Re: The General Tolkien News Thread

[halfwise]

{{Forest: That shot was aimed for Petty or Azriel, just waiting for them to take the bait. }}

[azriel]

Well you can fook right off about bloody JK Rowling !! Parasitic blonde with no rightfully owned ideas of her own ! Arrrrrgggghhh !

[halfwise]

The measure of a writer isn't in the ideas they steal (Shakespeare never wrote an original plot) but in how the author mixes and transforms them (Tolkien credits both Beowulf and the Ring of the Nibelung for his depictions of Smaug, and the list of other literary inventions he borrowed are legion). I really see no difference between Rowling and Tolkien in this regard.

But the key is mixing and transforming. For Sword of Shannara Terry Brooks stole plot and characters with only a thin veneer separating them from Lord of the Rings. That is worthy of contempt. Rowling melded the British schoolboy genera with fantasy, and did it well enough to reverse the trend of literacy among children. It wasn't stealing, it was artistic transformation.

[azriel]

yeah you keep telling yourself that ( ) I still say Rowlings pinched ideas to close to the bone & I don't fooking like it. I agree that nothing is new in fashion ( or anything else ) but, its as you say, how you blend it. Doesn't matter how much milk you add or don't add or what froth it has or syrups you slip in, a coffee is still a coffee.

[Amarië]

All the dwarves are taken directly from Voluspå, a norse poem. They are all there, listed up, even Gandalf, Gimli and oakenshield is there. Norse dwafs are great smiths and make weapons and fantastic jewellery. It is cut and paste.


http://www.voluspa.org/voluspa6-10.htm
http://www.voluspa.org/voluspa11-15.htm

Ok, Balin isn't there, but I see Blain.

[Amarië]

... This doesn't mean you have to like JK. But it is interesting to see.

[halfwise]

Yep, agree nobody has to like JKR; but the argument that she's a bad writer because she borrows ideas is absolutely vacuous.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Its not that she borrows, every writer borrows, its how she does it that's cheap and blatant, I dont find her narratives well constructed or written either. My personal response to trying to read the first book to my little brother when he was about 9 or something was abject boredom.
I entertained myself by playing 'spot which classic children's literature source she's ripping off now!' }}

[Amarië]

The magic of JKR is that it doesn't matter. My 9 year old begs to read just one more page before bed. My 11 year old has started rereading from the start, this time in English, so her brother can catch up.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Maybe 9 year old me would have enjoyed it more, but I was pretty well read for a 9 year old and had already developed my rudimentary crabbit! so probably not. }}

[azriel]

The idea of a wizard at an enchanting Wizard school that is a magical castle of a place sounds so cosy, warm & unable to tear yourself away...….then you nitpick….then I frown......I get cheesed off & feel sad that it wasn't quite the story I wanted. But that's just me. Thousands have read HP, thousands will. I haven't joined the ranks. Ive only watched the films. For me once is enough. Thanks to the films I cannot read the books. I wish sometimes I wasn't so critical.....

[Amarië]

Yeah, that I understand. When you start to see the flaws then it can't be unseen.

[malickfan]

Two upcoming books that look interesting:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tolkiens-Library-Annotated-Oronzo-Cilli/dp/1911143905/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tolkiens-Worlds-inspired-writers-imagination/dp/0711241279/

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well this is news, but of the grim and dark and unfortunate sort.

'More than 130 allegations of abuse were made against 78 individuals associated with Birmingham's Catholic Church....Father John Tolkien - son of novelist JRR Tolkien - was said to have admitted abusing boys in Sparkhill, Birmingham, in the 1950s.
The archdiocese was apparently aware of the alleged abuse but did not report it until decades later.
At the time, the Crown Prosecution Service said Father Tolkien was too ill to be charged, and he died later that year.
asked if he had suppressed a note which suggested Father Tolkien admitted an allegation of abuse in 1968 and was sent for treatment.
The note was made by Archbishop of Birmingham Maurice Couve de Murville as part of a 1993 investigation but no action was taken either in 1968 or in 1993.
This "lack of action by the Church meant that abusers were free to continue committing acts of child sexual abuse," the inquiry found.' -BBC News


Grim reading. }}

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Every year in Scotland we have a Tree of the Year competition, something I and I think Tolkien would approve of.
Anyhow this years winner is a lone elm tree, whose lonliness and isolation in Glen Affic has saved it from the ravages of dutch elm disease, and instead it has floursihed. No one knows how old it is, but its thought to be hundreds of years and to be the last of what once a great forest.
It also has a knot on it that in a certain light looks a bit like a face.

