Christopher Tolkien to finish lost Middle Earth novel

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

Well, Drout's critique of Tolkien's style is up. http://wormtalk.blogspot.com/2007/04...-style-at.html
Not sure I agree with him actually. I don't think the descriptions of landscape/nature are at all excessive, & am I the only one who actually likes the fox?

What's interesting about this entry by Drout is that his critique does not seem to support his general comment. He wonders if Tolkien could have achieved the same effect with fewer words--and then qualifies that wonder with the wonderfully inane comment from the Emperor in Amadeus. And then he quibbles over a few small points, but largely lauds the cited passages.

There would be two ways to consider the claim about excessive landscape description: the wordiness of particular passages (which he counters here) and the dwelling upon landscape so that it features constantly and continuously in the narrative. I suppose he tries to address this latter point when he compares Tolkien positively to Donaldson, but largely he does not addresss this claim.

So, his point that Tolkien's style is meant to create a mythic feel in modern language isn't, to my mind, drawn out well in this entry.

I really have to say, however, that I laud his efforts to bring Old English to a wider audience, especially with those podcasts. I haven't listened to any yet, but I recognise that setting up such a feature speaks highly to his efforts. Imagine setting up podcasts on the Downs, of passages from Tolkien's created languages.

[Lalwendë]

Drout's missed something - there is a strong tradition in British writing (and Art and Music) to bestow the very earth itself with a personality - Tolkien is following in the footsteps of others, and others would follow him. This is why we are given such lengthy descriptions of place, to establish Middle-earth itself as the primary character in this work, and it is the protagonist more than any single character is. Tolkien's works on Middle-earth are ensemble pieces in terms of 'human' characters, but the one constant that everyone fights so hard to dominate, control or save is the land itself. On many occasions it also heaves itself and reasserts its dominance (the sinking of Numenor, the storm on Caradhras, the fog on the Barrow Downs etc).

If you want to find other living landscapes look to Wordsworth, the Brontes, Thomas Hardy, Ted Hughes, Vaughan Williams, Turner, Constable, Goldsworthy...and if you want to read more about this look to Peter Ackroyd's Albion.

Remove the living landscape from Tolkien's work and you will be left with something very different, and with a very different, even meaningless, drive and purpose for all those who live there.

So Drout's missed a trick there. And not even every critic criticises the extensive writing about the land - Ackroyd acknowledges it for one!

And I can't let Drout's criticism of the 'archaic' language pass - a lot of it is anything but odd to me, as I'm used to people who often use 'archaic' English; growing up in Lancashire and living in Yorkshire you hear a lot of 'theeing' and 'thouing' every day, plus some very odd words. I knew right away what Attercops were. Thrawn is not far away from Thrawp. As someone points out in his blog, not everyone speaks the same 'brand' of English.

[Bêthberry]

I don't think he's really missed it, Lal. He's just been, I think, rather rhetorically clever at handling the complaint about landscape description.

After all, once he identifies the complaint about too much description as merely as matter of too many words--a strawman argument--he quite niftilly undercuts that with the Emperor's silly request. Then Drout compares two passages which for the most part he praises highly and even lauds them as suitable for a Hemingway style. He hoists the modern critics on their own ... um, criterion.

I think the one or two small points about wording which he objects to are really intended similarly in the strawman vein, to show that they can easily be dismissed, so that in the end he is able to claim that it is not easy to dismiss or critique Tolkien's style.

I suppose it must be his habit of lecturing--starting out with a, shall we say, hot air balloon, pumping it up for analysis, only to demonstrate how it can be deflated. A bit of a pedagogical trick I would say. But as I said, it leaves the larger question of the role and place of landscape description unexamined.

I'd agree that Tolkien certainly needs to be read alongside Hardy. I was ever so tickled to discover that 'kine', the Old English plural for cow, was still used in Yorkshire in Bronte's day.

Oh, and, I had always had the sense that 'thrawn', because it can also mean "contrary, peevish, perverse, sullen, unpleasant" as well as "twisted" and "crooked", was doing a little bit of foreshadowing for the ents.

But this, as I say, is likely Drout's habit of getting his students to refute his points, thereby actually defending the opposite of what he initially purports. I suppose I shall have to read more of his blog to say definitely though.

[davem]

On the Reviews section 'From the Publisher'

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Children-Hur...ion/0007246226

Found via Tolkien Gateway. VVV interesting...

