Lord Voldemoo wrote:I am currently re-reading The Silmarillion in anticipation of reading The Children of Hurin...
I'd forgotten how often I have to flip to the name appendix in the back to keep the farking elves' names straight.
Fingon, Fingolfin, Feanor, Finwe, Fuckingmadness
Nordling wrote:If you can fight through the various names, THE SILMARILLION is a damn good story.
so sorry wrote:Thread, rise from the DEAD!!!
I'm about a third of the way thru the children of hurin, and I feel compelled to revive this thread to see if anyone else has read it.
Got my copy at Christmas, and took me a good month to get started and get past the Intro, which was bogged down in Simarillion-esque names and places and minutia and boredom.
I actually resigned myself to the fact that I would never read it, and it would just look pretty on my bookshelf next to my other Tolkein Tomes. But I cracked it open again about a week ago, and I gotta say I am completely enthralled right now.
It is dark. It is depressing. It is HARSH. So far, nothing good is happening in the world of Middle Earth. Even the Elves are nasty.
The exchange between Hurin and Morgoth was fucking awesome. The illustrations by Alan Lee are beautiful.
Anyway, just curious to see if anyone else out there was into it...
Fievel wrote:I also got a copy for Christmas... got through the intro.... looked in the mirror and realized my eyes were crossed. I haven't touched it in weeks. I really need to.
Your enthusiasm gives me hope.
so sorry wrote:Fievel wrote:I also got a copy for Christmas... got through the intro... looked in the mirror and realized my eyes were crossed. I haven't touched it in weeks. I really need to.
Your enthusiasm gives me hope.
I'm telling you Fievel, that intro is NOT how the chapters are written. I don't know what he (christopher) or the publisher was thinking when they printed that Intro. Its daunting and scary. The chapters are much more reader friendly. One more piece of advice: I find it easier to read when I try not to remember every river/town/kingdom name's origin and bearing on the story. In other words, when I read "so and so from such and such", I don't try and remember where that is on the map of Middle Earth and who he or she is related to (hope that made sense).
And Pacino, you don't need a thesis in Tolkein lore (Simarillion) to enjoy this book.
so sorry wrote:Fievel wrote:I also got a copy for Christmas... got through the intro... looked in the mirror and realized my eyes were crossed. I haven't touched it in weeks. I really need to.
Your enthusiasm gives me hope.
I'm telling you Fievel, that intro is NOT how the chapters are written. I don't know what he (christopher) or the publisher was thinking when they printed that Intro. Its daunting and scary. The chapters are much more reader friendly. One more piece of advice: I find it easier to read when I try not to remember every river/town/kingdom name's origin and bearing on the story. In other words, when I read "so and so from such and such", I don't try and remember where that is on the map of Middle Earth and who he or she is related to (hope that made sense).
And Pacino, you don't need a thesis in Tolkein lore (Simarillion) to enjoy this book.
Lord Voldemoo wrote:so sorry wrote:Fievel wrote:I also got a copy for Christmas... got through the intro... looked in the mirror and realized my eyes were crossed. I haven't touched it in weeks. I really need to.
Your enthusiasm gives me hope.
I'm telling you Fievel, that intro is NOT how the chapters are written. I don't know what he (christopher) or the publisher was thinking when they printed that Intro. Its daunting and scary. The chapters are much more reader friendly. One more piece of advice: I find it easier to read when I try not to remember every river/town/kingdom name's origin and bearing on the story. In other words, when I read "so and so from such and such", I don't try and remember where that is on the map of Middle Earth and who he or she is related to (hope that made sense).
And Pacino, you don't need a thesis in Tolkein lore (Simarillion) to enjoy this book.
SS, I have the book, but haven't read it yet. Obviously it must elaborate quite a bit on the "short version" of the story in The Silmarillion. How repetitive is it of the story there? The reason I haven't read it is that I just re-read the Silmarillion a couple of months ago and I didn't feel like reading the same story twice in a row, if you get my meaning.
so sorry wrote:Lord Voldemoo wrote:so sorry wrote:Fievel wrote:I also got a copy for Christmas... got through the intro... looked in the mirror and realized my eyes were crossed. I haven't touched it in weeks. I really need to.
Your enthusiasm gives me hope.
