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"New" Tolkien Novel Published
April 17, 2007 03:47 PM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
April 17, 2007––The Children of Hurin goes on sale, 34 years after the death of its multimillion-selling author.
30 Second Summary
J.R.R. Tolkien’s 83-year-old son Christopher compiled the new book from unfinished manuscripts left after his father’s death in 1973.
The novel tells a story that will be familiar to Tolkien aficionados. The principal events of The Children of Hurin were recounted in an earlier Tolkien title that appeared in 1977.
That book, The Silmarillion, was the first of several Tolkien manuscripts to be prepared for posthumous publication by his son Christopher, who says he works with a bare minimum of “editorial intervention.”
With its lengthy genealogies and sketched tales, The Silmarillion is a forbidding read for all but the most dedicated fans. In contrast, the new book is a more conventional fantasy novel, expected to win a wide readership.
Christopher Tolkien is not the first son of a famous author to channel his father through an unfinished novel. Ernest Hemingway’s son edited True at First Light, published in 1999. In that instance, most reviewers felt the experiment was not a success.
The novel tells a story that will be familiar to Tolkien aficionados. The principal events of The Children of Hurin were recounted in an earlier Tolkien title that appeared in 1977.
That book, The Silmarillion, was the first of several Tolkien manuscripts to be prepared for posthumous publication by his son Christopher, who says he works with a bare minimum of “editorial intervention.”
With its lengthy genealogies and sketched tales, The Silmarillion is a forbidding read for all but the most dedicated fans. In contrast, the new book is a more conventional fantasy novel, expected to win a wide readership.
Christopher Tolkien is not the first son of a famous author to channel his father through an unfinished novel. Ernest Hemingway’s son edited True at First Light, published in 1999. In that instance, most reviewers felt the experiment was not a success.
Headline
The new book is short compared to The Lord of the Rings, with only about 259 pages of narrative. Christopher Tolkien says he didn’t add any material beyond the occasional link between scenes. “The words, he says, are virtually all his father’s," reports the Times.
Source: The New York Times
Key Players
J.R.R. Tolkien’s son Christopher edited the new novel, and his methods are detailed in an essay written by his son Adam. Christopher worked on his father’s notes “with a minimum of editorial presence, and above all in continuous narrative without gaps or interruption … without distortion or invention.”
Source: Amazon.com
Tolkien didn’t publish his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, until he was over 60. According to critic Jenny Turner, the work he cared about most was The Silmarillion, and he didn’t live to see that published.
Source: The London Review of Books
Opinion
The Library Journal online published the first review of The Children of Hurin: a “woeful tale laced with suicide, incest, and murder” that shouldn’t disappoint Tolkien’s legions of fans. “It’s goooood!”
Source: The Library Journal
“The Children of Hurin will thrill some readers and dismay others, but will surprise almost everyone. If you’re looking for the accessibility, lyrical sweep and above all the optimism of Lord of the Rings, well, you’d better go back and read it again.” So writes Salon.com
Source: Salon.com
London-born fantasy and fiction writer Michael Moorcock, author of over 70 published novels, makes his low regard for Tolkien’s work evident in his essay “Epic Pooh.” Moorcock writes that the prose of epic fantasies, such as Tolkien’s, “is the prose of the nursery-room; it is meant to soothe and console … It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies.”
Source: RevolutionSF
Thomas Shippey taught at Oxford at the same time as Tolkien, and has published two studies of the fantasy author’s works. Shippey considers Tolkien the equal of most acclaimed writers of his time, and identifies the two unique qualities in his novels: the poetry and the “sense of shape.”
Source: Writers' Write
Background
Tolkien was a compulsive reviser of manuscripts, always editing and reworking earlier drafts of his tales to create a coherent history of a fantasy land that spans thousands of years. The first versions of the current novel date to the end of the First World War, though the book was never finished in the author’s lifetime.
Source: The Tolkien Site
“Tolkien created the mythology and history of Middle-earth to serve as the poetic legend he felt his homeland, England, lacked.” National Geographic covers a host of topics inspired by the recent movie adaptations.
Source: National Geographic
Reference Material
Tolkien and C.S. Lewis were the most prominent members of a loose band of writers and friends in Oxford called the Inklings. All of its members were male, British, and Christian, and most of them teachers at or otherwise affiliated with Oxford University. This site carries a bibliography and brief biography for each member of the Inklings.
Source: The Inklings
Related Links
In 1999, Ernest Hemingway’s novel True at First Light was published. His son Patrick oversaw the editorial process, using the sole draft of his father’s book. Reviewer, academic, and novelist Frederick Zackel feels the exercise was of doubtful merit: “One draft of a manuscript is nothing.”
Source: January Magazine
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