J.R.R. Tolkien's next book

[nwhyte]

I was tipped off by parrot_knight to the fact that I actually owned one of J.R.R. Tolkien's lesser-known works, which was not published under his own name. He translated it from French, although the French text was itself a translation; apparently his manuscript notes indicate that he was using a dictionary to cross-check vocabulary with the original text (

Comments

[liadnan]

He was always a bit diffident about his involvement with the Jerusalem Bible, for some reason. I'd forgotten it used "Yahweh" to translate the tetragrammaton, which is now once again a nono.

Shame Pauline Baynes is no longer with us, she could have illustrated it.

Have often wondered if he knew Ronald Knox.

Was really surprised to see, when in Foyles the other day, that alongside all the Silmarillion bits and pieces he had actually done a version of the Volsung Saga proper.

[unwholesome_fen]

Is it a "nono"? I thought it was (as ever) more a "yesno" (as in "go not to the elves for advice, for they will answer both yes and no") - i.e. there are many different opinions, and the matter will (and can) never be resolved.

[liadnan]

Sorry, should have been a bit clearer: the use of "Yahweh" or indeed any other reconstruction of what "YHWH" was actually supposed to 'be', as opposed to, as per tradition, replacing it with eg "Lord" is banned at least so far as the Vatican is concerned. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ruling last summer. Which means lots of post-VII hymns are Not On (no great loss so far as I'm concerned but YMMV) and also means it has to come out of the lectionary (and the RC lectionary in England, though not the US, is indeed based on this very translation).

[unwholesome_fen]

Who's running the CDF since uncle Joe got promoted?