For Tolkien fans...

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:58 am

...real ones, not da film junkies

Christopher Tolkien has completed for publication another unfinished novel by his father, J.R.R. Tolkien, due to be released in April of 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_children_of_hurin

happy-happy-joy-joy...

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:09 am

That's good news indeed.

--James

Joseph E. Smith · Post by **Joseph E. Smith** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 7:52 am

I await its release with bated... um... palms.

anniemcu · Post by **anniemcu** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:19 am

Oooooooooooooh!

Thanks for the 'heads up'!

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:34 am

Hmm, I thought the other stuff he finished (at least what I read) sucked. It's been years ago now, but it was half as good as the stuff J.R.R. completed himself, imo. Did I miss something?

Loren

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:39 am

I guess you have to be a real die-hard to really get into his posthumous stuff. A good majority of it is first draft material, and J.R.R. Tolkien was one of those writers who revised the hell out of everything (he even began notes and outlines for a complete rewrite of The Hobbit shortly before he died).
I'm expecting the new book to be very much akin to The Silmarillion.

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:57 am

I would like to be a die-hard fan, but this early stuff was never created with the intent of publishing it, or expanding it to the nth degree, and it shows. As Loren says, its just too difficult to get interested in (for me, at least).

djm

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 9:58 am

Yeah I was hardcore, but the Silmarillion killed it for me. Oh well. You guys enjoy, I'll wait for the reviews.....

Loren

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:23 am

I'll run down the condensed summary for ya when I read it, how's that?

djm · Post by **djm** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 10:40 am

Coles Notes?

djm

Tyler · Post by **Tyler** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:05 am

djm wrote:Coles Notes?

djm

Only if Coles gives me a contract to write it!

(I'd totally forgotten about Coles Notes...Down here Cliff's the fellow who takes the notes...

)

Loren · Post by **Loren** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 11:54 am

Tyler Morris wrote:I'll run down the condensed summary for ya when I read it, how's that?

Pefect, I just love finding ways to get others to do my work for me

Loren

Post by **Nanohedron** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:30 pm

Loren wrote:Yeah I was hardcore, but the Silmarillion killed it for me.

Ditto. The Silmarillion had all the swash-and-buckle of the genealogies in Deuteronomy, I thought. I don't recall that I even finished it.

Coffee · Post by **Coffee** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:48 pm

I tried to read the Silmarillion a few times, but I think the only way I could finish it would be if I were getting tested on it. I don't think J.R.R. ever intended that it be published, but rather kept it as notes upon which to base his far more readable published works. It's also good to keep in mind that he was a linguist by trade rather than a professional author.

AaronMalcomb · Post by **AaronMalcomb** » Thu Nov 16, 2006 12:55 pm

I was pretty hardcore but it did take me a few attempts to make it through the Silmarillion and the same with Unfinished Tales. I've made a couple stabs at Lost Tales but that's the extent of my posthumous Tolkien scholarship. I'm still a fan but have acquired other interests both literary and otherwise. All of the posthumous work is a little hard to read. J.R.R. deftly and methodically folded an immense back-story, as well as an epic story, into the narrative of LotR.

I can see Christopher's editing and publishing his father's work in two ways. One is that from all of the biographical information I've read his father would absolutely hate that so much of his writing is out there unpolished and unrefined. But two is that Christopher is in a way taking on his father's mantle in terms of creating a lost English mythology and expanding the Elvish language.