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Re: The Children of Hurin to be published in 2007

This is pure speculation on my part, but I think they’re going to make a movie of Children of Húrin. Of all the Silmarillion stories, it has the most material and seems to me the one best suited to film adaptation. Besides that, it may be the best story Tolkien ever wrote, in my opinion: as powerful as Oedipus Rex or Hamlet, and in the same league as dramatic literature.

Saul Zantz Company owns the rights to movies (and maybe merchandise) based on Hobbit and Lord of the Rings through Tolkien Enterprises; but I don’t think they own any rights to stuff from Silmarillion. I suppose the Tolkien Estate would hold all the rights to a movie based upon Children of Húrin; and it would really bring home to a lot of people who are only familiar with Lord of the Rings what a tremendous writer Tolkien was.

Besides, how many more books will Christopher Tolkien complete? Myself, I’d like to keep him healthy and productive another decade or two; but he is older now than his father ever was. I think he made a good choice.
 
Re: The Children of Hurin to be published in 2007

I don't think a film will happen during CT's lifetime. He doesn't need the money and he seems to mistrust the film industry totally.

Here's part of an article in Boston.com:

Apologists will say the master of Middle-earth himself had a firm grasp of the realities of the marketplace and enjoyed, as Tolkien put it, "the grosser forms of literary success." After all, he peddled his books' film and merchandising rights and even the drafts of his manuscripts.

But in 1969, when he sold the rights, merchandising was in its infancy. He was paid 10,000 pounds, about $17,000 in US dollars today, a figure dwarfed by today's multimillion dollar payoffs. By then, his books had sold only 3 million copies. To put 2003's juggernaut in perspective, this August, The Two Towers' DVD and videocassette sold a record-breaking 3.5 million units -- on the first day of its release.

Tolkien probably would have been horrified by today's sales and marketing tactics. Yet he, too, was tempted to take his imagined realm to extremes. "I am not now at all sure that the tendency to treat the whole thing as a kind of vast game is really good," Tolkien wrote to his publisher in 1955, "cert. not for me, who find that kind of thing only too fatally attractive."

AS A YOUNG MAN, CHRISTOPHER TOLKIEN read early drafts of The Lord of the Rings, then followed in his father's scholarly footsteps as a lecturer at Oxford. After J.R.R. died in 1973, Christopher edited thousands of unfinished manuscript pages: legends, poems, and languages. Now 79, Christopher remains the ultimate Tolkien archivist and gatekeeper of his father's treasures. As literary executor, he heads the family estate.

But besieged by interview requests, Christopher has sequestered himself somewhere in southern France far from the movie-driven crowds. This solitude reflects his overall attitude toward his father's work: the less PR, the better. According to those close to him, he worries that Rings will be exploited for frivolous reasons. So the Tolkien estate jealously guards the family name as if it were a Ring of Power. Or, at least, to the extent that it legally can. Since J.R.R. sold the subsidiary rights to The Hobbit and Rings, Christopher is powerless against the big-screen adaptation and the merchandising. So the estate fights back through access to the archives, granting of reprint rights, and court battles over copyright infringement.

Estate approval as an official Tolkien scholar is not easy. The touchy subject of who has access to the mass of unpublished papers -- some at Oxford's Bodleian Library and others at Milwaukee's Marquette University -- has led to infighting. Case in point: the Elvish languages, Quenya and Sindarin, whose grammars and vocabularies Tolkien endlessly revised. Christopher named only four "experts" to dig through the language papers to study them.

"Some people are absolutely offended that they have not been given access to the papers," says Christina Scull, describing the dispute among Tolkien scholars as "almost venomous."

Based in Williamstown, Scull and her partner, Wayne G. Hammond, are old-guard scholars in Christopher's good standing. Their massive, two-volume, 1,600-page reference, The J. R. R. Tolkien Companion and Guide, will be released in early 2004 by Houghton Mifflin. They have also been commissioned by HarperCollins UK to edit the definitive text for Rings's 50th-anniversary editions.

But their efforts come with one catch: The finished product is subject to estate approval. "It's not that that estate tries to suppress things that they don't agree with," says Hammond. "But if the book comes out from Tolkien's official publisher, they want to make sure it's accurate." The estate's attitude has even led to authorized Tolkien projects being delayed. Different doors get opened for different people at different times.