I'm telling you Fievel, that intro is NOT how the chapters are written. I don't know what he (christopher) or the publisher was thinking when they printed that Intro. Its daunting and scary. The chapters are much more reader friendly. One more piece of advice: I find it easier to read when I try not to remember every river/town/kingdom name's origin and bearing on the story. In other words, when I read "so and so from such and such", I don't try and remember where that is on the map of Middle Earth and who he or she is related to (hope that made sense).
And Pacino, you don't need a thesis in Tolkein lore (Simarillion) to enjoy this book.
SS, I have the book, but haven't read it yet. Obviously it must elaborate quite a bit on the "short version" of the story in The Silmarillion. How repetitive is it of the story there? The reason I haven't read it is that I just re-read the Silmarillion a couple of months ago and I didn't feel like reading the same story twice in a row, if you get my meaning.
I'd have to go back and re-read the Simarillion version to tell you that, but if memory serves me correctly, in that book, there isn't any 'dialogue' or story per se. It read like a textbook, right?
Put it in your rotation Voldy. At the very least, if you're a Tolkein fan, I don't think it'll disappoint.
CAVEAT: like I originally said, I'm only a third of the way thru, so it still had the potential to bomb, but so far so good.
Lady Sheridan wrote:This reminds me, I need to move this book higher on my "to read" queue... I've had it over a year.
Lord Voldemoo wrote:I know I keep looking at it and feeling guilty. I love Tolkien, I re-read at least one of his books like once a year... but for whatever reason I've been having trouble getting motivated. I think it's because i just reread Silmarillion and it's a little... draining.
I'm actually kind of surprised we haven't done it for BotM...
so sorry wrote:I meant to write a nice review of Children on Hurin when I finished it a few weeks ago, but I forgot to... and now I can't remember a lot of what I had in my mind at the time. So... here's a two-bit review (without any specific spoilage):
As I said earlier (and many seemed to agree), I stared at this book for along time before I picked it up. I guess I wasn't overly excited to get started because I figured it was Christopher Tolkein more than JRR writing it. And when I did crack it open and dived into the preface, I was hit with a string of names and places that bored the shit out of me. But I prevailed, and pushed thru it, and decided that I wasn't going to worry about remembering every river name, forest enclave, and Elrond's brother's friend's sister's first cousin on his human-side's name.
Long story short, it was really good. Turin's story is dark and messy. He's really a selfish asshole, but he's got that "its not my fault" thing going for him. And it was refreshing to see elves portrayed as something other than holier-than-thou super-beings. Highlight of the book has to be the exchange between Hurin and Morgoth... a mortal man standing up to the physical embodiment of evil... really well done.
*SPOILER* my biggest criticism is with the last chapter. After Morgoth's curse is fulfilled, and Hurin's children are dead, Morgoth releases him. He travels from captivity to the burial mound of his son and finds his wife there, on her death bed. All in a matter of a few paragraphs. It felt rushed and almost an afterthought, and there was no emotion connected to it. Would have loved to have read about Hurin's feelings on all that transpired (was he wracked with remorse and an overwhelming sense of guilt? Did he think that he made the right decisions? Did he tap that ass before she died?)
Anyway... if you are one of the seemingly many who own this but haven't read it, put it in your rotation. Its a pretty easy read as long as you don't stress about remembering all the names and stuff, and ultimately its worth it. It even made me dust off my copy of the Simarillion so that I could read up on the defeat of Morgoth...
Adam Balm wrote:seppukudkurosawa wrote:Oh, Adam, I just noticed that this would be your second posthumous review so far... What's next on the cards, Epimenides of Knossos' long-thought-lost self-help book, "The Art of Making a Happier & Brighter You"?
You know, actually I think this might prove be the Year of the Dead Guy Books. Not only was there Dick's, but this month I'm reviewing the last Gordon R. Dickson book in the Childe (Dorsai) cycle which is also posthumously completed, then in April Hurin comes out, and then this summer Kevin J Anderson is co-writing the long lost sequel to Slan and finishing up the Dune series.
The Tolkien scholarly community is afire with curiosity and rumours after it emerged that a new Tolkien book is on the horizon. The book, which we understand will be called The Fall of Arthur appears to be set for a May 2013 release going from pre-order information that inadvertently popped up on the website of retailing giant Amazon. It’s possible that it has been edited by Christopher Tolkien, but this is unconfirmed.
The Fall of Arthur is a long, alliterative poem based on Arthurian legends. Some excerpts from it were published in Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of JRR Tolkien. It seems it was written in the 1930s. In Letters of JRR Tolkien there is a bare mention of The Fall of Arthur.
