Christopher Tolkien to finish lost Middle Earth novel

[Bêthberry]

So what shall I do? Go buy the book and read it, or spend what time I have for leisure listening to all these nattering nabobs of negativism?

One thing that Byatt said was, I think, whistfully telling. In complaining that CoH doesn't give enough development or information about the characters--so that she doesn't care about them--she said that she was absolutely sure that Tolkien's head held that information, that he had fully imagined all the characters. And that she recognizes the wonderful aspect of his thoughts about language change, and that she really quite regretted that this fullness was not brought out in the text, despite the constant changing of sword names etc.

It's as if she recognizes that Tolkien had a genius and regrets that it doesn't come through in this text. So, is she more generous than most of the nay-sayers? I'm not sure. This could simply be that very British way of being backhandedly snarky. Yes, that's it, I think. Now I shall go snooping through her novels trying to decide what nasty sort of character actually speaks with her voice.

Oh, yes, and of course she claims her credentials about northern myths. I recognise the type.

[Sauron the White]

Please allow me to throw a little cold water on this. Given the statements of the last few days, it seems one very big reason for "new book" is the Estate and HC want to reclaim the spotlight that they feel was taken from them with the wild success of the three films. So in order to do that they take a bunch of previously published material and repackage it and call it the first new Tolkien book in thirty years.

Look folks, I am happy to have the story of Turin in one very pretty volume. Its worth the money. But some of the reaction here and on other sites is akin to The Emperors New Clothes. Why is it being ignored that this so-called "new" book is not new at all?

I thought the cynical Sellamillion criticism of the SILMARALLION was absurd. Readers were getting a very substantial book about new tales that they had not previously been privileged to read. But this time - COH - its nothing like that. The recent statements that a prime motivation was to regain the spotlight for the books away from the films just adds to that negative feeling for me.

THIS IS NOT A NEW BOOK. The marketting slogan slogan should be "new sales but no new tales".

[Lalwendë]

Lalaith - I can't answer you that yet as I'm enjoying reading it nice and slowly.

And I believe Adam T will indeed be inheriting his father's role!

Now I've listened to that AS Byatt review with interest as her book Possession is my second favourite; it's a work that has all the required 'literati' features but seems to go a bit beyond that too and satirises the 'establishment'. Plus it's a beautiful story. If you are looking for an evil character she has a fabulously loathsome one in this novel in the form of Mortimer Cropper, the academic who has decamped to an incredibly wealthy US university and is engaged in buying up every last scrap of memorabilia or paperwork relating to the fictional poet Ashe (a thinly disguised fictional Tennyson) and squirreling it away in the archives where only the 'authorised' can ever view it. I think some folk here (not me ) might find the evil displayed by him redolent of their own feelings about the control over the Tolkien archive?

Byatt, like a lot of the literati alas, displays her snobbery in the interview. Slipping in that her mother went to Cambridge and how clever she was as a child by reading her mother's Cambridge texts, even though its irrelevant. Had to laugh at how she saw people re-enacting battles as 'strange' - personally the thought of getting dressed up in 'a nice dress' and going out to 'dinner in a nice restaurant' with one's mother is strange to me. She may have been born in Sheffield but she was born into a life quite, quite far removed from The Full Monty. But anyway...snobbery and inverse snobbery aside...as that's to be expected in a BBC review (unless reviewing something by a young writer when such folk always want to appear as 'street' as is possible with a cut-glass accent *cynic*).

Under all of this there was an interesting counterpoint to Drout's argument that there is too much description in LotR. Byatt's beef with CoH is that there is not enough description, and I'm inclined to agree that what the works after Lord of the Rings are lacking is the long, lingering descriptions that we found there! We are told of long lists of places but have little or no context in which to place them - we are also told of many places and swords with multiple names in LotR but it doesn't seem such a bombardment because of all the lingering descriptions!

Lawson we'll ignore. He's a nice presenter and looks pleasantly unthreatening in his tweed jacket and beard/glasses combo (Viz comic have spoofed him - they do like popping the bubbles of the literati, meh), but he's not a terribly original writer himself I'm afraid. He might pick up on Dyson's supposed gripe "Not another effing elf" but has someone said to him "Not another effing satire about the media"?

[davem]

Detroit Free Press.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...YAK03/70417029

[davem]

BBC report on the launch:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6564953.stm

[Sauron the White]

The signed books at Barnes & Noble in New York sold out within one hour this morning. The first two people got in line at 4 AM and came from Russia. And....


http://cgi.ebay.com/The-Children-of-...QQcmdZViewItem

no surprises here.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Actually, there are two signed books on e-bay now, and I expect there will be others. The second dealer is such a doofus that he has advertised it as being signed by J.R.R. Tolkien himself along with Lee! (Quite a trick if JRRT could do that...)

See here for the second listing: Children of Hurin.

[Mithalwen]

Apparently my copy is waitig for me ..but I couldn't resist a peek in Waterstones ....

Interestingly because I ordered the History of the Hobbit as well I am recommended to buy Mony Pythion Series " on DVD.... maybe it isn't a coincidence that so many DOwners like Python ,,but I winder why Series 2?


To get back on point, Adam Tolkien has translated the books of Lost tales so he seems like the logical choice - he is not just going to be a token Tokien-surnamed media friendly figurehead .....

As for the critics, I don't know if I am even going to bother reading them. I have a degree in literature, I know how criticism works and my love of Tolkien is almost separate from my love of other literature. I am just thrilled that I will have my favourite silmarillion story up together...