Re: The General Tolkien News Thread

[azriel]

I just Googled Tolkien named roads etc & I found this  
"At least 65 families can tell they live in a street named after the famous author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In Eastbourne, East Sussex in England, a street was named after Tolkien and is known as Tolkien Road. One would expect many streets and little parks to be named after Tolkien, especially in the United Kingdom where it was some sort of a tradition to name new streets after their local heroes.

The practice has fallen from favour in recent decades but it seems that slowly the idea is being taken up again. Already a road and a swimming centre have been named after Rebecca Adlington, the 19-year-old swimmer who won two Olympic gold medals in Beijing."
Ive been living here long enough to know this   Durrrrrrrrrr

[bungobaggins]

I'd want to live on Gandalf Street.

[azriel]

Id have Elendil  

[Pettytyrant101]

 

[azriel]

Dont look like that Petty   I only meant the name, as for Bungo ? he can talk himself out of that corner  

[Pettytyrant101]

Well after all the Aragorn drooling, sorry I mean comments, I thought perhaps you were planning on working your way back through the family line!   

[azriel]

Now there's a thought !  
As they say, snow on the roof, fire in the grate !  

[Pettytyrant101]

What happens if you lose your roof? (not that I'm worried, not like its getting a bit thin up there, well not so much thin as, absent   )

[azriel]

IL just have to improvise Petty,    

[bungobaggins]

[RA]

  What?   

[azriel]

Petty's losing his hair   

[Bluebottle]

Tearing it out while doing his edits more like.   

[azriel]

probably Blue  

[Pettytyrant101]

I wouldn't mind if I lost it uniformly, but no, it has go on the top and seemingly grow thicker at the sides than ever before!   
And it being very red this can be somewhat of a sight (especially in the mornings, when I see mornings).

So if you ever meet me in person the first impression I am likely to give off is that of a very angry clown.

The second impression is of a very drunk, angry clown.

[Eldorion]

I remember seeing the video of that when it happened.  It looks really cool but I'm glad no one was inside.

[bungobaggins]

I remembered the day it happened. Big news in the North Star state.

[chris63]

Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary
J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $28 (448p) ISBN 978-0-544-44278-8
More than a decade before writing The Hobbit, Tolkien completed his translation from the Old English of this epic poem, whose influence on his Lord of the Rings Trilogy is well known. Tolkien continued to refine the phrasing even after 1926, but this rendition—edited by his son Christopher and published for the first time—will delight fans. Tolkien conveys both the pageantry of the fifth-century Danish court and the physicality of the battle between Geat hero Beowulf and man-eating monster Grendel. His alliterative phrasing—“biting the bone-joints...great gobbets gorging down,” “a dragon, even he who on the high heath watched his hoard”—finds some of the same poetry in the archaic prose as Seamus Heaney’s celebrated 2000 translation. In Beowulf’s fight to the death with a gold-hoarding dragon, readers familiar with Tolkien’s fiction will see a precursor of his dragon nemesis Smaug. Editor Tolkien includes lengthy commentary extracted from his father’s lectures at Oxford University, as well as “Sellic Spell,” a previously unpublished fantasy that imagines Beowulf’s biographical backstory, and “The Lay of Beowulf,” two versions of a poem on the epic’s theme. Scholars will no doubt continue to debate Tolkien’s interpretation, but lovers of Tolkien’s work will agree that this is a book long overdue. (May 22)

[Elthir]

The soonic publication of Beowulf made me get around to The Fall of Arthur finally. Finished it. Liked it. Poetry plus Tolkien plus Arthur! Yeah.

Ready for the Bee-wolf now!

[halfwise]

My copy arrives sometime in the next two weeks.    

[malickfan]

My copy arrives on Thursday (hopefully). That gives me a day to read 'Monsters and The Critics'...

The first reviews are up:

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2014/05/j_r_r_tolkien_s_beowulf_translation_reviewed.html


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/10835740/Beowulf-translated-by-JRR-Tolkien-review.html

[halfwise]

The first reviewer was quite delightful (as is her picture. I shall endeavor to marry her.) Both reviewers prefer the Seamus Heaney translation; might be interesting to pick up for comparison. I have others, all seem to have strengths and weaknesses.

[malickfan]

I have to confess I know next to nothing about Beowulf   so I'm not entirely sure whether I should have bothered pre ordering it...

Considering this was never intended to be published I'm not expecting much in terms of a landmark translation, I am expecting it to be interesting...

[halfwise]

I think the Heaney translation is perhaps a better read, but it's not Tolkien, and it doesn't have Tolkien's notes. I think the notes are worth a lot.

Dratted Katy Waldman (first reviewer) doesn't have contact information. I am NOT joiner twitter to get her attention.    I may have to write a slate article.

[halfwise]

My book has arrived!   ....right before I head out for a camping holiday. I'll not risk it in the upcoming weather.

But the notes are almost 3 times as long as the translation! Should be interesting. Christopher said this was the reason for the delay, how to organize constantly shifting thoughts - it wasn't as easy as just publishing Tolkien's translation. He did the translation early on, and his thoughts kept shifting ever since.

Clearly getting all the Middle Earth done first was the main priority. I can see now why the translation wasn't allowed to be published by others, they would not have taken the time to get the notes right.

Anyway, I'll start reading it, as will malick, and I think we should start a new thread on our thoughts.