Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I noticed that many people whose opinions on the JRRT books I respect, adopted a nearly subservient position regarding the publishing fraud that is THE CHILDREN OF HURIN. When I saw the tag line offered by the publishers - that it was the first new Tolkien novel in thirty years - I said to myself "self - people who know are going to rip that slogan to shreds because it is a lie. They have had that story on their shelves in other volumes for some time now."

CoH. I bought The Sil in '77 & UT in '81 on the day it was published. Right from the moment I finished the Narn in UT I felt that it should have been published as a stand alone work, rather than as CT had chosen to do - the bulk of the tale in UT but with chunk missed out (the reader is referred back to The Sil to read the missing section.

I, & most other Tolkien fans, knew exactly what we would be getting with CoH, not least because many of us have both The Sil, UT & HoM-e. So, I've read the story before (ok, there are a few very slight differences), but that's not the point. We now have one of Tolkien's greatest tales available in a single volume so that if we want to read it we don't have to pile up 3 or 4 volumes & jump back & forth between them, & without the distraction of constant footnotes & cross references. In other words, we can read it as Tolkien intended - a single coherent narrative. Its also available now to a general readership who simply would never (even many of those who love LotR & TH) have read UT - or even The Sil.

So, CoH is not a rip off in any way - anyone who is enough of a fan of Tolkien to own The Sil & UT (hence, those who already own the Turin Saga) would have known what CoH would contain. For anyone who didn't own those books, CoH has made the Turin saga easily available (& more cheaply than having to buy The Sil, UT & the relevant volumes of HoM-e).

I really do see some people bowing before that altar of Tolkien. Call it some weird type of JRRT political correctness for the literary crowd, but it is alive and well.

I still don't see this - I love Tolkien's work, but I don't 'worship at his altar'. I don't think everything Tolkien wrote was perfect (the 'linguistic' writings go over my head completely & to be honest I find whole chunks of The Sil virtually unreadable - Ainulindale I wade through (for all the beauty of its language) & Valaquenta is a good contender for on the dullest thing I've ever read. My response to the early parts of The Sil has always been the same - a desire to scream at Tolkien 'For ***** sake get on with it!!' Most of HoM-e I skip because its made up of multiple versions of the same story. However, I love LotR, TH, Smith, & most of The Sil writings with an abiding love, & I'd now add CoH to that list.