For these reasons the tree is known as the 'The Last "Ent" of Affric'. }}

[halfwise]

Err, I thought his house was smaller and shabbier than this.  I'd think his house after he wrote the  Hobbit would be spacious perhaps.

https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/j-r-r-tolkiens-england-201800687.html

Totally conflicts with this one (which looks more correct) from 2004:

https://www.culture24.org.uk/history-and-heritage/literary-history/art24974

[azriel]

I thought his home would stay old fashioned & frozen in time, with 1930's furniture & old cotton tea towels. But, new people bring new ideas & laminate flooring, daft to think it would be any other way I spose.

[malickfan]

There's an illustrated edition of Unfinished Tales listed on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unfinished-Tales-J-R-Tolkien/dp/0008387966/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2DBOZX58F5UYD&keywords=tolkien&qid=1583187028&s=books&sprefix=tol%2Caps%2C181&sr=1-1

Alan Lee and John Howe will be well known to us all for their work as concept artists on the film (and Lee has illustrated The Hobbit, LOTR, Beren and Luthien, Gondolin and The Children Of Hurin books as well), and Ted Nasmith did the artwork for a illustrated edition of The Silmarillion in 2004 (and various Tolkien themed calendars, paintings etc-he was also approached to be a concept artist on the LOTR films but was busy with other commitments), they are all talented artists in their own right, with three very distinct styles, assuming this listing is correct it will be interesting to see how these styles mesh when seen together in one volume (though given the contradictory and fragmentary nature of the writings in Unfinished Tales arguably this is fitting).

What next a illustrated Book Of Lost tales?


(IIRC Ted Nasmith confirmed that he was actually originally approached to illustrate Unfinished Tales some years back, shortly after the illustrated Silmarillion was released, for whatever reason that project fell through and the idea was scrapped at the time).

[halfwise]

Their peek inside version doesn't have anything except one of Tolkien's illustrations that's already well known.

[Elthir]

The yahoo photos showeth Tolkien's back yard . . . although you prolly knew that already.

That said, referring to even my photos of the front from 2010, the back of the house itself seems larger.

[malickfan]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Letters-Father-Christmas-Centenary-Tolkien/dp/0008406847/

I'm rather fond of the Father Christmas Letters, probably won't be able to justify buying this new edition, but it's always nice to see Tolkien's more obscure writings get this treatment.

Love his painting of Father Christmas:

http://tolkiengateway.net/w/images/c/c2/J.R.R._Tolkien_-_From_Father_Christmas%2C_Me.jpg

[azriel]

I like that picture also Its so personal that book. I can feel Tolkien sitting by the bed reading that to his son at bedtime. And if his voice was as I heard it in interviews what a nice way to nod off

[malickfan]

The first 50 issues of Vinyar Tengwar are now available for purchase on Amazon through print on demand:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AThe+Elvish+Linguistic+Fellowship&s=relevancerank&text=The+Elvish+Linguistic+Fellowship&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1


http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Vinyar_Tengwar

https://www.elvish.org/VT/shop.html

Quite a bargain at those prices

...That's assuming anyone here (perhaps Eldy if she has already read these) is interested in the linguistic side of Tolkien's writing...it's not an area of his writing I have much knowledge or interest in (well, right now anyway), but at those prices and on a print on demand service hopefully it will now read a wider audience...

[Eldy]

The folks behind Vinyar Tengwar do great work, though it's frequently impenetrable without a scholarly understanding of linguistics, which I don't have. But much of what they publish contains information relevant to other branches of Tolkien studies. I bought a bundled collection of issues 47–49 (all three parts of "Eldarin Hands, Fingers & Numerals") through their now-defunct Lulu.com storefront, and it was definitely worth the money (not that it was expensive). I'm glad VT remains in print and easily available.

[Elthir]

I have all but issue 50 . . . which I ordered years ago but never received. I imagine that crows almost delivered it . . . but ended up shredding it into a nest before it reached me.

Anyway, all mine are coil bound, but I guess I can change to get issue 50 in hand.