Christopher Tolkien to finish lost Middle Earth novel

[Aiwendil]

Davem wrote:

Of course, I don't see CoH simply as Tolkien sticking two fingers up at Wagner. Turin isn't simply an anti-ubermensch figure - for all his reckless pride he is a sympathetic figure, a human being.

Oh, certainly. As with most of Tolkien’s work, there many layers or shades of meaning in the ‘Narn’. Actually, I think that the Siegfried/Wagner thing is one of the less important thematic threads. But I do think it’s there. It’s as if Tolkien was fashioning a great heroic masterpiece without a thought about ubermenschen, then, by chance, he happens to think of Wagner and says, “Incidentally, this is the true spirit of those old Germanic myths, not that nonsense about supermen.”

[davem]

Aiwendil

Good review here

http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/04/26/MiddleEarth/

In a sense, Tolkien is satirizing medieval heroic romances just as Cervantes did in Don Quixote. But Tolkien finds little to laugh at in his own hero, and much to pity. It is tempting to read The Children of Húrin as one of the first novels of World War I, transposed into a different era but presaging the destruction of a great civilization.....

Tolkien's silence in this novel is even louder. Húrin's children, for all their high birth and prowess, destroy themselves in a brutal war. The best they can offer us, like the House of Atreus and like the ignorant armies of World War I, is a warning against self-deceiving pride.

[Child of the 7th Age]

This isn't surprising but there were copies of Children of Hurin being sold on e-bay today, which Christopher Tolkien and Alan Lee had purportedly signed. One look at the signatures will tell you that they were definitely fake.. There were an even larger number of bogus bookplates "signed" by Lee and Christopher Tolkien offered for purchase (totally separate from any book).

For a rather humorous but sad discussion of these type of forgeries, which seem to be more commonplace every day, see this thread on a collecting website: here. A number of the posters on this forum are book dealers.

The family and estate has to hate this kind of thing.

[davem]

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/artic..._lure_of_hrin/

http://media.wildcat.arizona.edu/med...-2882861.shtml

[davem]

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

This isn't surprising but there were copies of Children of Hurin being sold on e-bay today, which Christopher Tolkien and Alan Lee had purportedly signed. One look at the signatures will tell you that they were definitely fake.. There were an even larger number of bogus bookplates "signed" by Lee and Christopher Tolkien offered for purchase (totally separate from any book).

I think many of us saw this coming. Have to say that I wouldn't trust any of the signed items on ebay at the moment. And much of the fault should be laid at the doors of the publishers & booksellers - of course if you effectively 'dump' 450 signed bookplates in one store, & offer them on a first come first served basis, you're playing into the hands of the con men. People know there are a whole lot of the things out there, but they have no idea of who got them & whether the ones advertised are genuine or not.

I can't for the life of me see why the bookplates weren't numbered for instance, so that it would have been possible to check for duplicates.I wonder how many of these fakes will pass muster & end up being treated as genuine?

[davem]

Old one
http://www.boston.com/news/world/eur...en_or_isnt_it/

What about

As for the movie potential of ``The Children of Húrin," Hollywood is sniffing around, said Brawn. Disney, Warner Brothers, and New Line Cinema have contacted the Tolkien estate, but the estate put them off until after publication.

Hadn't seen this about specific companies, or that the Estate had put them off until after publication' before.....

[davem]

http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/20...f_middlee.html

& http://www.kansas.com/473/story/54975.html

[davem]

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/402/story/27191.html

http://www.valdostadailytimes.com/lo...117001335.html