The door to Tolkien's ivory tower was slammed shut on Michael Perry, author and publisher of Seattle-based Inkling Books. Perry wrote a reference work called Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings. The estate accused Perry of plagiarism, asking for $750,000 in damages and that all books be destroyed. An out-of-court settlement reached in May finally allowed him to publish the book.

"Talented authors often feel complimented when others build on what they've written," Perry says. "The family, unable to create anything nearly as brilliant, see [the work] as a precious treasure to be guarded by any and all means." Perry respects copyright law but thinks the prohibition shouldn't be so broad that it "turns fans who want to use that same material into criminals."

Perry hypothesizes that overzealous guardianship explains Christopher Tolkien's distancing from the Rings movie trilogy. In 2001, Christopher issued a statement declaring that the "Tolkien estate would be best advised to avoid any specific association with the films." This dispelled any rumor that director Jackson had received his blessing. But not every member of the Tolkien Company, the board that maintains the relationship between the estate and the outside world, was in agreement. Simon Tolkien, one of J.R.R.'s six grandchildren, expressed interest in cooperating with the filmmakers. For Simon's traitorous views, Christopher removed his son as a trustee.

My several attempts to reach Christopher or interview an estate lawyer were handily deflected. But via telephone I did reach Simon.

"The essential thing was that I crossed my father on a Tolkien issue, and he never looked back," Simon, 44, says from London. "I never saw the films as a threat. I've enjoyed the movies for what they are."

Obviously hurt by his father's rejection, Simon hasn't spoken to him in 4 1/2 years. He's not permitted to discuss the estate. "I do have a relationship with the money, but I can't talk about it. If what you're after is someone who will tell you the estate's attitude toward this and that, I can't. I'm cut off. It's a source of grievance for me."

The Tolkien studies community widely acknowledges Christopher's difficult balancing act: preserving the sanctity of his father's legacy while hopelessly trying to rein in Tolkien's cultural impact. But ultimately, it's the estate's secrecy, protectionism, and reputation policing that may harm the Tolkien name, not the phenomenon's crasser aspects.

By aggressively defending the family brand like a corporate bulldog rather than accepting it as a public artifact, the estate only reinforces the commerciality of the entire enterprise and alienates its most devoted fans. Its holier-than-thou position also seems hypocritical. Though no one will divulge details of their contractual agreement, Tolkien's heirs receive a share of HarperCollins UK's profits on Rings.

Meanwhile, the releasing of J.R.R.'s obscure scribblings as if they were fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls only adds to Tolkien's mystique. I wonder if that's the image Christopher wants to project: his father as prophetlike apparition, speaking intermittently from beyond the grave.

But Simon Tolkien won't comment: "I'm not going to speculate at all on what my father thinks."

A barrister by trade, Simon recently published a courtroom thriller, Final Witness (Random House, 2003). In the book he's currently writing, Simon says, "The main character has murdered his father. And the father may have committed crimes in the past."
 
Ghaaaaaa! Please, please, please let us enjoy the book in peace for just a little while before piling on the noise of movie rights!!
 
The Children of Hurin is published tomorrow, 17th April 2007. I've seen it on Amazon.co.uk for GBP 8.99 +P&P and on Play.com for GBP 10.99 post free. It's USD 15.60 on Amazon.com.
 
Predictably, the literati have started sniping. Listen to Mark Lawson and A.S.Byatt on 'Front Row' on BBC Radio 4 here... http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/radio4_aod.shtml?radio4/frontrow

It is slightly depressing that they chose someone who clearly wasn't going to like the book. Although AS Byatt loves Lord of the Rings, she doesn't like the style of the Sil, and other things dealing with the Elder Days. Mark Lawson is antipathetic to the whole of JRRT's work. Not the basis for a great discussion. Although AS Byatt's comments are of some interest, it would have been good to have someone to say why the whole legendarium is loved.

We have but a short wait to judge for ourselves how well the job of compiling and editting has been done. I know I am a fan of the story from the various fragments we've seen before, and I hope this will do it justice.
 
Tolkien has always been the English literati's favourite target. I mean, thinking back to the slagging Tolkien got way back when LoTR won the prize as The Nation's Favourite Book, or whatever it was called, outrageous really. An insult to the nation. 'This is your favourite book? We spit on it!'

