Letters to the Editor
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I can't wait to read this!
I have read the trilogy at least 30 times. I have read The Silmarillion three times. I got up and walked out on the first movie, at the point where Gandalf was made out to be a complete and utter fool, unlike Tolkien's portrayal. I have only seen a few cringe-worthy scenes from the second movie.
(Yes, I understand that many LotR fans love the movies. But I am a Tolkien fan, and the movies were not, in my not-so-humble opinion, faithful to Tolkien's vision.)
Yes, I am quite the Tolkien geek.
This book seems very cool, and I will be on the lookout for it.
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Lore Correction
Jon said up above: 'the result of Morgoth's curse was only to make Turin what he was: i.e. to alter his nature so as to make him not proud, persistent, and bold but headstrong, stubborn, and violent; and to add to this the misfortune of being very unlucky.'
Morgoth's curse upon the childrten of Hurin may have made Turin act in that manner, but the purpose of the curse was always to try & force Hurin into giving up the location of Gondolin.
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So awesome
A couple of things:
1. WRellim, spectacular beatdown. I actually laughed out loud.
2. How could I have not heard about this book until reading this article? This is wonderful, Hurin's and Turin's are engrossing stories, I cannot believe they are getting an entire novel. I'm running out at lunch to try to pick this thing up. The only way I could possibly be more enthused is if a complete story of Beren was forthcoming.
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Tolkien didn't borrow from Wagner...
...so much as he did from Wagner's own medieval source, the Nibelungenlied, with which he had been familiar since boyhood. And the Old Norse Eddas. And the Kalevala. And Beowulf...there is certainly a syncretic element to his work, but some of the themes are common enough in Germanic and Scandinavian literature of the Middle Ages that even "borrow" is a strong word for what he did, unless one also "borrows" oxygen from the air.
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The Fall of Numenor
Interesting reading throughout all of these letters. As a voracious reader of the other books in my youth, I'll be sure to go out and grab this one. The story of Hurin and Turin was, I agree, one of the most gripping and tragic of all of the stories in the Silmarillion, briefly told though it was there. The one that has stayed with me most, though, is the Fall of Numenor, which if memory serves, Tolkien called "Akallabeth." Numenor was the island set off equidistant between Middle Earth and the Undying Lands after the final overthrow of Morgoth, where the race of men reached their highest levels of learning, achievement, and wealth, only to have it all come to nothing and be literally destroyed when they started to fear death (I believe that Tolkien called death the gift of Iluvatar to men) and sought help from Sauron to achieve everlasting life by,...wait for it..., openly revolting against the gods in an amphibious assault on the Undying Lands. Now there's a good plan! Lots of grist for the mill in that little piece of allegory, and the names of the kings of Numenor just rolled off the tongue, especially Tar-Palantir, who tried to heal the growing rift with the immortals, and the very last of the kings, Ar-Pharazon, a.k.a. the "Golden," who led the Numenorean fleet against the West and led to his people's utter destruction. Has anyone heard if there is anything in Tolkien's attic that would give more detail to this story? Sorry if it's already published and I missed it.
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yay!
I was just browsing the appendices to the Ring trilogy last night, thinking that I might read the Silmarillion again since it's been years. I had no idea a "new" book was forthcoming. Looks like a summer of good reading lies ahead. This was a great review, too. Thanks Salon for assigning a writer who seems to have a genuine interest in and knowledge of thinks Tolkien.
Farnsworth - Just out of curiousity, where in the first movie did you think that Gandalf was made out to be a fool? I'm not being argumentative, I simply can't remember that scene.
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George RR Martin...
When I read this, I immediately thought of George RR Martin (A Game of Thrones, Storm of Swords, Feast for Crows, etc.). His work is much more pessimistic in tone, but still follows a similar line of fantasy writing that JRR Tolkien basically pioneered. Outside of LOTR and the George RR Martin line, I pretty much stay as far away as possible from the fantasy novel genre...mainly because I haven't found or heard of anything better than these works (but I'm open to suggestions from any of the real sci-fi novel geeks out there).
I've read that HBO has acquired the rights to put this in a miniseries format, so it'll be interesting to see if that plays out...that's actually the best forum for that kind of story, it's definitely not kidstuff. And yes, I'm sure they'll take liberties with the material in the interest of time like the movies did with LOTR, but I'd rather see it done than not...you LOTR purists out there just need to lighten up a little, there's a whole generation of folks that wouldn't even have heard of LOTR (or Narnia, to be fair to C.S. Lewis) if they didn't put these stories out in film.
I hope they do George RR Martin justice...
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Question on Fall of Numenor
RosindaleLawlor (that's a name Mr. Tolkein would love, one of the Lawlors from Hardbottle) asked: 'Has anyone heard if there is anything in Tolkien's attic that would give more detail to this story? Sorry if it's already published and I missed it.'
A brief recounting of it is told in the Silmarillion. Unfinished Tales also touches upon events that occurred roughly 1500 years before 'the fall' but have some bearing upon later events in Numenor. Some of the Lost Tales stories are earlier/rougher drafts of that tale.
Nothing that I know of which is fleshed out to something approaching LOTR length, though.