New Harper Collins Tolkien site

[Pitchwife]

Just finished watching the video.

Originally Posted by davem

Christopher's comments on the Machine are very interesting - love the 'train' annecdote -(as are his later thoughts on why his father was unable to bring The Silmarillion to completion).

Yep, that anecdote was very nice - the White Horse and the Railway, isn't that in a way the whole of LotR in nuce? Also the bit about JRRT realizing that we have to live in this world as it is, e.g. his interest for and use of the tape recorder (made me wonder what he'd think of our activities on the Internet nowadays...).
More highlights: definitely the interviews with Shippey and Flieger, esp. Shippey tearing snobbish academic criticism of Tolkien to bits: "You just can't do that" - yay! And Queen Margarete outing herself as a first generation Tolkien fangirl is absolutely charming, with an illustration of the Scouring of the Shire by her that's spot on to how I'd imagined it.
Not to forget, that clip of an interview with JRRT himself where he quotes Simone de Beauvoir, of all people, to illustrate the importance of death as a theme in LotR. Absolutely the first name you'd have associated with him, isn't it? Shows that the range of his mind was much broader than is commonly imagined.
Everybody who hasn't seen that video yet, go watch it!