Christopher Tolkien to finish lost Middle Earth novel

[the guy who be short]

£18.99? Eek. I think I'll wait for a paperback edition, or perhaps get it from the library.

But incredibly welcome news, if there is any unpublished stuff to receive. Though I wonder whether it will render parts of the Silmarillion obsolete. Perhaps future editions will be a lot slimmer.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by the guy who be short

I wonder whether it will render parts of the Silmarillion obsolete.

Hardly. 'Expanded upon', but not obsolete.

[lindil]

Aiwendil thanks for doing the math on the new books contents.

I think CRT may well flesh out some of the more compressed material.
Whether Wanderings makes it as anything other than an appendix is the question.

I would not be suprised.

I really wonder whether this bodes more such treatments?

Also he may take the moment to put in the missing accounts he mentions in XI. I think the trolls in the Nirnaeth scene is one. Underhillo?

As for Silmarillion 'obscolesence'...what could have rendered it less than THE account, than UT and HoME 1-5 and X-XII already did?

[zifnab]

By now...this is old news. I have not read every post on this so far, so, I apologize. He is what I did read (and a bit of some stuff from daveM{Look Dave! I didn't even need to hit the 'reputation' thingy for you!}). Taken from an article on SFcrowsnest linked to CNN.

And I only have one thing to say....1918 !!!!
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[ianintheuk]

For my own amusement and to satisfy a need I have made my own "children of Hurin" which I type set in 11 point times new roman and printed on paper the same size as the published books,

This included all of the "NARN" plus its appendices and the missing bits from the Silmarillion which i wove into one narrative, additionally I added
1. Hurin/Huor's finding of Gondolin
2. the introduction from HoME plus other notes
3. The battle of unnumbered tears
4. the wanderings of Hurin plus the story of his visit to Nargothrond - Doriath and his death


All of this text came to 176 pages ONLY so if the 320pages is right even taking into account a number of pictures indices etc we are still looking at 80-100 new pages of actual text (BEST GUESS)

So perhaps this is a good thing !

[Child of the 7th Age]

There is a fascinating interview with Tolkien's grandson Adam, where he answers questions about the new material. Here.

Adam Tolkien indicates that, while much of the material will be drawn from texts that readers have already seen, CT has added some new parts to the story. When asked if there was any chance of the publication of other revised stories such as the Fall of Gondolin, Adam said that would be harder because there is less material extant. However, he did not totally rule out even that possibility!

It also sounds as if Hurin will be written in a different style than the Silm.

Christopher Tolkien believes there may be many readers who have found the Silmarillion too difficult and distanced in style to be attracted to the story, and who have not wished to make their way through the painstaking editorial content that makes for the main interest of the History of Middle Earth.

Hmm... I wonder if Hurin will read more like LotR. But that would be hard to do....

I still feel that someday in the far distant future the Legendarium will be treated much like the Arthurian corpus with various retellings and interpretations. The excellent ones will rise to the top; those that are poorly told will be forgotten. This sounds like the first tentative step in that direction, albeit within the protecion of the estate. Retellings like this have all kinds of problems in terms of canon. But if the Legendarium is truly modern mythology, isn't that better than having Tolkien's writings ossify? And hasn't the precedent alright been set with the Silm and all the editing and additions that had to be done?

There is also a reference to the possibility of a Hobbit film. Adam is cautious but not innately hostile:

Alejandro Serrano: They say many things about a film (or two) based on The Hobbit. ¿this things are good for the books (many people could read them for the first time if they do a film, as happened with The Lord of the Rings) or they are damaging them?


Adam Tolkien: I would have to say that it will depend on the film!

[Aiwendil]

I wonder whether the "pieces that have never appeared before" are genuine JRRT texts that have not yet been made public or creative writing by Christopher. If it's the former, then I must say I'd prefer a scholarly publication of them.

I also hope that Christopher doesn't attempt to change the style of the Narn to make it more appealing to those that didn't like the Silmarillion.

Anyway, I remain somewhat doubtful about the whole enterprise. I suppose it's hard for me to get excited about the publication of a story which, as far as I'm concerned, has already been published in a satisfactory form. Not that I have anything against a "fan-fictionalized" expansion upon Tolkien's writings (I've dabbled in this approach myself), but I can't see this new publication as something official or authoritative.