My Weekly Book

Here I am, trying to come to grips with Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales, and what do I read on the World Wide Internets but the following (courtesy of BBC News):

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‘New’ Tolkien novel goes on sale

…Christopher Tolkien previously edited another of his father’s unfinished works, The Silmarillion, in 1977. This outlines the mythology of Middle-earth and includes individual tales, including that of The Children of Hurin.

“After a long study of the manuscripts, I tried to build a coherent narrative without editorial invention,” Christopher said of the latest work.

[...]

He said: “It is definitely a tragic tale. I don’t know what people will make of it.

“It takes place in a part of Middle-earth that doesn’t exist any more when Lord of the Rings takes place but it is very much Middle-earth, it is very much the same world but it is a more serious tale.”

He added: “It’s a beautiful tale in itself but it may not strike a chord because people feel there aren’t enough hobbits in it - because there aren’t any.” Read complete article here…

The Silmarillion is, I understand, famous for being rather a demanding read and also light on hobbits, heroics and horse-riding heroines of all varieties, thus coming as something of a shock to anyone approaching Tolkien via the mediation of Peter Jackson.

Neither is Unfinished Tales proving to be something you knock off in a week of train journeys. I am at present deeply bogged down in Christopher Tolkien’s scholarly introduction and hoping for some narrative light to emerge at the end of the tunnel soon. Trying to come to terms with this end of the Tolkien oeuvre, I am of course delighted by this latest announcement…

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 4:07 pm and is filed under 2007 news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.