Meh... I was reading some Alexander Pope the other day, he was on his own rant about the blindness of critics, three hundred years and the same old nonsense, you would think they would have died out long ago... and those bastards killed Keats... Um... according to sources anyway.

I know enough about literature to know that Tolkien is not the greatest writer, far from it, but by the same measure, I know enough to realize that Tolkien's legacy is unique, over fifty years honing the same story? It's almost Homeric. As my nephew is want to say. Give the devil his broth.
 
Define 'greatest'! Why is the Booker prize winner often the most purchased but least read book on home bookshelves? I think that many critics have forgotten what fiction is for. Tolkien's books have been criticised for poor structure, but what sort of saddo reads a novel looking for the framework instead of the story? The Lord of the Rings is the only book I have ever read that made me cry on reading and re-reading. Its power cannot be measured in whatever boxes it has to tick for the literary illuminati to be happy; there's something transcendent in it. I am hoping that Christopher Tolkien can find that extra factor in his editing of The Children of Hurin; and if he does, I will add my Amazon review and comment on the BBC website feedback fora etc., to add my bit to balance out the acid pens of those bitter critics whose literary works I have never heard of.

BTW Snaga, I couldn't get your link to work.
 
I have just ordered this book.
If no-one has started a review thread by the time I've read it, I will.
 
It's far beyond my means to describe the 'greatest' word, I'm not critising Tolkien at all, obviously I have similar feelings about LoTR myself. I was having a similar discussion with a friend of mine about the Booker Prize, it was about the Richard and Judy Bookclub actually, but the Booker came up. I was remarking on the fact that well over 50% of the books I've read over the last six month had the Richard and Judy bookclub on them, and he was telling me that more books are sold on the back of this recommendation than on the back of those short listed for Bookers. Which if true, is kind of cool.
 
Eledhwen said:
BTW Snaga, I couldn't get your link to work.
Click to expand...
Hmm... that is probably because of how Radio 4 post their shows. It was Monday's Front Row, which you will be able to find on their website all this week at least. Not sure how long it will be there though.

On whether the critics get it right... clearly they are entitled to their opinions as much as anyone else. I just finished reading the Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, which is an acknowledged classic novel now, and was sensationally popular on its release in the 19th century, but WC was castigated by critics (and fellow authors). His style was considered to be attention-grabbing populism (eg for cliff hangers at the end of chapters), and therefore was condemned by people who felt a plodding narrative was somehow more worthy. Interestingly, they also attacked the novel for being over-plotted, over-thought out and over-structured: quite the reverse of the criticisms made of Lord of the Rings. Clearly there is a fashion element. But I feel sure that there is suspicion amongst critics of anything popular - the literary elite can't be the elite if they like the same things as everyone else! (I am moved to wonder how much of a debt JK Rowling has to Wilkie Collins... probably as much as to Tolkien.)

What were we talking about? Oh yes... CoH... I have seen it, but I will await my birthday gift, and for now I am re-reading the previously published versions. *counts the days to his birthday*
 
http://tolkienestate.com/the-children-of-hurin/

I just wanted to ask if this means that perhaps that a Beren & Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin book are to follow? I can't help making that leap.

Also, given Christopher Tolkien's age, which of his sons is to become literary executor?

Just curious is anyone had any thoughts on that.

I answered my own question. From the FAQ of the same site.


http://tolkienestate.com/faq/p_2/

So, the answer is no.
 
 
Re: The Children of Hurin to be published in 2007

You may be pleased to hear that the Tolkien dynasty looks set to continue. The last paragraph of the preface to The Children of Hurin reads: "I am very grateful to my son Adam Tolkien for his indispensable help in the arrangement and presentation of the material in the Introduction and Appendix, and for easing the book into the (to me) daunting world of electronic transmission."
 
Thanks for that, GuardianRanger. A good article. I'm halfway through the book at the moment (delay caused by daughter's broken leg - I am reduced to the role of gopher ... go fer this and go fer that). It's good to see an article warning potential readers of the heaviness of the story, which the reviewer puts well. I take issue with his description of 'dorky' writing, when the fact is that such descriptions only became dorky because of over-use by weaker fantasy writers.
 
Great article! I never thought of our little community as the "Uruk-hai of Tolkien readers", but it's kind of fitting in a strange way!
 
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