(no subject)

[camwyn]

So apparently the latest posthumous novel from J. R. R. Tolkien is out: The Children of Hurin was advertised in a Barnes and Noble email today. I don't know if it's actually out or if that was a 'come pre-order with us!' message or what, but even as something of a Tolkienista I'm really not interested. Yes, he worked on that part of his legend-lore all his life; yes, he considered it his most significant work, or somewhere close to it. I don't much care. The whole Narn i Hin Hurin in the Silmarillion and the History of Middle-earth volumes was just too depressingly un-original for me to be interested. I could just as easily get the exact same story, minus the orcs and elves and dragon, in the Kalevala. Then it'd at least have interesting cultural elements from a civilization I was interested in. This? This is nothing I haven't read a hundred times before.

No offense to Christopher Tolkien, who I am willing to allow probably put a lot of effort into finishing up his father's final big manuscript, but I'm not buying this one and I'm probably not even getting it from the library. I'm just not interested.