And I've just got an email from Amazon that my copy of CoH has been despatched

EDIT:

What are we to make of Adam's comments here:

Alan was commissioned in 1990 to create the
first-ever illustrated edition of The Lord of the Rings to mark Tolkien's
Centenary, and his 50 watercolour paintings were to prove more influential
than anyone could possibly have imagined, as Alan then spent five years in
New Zealand working as conceptual designer with John Howe for the Peter
Jackson trilogy.

&

(It might be compared to a sort of literary
Director's Cut, the long version of the story assembled from all the best
footage available, though my father probably wouldn't welcome the
filmmaking comparison!)

Obviously the family are at war again over the movies

[Lalwendë]

Mine's been despatched too!

Bb - don't you think there are enough strawman type arguments though? I get a bit fed up with defending Tolkien myself! And no doubt people like Drout do too! I'm finding myself reading these reviews of CofH expecting to read the usual unpleasantness and the usual accusations and make the usual defences. The existence of critics like Ackroyd who can mention and use Tolkien as an example without feeling any need to make a snide aside suggests that there are some critics outside the Shippey/Flieger specialist academics who can accept Tolkien as a part of culture and give him some respect!

Liking that Adam Tolkien quote about his father and the films - very tongue in cheek about all the folk who amp up the rumours about family rifts over the films Maybe they'll be quiet now?

[Sauron the White]

I would like to be able to take the two film references from Adam Tolkien as a very positive sign. It appears that Adam may well be in the same place Christopher was three decades ago. The fact that he cites Lees work with Jackson by name is positive. The fact that he makes a joke about his fathers feelings for film also shows some very welcome openness.

[davem]

Just seen on the Tolkien.co.uk forum that the words of CT quoted on Adam Tolkien's statement is from the Preface of CoH - & the guy who posted it is the translator of the Croation edition.

EDIT

I found CT's words interesting:

`It is undeniable that there are a very great many readers of The Lord of
the Rings for whom the legends of the Elder Days (as previously published
in varying forms in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and The History of
Middle-earth) are altogether unknown, unless by their repute as strange and
inaccessible in mode and manner. For this reason it has seemed to me for a
long time that there was a good case for presenting my father's long
version of the legend of the Children of Húrin as an independent work,
between its own covers, with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all
in continuous narrative without gaps or interruptions, if this could be
done without distortion or invention, despite the unfinished state in which
he left some parts of it.

& Adam's unambiguous statement:

The words are one hundred percent J.R.R. Tolkien's,

Its clear that CT is aware that the postumous works he has so far given to the public have a reputation for being 'strange & innaccessible'. Can we take this to imply that CT feels he has not achieved what he set out to do - make his father's great work (The Sil) accessible to the general reader - & especially to many of those who Love LotR & TH? Is this, perhaps, the real reason that he has prepared CoH for the public - he wanted the general reader to have a glimpse of his father's work outside of LotR & TH that is 'accessible'?

Or am I reading too much into CT's statement?

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Mine's been despatched too!

Liking that Adam Tolkien quote about his father and the films - very tongue in cheek about all the folk who amp up the rumours about family rifts over the films Maybe they'll be quiet now?

Gah sinceI have ot work on Tuesday and can't go up to Lunnon.... your saying htat the book has been dispatched has incited me to visit Amazon ..and spend the money saved on the deluxe edition on pre-ordering Mr Baggins and "investing" in the hardback 20th anniversary editionof UT - which I love.. and could I wait for Mr Baggins? No of course not ..so I have 3 lots of delivery charges.....

[davem]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

Gah sinceI have ot work on Tuesday and can't go up to Lunnon.... your saying htat the book has been dispatched has incited me to visit Amazon ..and spend the money saved on the deluxe edition on pre-ordering Mr Baggins and "investing" in the hardback 20th anniversary editionof UT - which I love.. and could I wait for Mr Baggins? No of course not ..so I have 3 lots of delivery charges.....

The '20th Anniversary edition' is very nice - good quality & matching the recent LotR 50th & Sil hardbacks (as well as the new 70th anniversary Hobbit with fold out maps & such. Only irritating thing is that they insist on calling it the 20th anniversary edition when its actually the 26th anniversary. (I bought UT on the day it was published in 1980 & this one came out last year).

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Bb - don't you think there are enough strawman type arguments though?

I would have thought that such a dedicated and public scholar of Tolkien could have presented a more powerful defense against the charge of wordiness, excessive description, dependence upon landscape. Bringing in Hemingway rather defeats his earlier claim about presenting a mythological style. However, one can still have high hopes for the entry on heroic speeches.

What I am curious to know is whether CoH will have the style of The Silm, of LotR, or of its own unique style.

Also, I am not satisfied with the pitifully small number of avatars. I would hope that more will become available, especially of Nienor.