I write alliterative verse with pleasure, though I have published little beyond fragments in The Lord of the Rings, except ‘The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth’… a dramatic dialogue on the nature of the ‘heroic’ and the ‘chivalrous’. I still hope to finish a long poem on The Fall of Arthur in the same measure. Letter 165, Letters of JRR Tolkien.
Lord of the Rings author's previously unseen 200-page poem of Arthurian legend draws on tales of ancient Britain rather than Middle-earth
Alison Flood wrote:It's the story of a dark world, of knights and princesses, swords and sorcery, quests and betrayals, and it's from the pen of JRR Tolkien. But this is not Middle-earth, it's ancient Britain, and this previously unpublished work from the Lord of the Rings author stars not Aragorn, Gandalf and Frodo, but King Arthur.
HarperCollins has announced the acquisition of Tolkien's never-before-published poem The Fall of Arthur, which will be released for the first time next May. Running to more than 200 pages, Tolkien's story was inspired by Geoffrey of Monmouth and Thomas Malory's tales of King Arthur, and is told in narrative verse. Set in the last days of Arthur's reign, the poem sees Tolkien tackling the old king's battle to save his country from Mordred the usurper, opening as Arthur and Gawain go to war.
"It is well known that a prominent strain in my father's poetry was his abiding love for the old 'Northern' alliterative verse," said Tolkien's son, Christopher Tolkien, who has edited the book and provided commentary. "In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight he displayed his skill in his rendering of the alliterative verse of the 14th century into the same metre in modern English. To these is now added his unfinished and unpublished poem The Fall of Arthur."
Tolkien began writing The Fall of Arthur a few years before he wrote The Hobbit. Its publication is the latest in a series of "new" releases from the author, including The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún in 2009 and the unfinished Middle-Earth story The Children of Húrin in 2007.
For the book's editor at HarperCollins, Chris Smith, the news that Tolkien had finished work on The Fall of Arthur was an unexpected surprise. "Though its title had been known from Humphrey Carpenter's Biography and JRR Tolkien's own letters, we never supposed that it would see the light of day," he said.
He described the previously unpublished work as "extraordinary", saying that it "breathes new life into one of our greatest heroes, liberating him from the clutches of Malory's romantic treatment, and revealing Arthur as a complex, all-too human individual who must rise above the greatest of betrayals to liberate his beloved kingdom".
He added that, "though Tolkien's use of alliterative verse will mean the poem is of more specialised interest than his other work, we would like to think that the subject of King Arthur is one that will resonate with readers of his more celebrated works."
"In The Fall of Arthur we find themes of lost identity, betrayal, and sacrifice for greater glory, which have their echoes in other works, such as The Lord of the Rings, but anyone looking for closer connections will find no wizards or magic swords. In this respect The Fall of Arthur is closer to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún."
These are the "new" poem's opening lines:
"Arthur eastward in arms purposed
his war to wage on the wild marches,
over seas sailing to Saxon lands,
from the Roman realm ruin defending.
Thus the tides of time to turn backward
and the heathen to humble, his hope urged him,
that with harrying ships they should hunt no more
on the shining shores and shallow waters
of South Britain, booty seeking."
John Garth, author of Tolkien and the Great War, said that from the fragments he had seen, the omens looked good. "In The Fall of Arthur, Tolkien depicts Arthur going off to fight the Saxons in Mirkwood – not the Mirkwood of Middle-earth, but the great German forests. Whether it's as good as the best by Tolkien will have to wait on the full publication, but snippets published so far are encouraging, showing him in darkly evocative mode writing about one of the great English villains, Mordred: 'His bed was barren; there black phantoms/ of desire unsated and savage fury/ in his brain brooded till bleak morning.'
"Any addition to the Arthurian tradition by a major author is welcome; this one is also exciting because of what it adds to our picture of a great modern imagination."
so sorry wrote:I'll wait for Peter Jackson's 5 part epic 4D 2042fps movie adaptation, coming in 2032-2051.
Christopher Tolkien's Ghost wrote:It sucks!!!
TheButcher wrote:'New' JRR Tolkien epic due out next yearThese are the "new" poem's opening lines:
"Arthur eastward in arms purposed
his war to wage on the wild marches,
over seas sailing to Saxon lands,
from the Roman realm ruin defending.
Thus the tides of time to turn backward
and the heathen to humble, his hope urged him,
that with harrying ships they should hunt no more
on the shining shores and shallow waters
of South Britain, booty seeking."
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