, and resolution all play a part in this unknown plan. He doesn't know what the plan is, but he knows it exists. This is part of the reason he doesn't stop Gollum, for example. He knows Gollum still has a part to play. It's also very related to the metaphor of the ring, and why Gandalf can't take possession of the ring. He must restrain himself from abuse of power in order to play his proper role. The ring represents undue power and the thirst for undue power, and so taking possession of it would represent the sort of abuse of power many characters in the story are trying to avoid.
When Bombadil fails to be affected by the ring or tempted by it, he is displaying a closeness to God which would be impossible were he not a greater being than he seems. This is also relevant in terms of Hobbits, since they show a remarkable resistance to the ring, indicating that they, too, are greater than they appear.
(Sorry. Geeking out.)
Re:Excellent!~ (Score:3, Interesting)
As I tried to say before, Tolkien was trying to create an environment similar to that of Greece in that the people at large not only were quite conversant in their national mythology, but they felt free and some even compelled to add to it, without the fear that people like you would label them as worthless writers of fan-fiction trying to ride on someone else's coattails. They felt some ownership in the story because it was part of their society, rather than just something that somebody wrote down once. It was mutable, not set in stone for all time forever and ever amen. Furthermore, in that time in Greece, most writing was set in the Greek mythos. In contrast, although today most people are minimally conversant about Tolkien (Oh, he did that... umm, lord of the
Sure, you may label him a raving madman if you like. But it hardly seems fair to say that someone trying to do what JRR would have liked for them to do is just trying to make a buck off his work.
BTW, Beowulf, while the only surviving manuscripts are in Old English, is a Scandinavian tale, not a British tale. I don't think that the people who told and retold and eventually wrote down Beowulf even knew who the Britons were.
Nice, but (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Excellent!~ (Score:3, Interesting)
She didn't add anything in way of writing, and he didn't really discuss his mythology with her for the purposes of development, but she did inspire him. In her younger days, she was the inspiration for the character Luthien.
"Luthien" is carved on her tombstone, and "Beren" on his.