Beating a dead warg....
I saw over on BBC that a new Tolkein book is going to be released in April. His son has apparently put together a bunch of JRR's old notes and first drafts to create The Children of Hurin.
My take on this is simple: if JRR had wanted the book to be published, he probably would have done it. Hell, he started the story in 1918 and then abandoned it. That says something to me. It says, "Good background material, but not book material."
I like to imagine Christopher Tolkein as a devoted son who wants to make sure his father's words get out to his adoring fans, but I'm beginning to wonder if the next project he puts out is a compilation of his father's old grocery lists.
I'm in no rush to get this book. In fact, I reckon it'll probably never decorate my bookshelves.
Why? I realize I'm committing Fantasy Apostasy here, but.... I liked the movies better. Plus, I don't think Tolkein was all that good a writer. He had a great world, yes, and Big Ideas - good ones, even - but to get to them you had to slog through page after page of overwritten prose and some of the most gawdawful poetry I've heard since college. And Tom Bombadil stopped me half a dozen times when I was a kid. I got to that point and thought, "Who's he trying to kid?" and went back to Watership Down. I know a whole bunch of people have the whole, "I read Lord of the Rings when I was ten and it just changed my life" experience, but somehow that just passed me by. Maybe at that age I was already too cynical to enjoy it. Reading William Sleator would do that to a kid....
Anyway, my incontestable Exhibit A in why the movies are better than the books: Boromir. In the books, I couldn't wait for him to die. He was a whiny jerk who thought he was the only guy who knew anything just because he was the only full-blooded human in the group. When he finally kicked it, I breathed a sigh of relief. Hell, I liked Faramir better and he's only supposed to be Boromir's less interesting little brother..
But in the movies, he was actually A Character. He was someone I understood and with whom I could empathize. And when he died, I got all choked up. I liked him even better as the series went on, especially in the scenes restored to the extended editions. Here was a guy who was the hope of his people, their greatest hero. Not nearly the bastard his father was, he probably could have been one of the greatest Stewards that Gondor had ever had. Then this raggedy Ranger shows up with his oh-so-fancy broken sword and his Hobbits and their stupid ring and he's supposed to just go quietly? I don't think so....
So, Peter Jackson and his team took a character I despised in the books and made me love him in the movie. That's it, end of argument.
Gollum was awesome in every incarnation, however, and that includes the crappy animated LotR.
Now. If this doesn't get more angry commentary than the Bill Hicks post, I'm going to be surprised....
My take on this is simple: if JRR had wanted the book to be published, he probably would have done it. Hell, he started the story in 1918 and then abandoned it. That says something to me. It says, "Good background material, but not book material."
I like to imagine Christopher Tolkein as a devoted son who wants to make sure his father's words get out to his adoring fans, but I'm beginning to wonder if the next project he puts out is a compilation of his father's old grocery lists.
I'm in no rush to get this book. In fact, I reckon it'll probably never decorate my bookshelves.
Why? I realize I'm committing Fantasy Apostasy here, but.... I liked the movies better. Plus, I don't think Tolkein was all that good a writer. He had a great world, yes, and Big Ideas - good ones, even - but to get to them you had to slog through page after page of overwritten prose and some of the most gawdawful poetry I've heard since college. And Tom Bombadil stopped me half a dozen times when I was a kid. I got to that point and thought, "Who's he trying to kid?" and went back to Watership Down. I know a whole bunch of people have the whole, "I read Lord of the Rings when I was ten and it just changed my life" experience, but somehow that just passed me by. Maybe at that age I was already too cynical to enjoy it. Reading William Sleator would do that to a kid....
Anyway, my incontestable Exhibit A in why the movies are better than the books: Boromir. In the books, I couldn't wait for him to die. He was a whiny jerk who thought he was the only guy who knew anything just because he was the only full-blooded human in the group. When he finally kicked it, I breathed a sigh of relief. Hell, I liked Faramir better and he's only supposed to be Boromir's less interesting little brother..
But in the movies, he was actually A Character. He was someone I understood and with whom I could empathize. And when he died, I got all choked up. I liked him even better as the series went on, especially in the scenes restored to the extended editions. Here was a guy who was the hope of his people, their greatest hero. Not nearly the bastard his father was, he probably could have been one of the greatest Stewards that Gondor had ever had. Then this raggedy Ranger shows up with his oh-so-fancy broken sword and his Hobbits and their stupid ring and he's supposed to just go quietly? I don't think so....
So, Peter Jackson and his team took a character I despised in the books and made me love him in the movie. That's it, end of argument.
Gollum was awesome in every incarnation, however, and that includes the crappy animated LotR.
Now. If this doesn't get more angry commentary than the Bill Hicks post, I'm going to be surprised....