Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
Its not Tolkien's work, its a collection of different bits stuck together on a whim to produce a work that Mr Lewis could put his name to in order, one assumes, to associate himself with Tolkien. CT is the authorised editor of his father's work. He has, in turn, authorised others to edit & prepare some works of his father's for publication. The fact that Lewis asked permission of Priscilla rather than Christopher for this work to be published speaks volumes. The idea that simply because a (very average, judging by the one book of Tolkien criticism of his I've read) Tolkien scholar knocks up his own version of of one of Tolkien's stories it should simply be accepted & put out as an 'officially authorised' Tolkien novel is just silly. Anyone who owns a copy of The Sil & UT could knock up their own version of the Tale of Gondolin or any other 'unfinished' work - is the Estate supposed to publish them simply because someone knocked them up on Microsoft Word? You seem to be arguing just that - because Lewis has knocked this thing up it should be published with the blessing of the Estate. Where does it stop?
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"Not Tolkien's work?" How many liberties did this guy take? If it is fundamentally based on the actual text written by Tolkien, with nothing of drastic import added or removed, then it
is Tolkien's work, just not as Tolkien would have published it. Here's an analogy: martial arts legend Bruce Lee wrote a script for a movie called "Game of Death." After he had filmed several scenes (most of them sparring sequences), he was approached by Warner Brothers with the opportunity to star in what would be the crown jewel of his acting career: "Enter the Dragon." He accepted the offer. Once the film was finished, he planned to return to GoD. Sadly, he died of cerebral edema a week before EtD was released. Five years later, Columbia Pictures bought the existing footage of GoD and filmed extra sequences to establish a coherent plot. Oddly, though, the plot had almost nothing to do with Lee's original script, other than some fight scenes and that badass yellow jumpsuit of his.
Anyway, my point is that "Game of Death" was advertised as Bruce Lee's last film, even though the majority of the scenes featuring his character merely depicted a body double. But the fact of the matter is that he
was in the film, even though he didn't plan for it to turn out the way it did. Same case with Lewis. He put together a group of texts by J. R. R. Tolkien, using his own judgment (the quality of which is understandably disputable) to decide on how to go about it. While I'm sure this is not the way Tolkien would have published the Tale of Gondolin, the fact of the matter is that he
did write it, regardless of how it turned out.
Of course, I'd reserve judgment on the quality of the editing for after I've actually seen it. Unfortunately, unless I win the lottery sometime soon ($4,500?!), I'll probably never get the chance.