Children of Hurin Discussion Thread

[Beren]

I hate to admit it, but I have just started reading the book myself. I'm certainly not expecting it to be better than LOTR or The Hobbit , but hopefully it will at least be on par with The Silmarillion.

I like CoH, my beef with it was I was expecting/hoping CT would fill in the gaps that JRRT left, and nothing of the sort. Instead there is LESS. The chapters on Hurin's wanderings after being freed from Morgoth were to me amazing. CT didn't include those. That story abruptly ends and I would have loved for CT to pick that up. But in the end, I guess CT isn't a writer whatsoever but a keeper and archiver of the most dry sort of his father's work. Just try to slug through the 12 volumes of History of Middle-Earth. I did, and it took two years. The gems within those 5000 or so pages were few and far between.

The book is pretty much a summation of parts of the story that have been already published decades ago. The parts where I thought "cool, even a page here and there that is new, I likee." But I go back to Unfinished Tales, and there those to me unfamiliar pages were.

Good book, but I expected/wanted more than a basic republishing. And the marketing machine is SO fake, I read somewhere that CT worked 30 years on publishing this story, quite the screwing of facts...

Beren

 

[Seretur]

Way to be negative.

How is the tale of the Wanderings of Húrin a part of the tale of the Children of Húrin?

It's rather a separate tale, one that was truly left unfinished. (Although it would have provided the solution of the tale of the Necklace, the main sticking point when it comes to the published Silmarillion.)

And please don't diss CT for never including something he made up in the text of the published CoH. Any fanboy can create fanfic to fill in the missing details. But even if a wold-class writer attempted to do so, it still wouldn't be genuine. CoH is genuine, and the true work CT expended in editing it from leftover fragments is nothing to be sneered at.

And anyway, the point of CoH being published in a separate volume is precisely so that people don't have to slog through editorial volumes like UT and HoME, but just sit down and enjoy the story. Which they never could before, not really.

 

[gideon]

I must join in on the side of the comments made above by Beren. I treasure my signed copy and count it as a treasure. Having said that I think the book is something of a publishing fraud foisted on the public to sell massive quantities of a book which basically has been around for a long time. They promoted this as a new book and it is hardly that. Basically a cut and paste of other material that was available in other mass marketed books.

I must also say that there seems to be a way ofthinking which has crept over the Tolkien intelligensia which reminds me of the tale "The Emperors New Clothes". Nobody connected with serious Tolkien fandom or scholarship dares to say anything about the obvious --- THAT THIS IS NOT A NEW BOOK BY ANY STRETCH OF THE WORD. Everybody can see the Emperor is nude but nobody wants to say anything about it.

 

[Seretur]

More harsh language.

Look, I translated this book based on my work on UT and Silm. I know exactly how much old material was in it, and how much was new. And even though there isn't much new text (as CT had published it very dilligently and carefully beforehand, for those willing to brave scholarly tomes like the UT and HoME), the interrelationship of story material and the fact that this is now one book that can be read by anyone as a tale, not as text, is amazingly important.

I think you're reading more into the initial claims by the Estate that this would somehow be a completely new text that has never seen the light of day. Didn't the title of the story clue you into the fact that this has to be the Narn? And if so, all you could have hoped for was the Narn as we know it, carefully embellished with as much material as belongs in it, if you know anything about the textual history of this work.

I won't enter into a large argument here, though; not with the level of unkindness that shouts "fraud" and "emperor's new clothes" and whatnot. We'll probably never see eye to eye on this matter anyway.

 

[Captain Faramir]

Regardless of the lack of new material or the validity of its place among Tolkien's works, The Children of Hurin is nonetheless a compelling work, and if anything, it will help to add a bit of life into Middle Earth, even if it doesn't add anything particularly novel to the mythos. It's still a lovely, haunting story that will help people understand the depth of Tolkien's stories, and it shows just how powerful his characters and emotions are. The book itself, its monetary value, the various editions, etc., come after the story itself. I enjoyed being able to read it as a singular work, and Tolken had once hoped.

I was really interested in the fact that Saeros was going to be renamed Orgol, which is old English for "pride"--a beautiful (and very typically Tolkien) play on words. Why did not that change happen before this book came out? Tolkien had made that alteration in his own lifetime; why isn't it amended in these later publications of his books? After all it seems to be what Tolkien wanted.

 

[gideon]

Seretur.... you played a role in the publication of this book in your nation and you should be proud of your contribution. That is a wonderful thing that you can always be proud of.

However, your involvement has absolutely nothing to do with the merits of COH as a "new book". I use the term "new book" because that is exactly the term that is used by the Tolkien Estate on their website and by the various publishers in releasing and marketting the book.

It is clearly and factualy NOT A NEW BOOK. Press releases from the Tolkien Estate clearly indicate by their own estimations that at least 85% of COH is exactly as it was previously published in various forms over the last few decades. There is nothing to see or not to see eye to eye about. This is not a matter of opinion, it is not a matter of perspective, it is a matter of fact.

The US publishers alone sold over 500,000 copies of this book within the first month.. They did so by advertising it as a new book. I would call that fraud and gross misrepresentation.

I compared it to THE EMPERORS NEW CLOTHES because that is exactly what comes to mind. On almost every Tolkien website, people are afraid to say the truth and parrot the line about how great it is to have this new book. Instead Tolkien scholars and serious fans seem to be falling over each other to claim what a wonderful thing this "new book" is. When the subject is brought up, it is ignored or dismissed with a waive of the hand. Or like you did, those who bring it up are accused of being negative.

Baloney.

I like having this book. I think it is worth the money to have the story (or most of the story) in one volume. But if it were sold using full disclosure of the truth, its appeal would largely be restricted to Tolkien readers and collectors. Those sales figures would have never been reached. Instead, it would have sold as much as the various volumes of HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH. Perhaps even less since those books already gave us the vast majority of the story and even more.

My complaint is not with the issuing of this book. It is with the marketing merchandising and advertising campaign around it. In point of fact it is not a new book. The Tolkien Estate admits that in their own figures.

Here is what it comes down to: either the book is a new book or it is not. Do we have to get into some arcane verbage of defining what the word NEW means? I know this much: when a book is sold to me as NEW, and I already have other books on the shelf with 85 to 95% of the same story word for word - it clearly is not new. Yes it is a different package. But that does not make it a new book.

I love the works of Professor Tolkien. I have all the various books relating to Middle-earth. I proudly display first editions of both the HOBBIT and all three volumes of LOTR and the subsequent books. I even have an original autograph of JRRT that I prize very highly. I have read the books many times and love them.

But all than changes nothing regarding the fact that a book which has 85% or more previously published content is not by any stretch a new book. And that is how it was advertised by both the Tolkien Estate and its publishers.
And that was wrong.

 

[crazytrain]

But if it were sold using full disclosure of the truth, its appeal would largely be restricted to Tolkien readers and collectors. Those sales figures would have never been reached. Instead, it would have sold as much as the various volumes of HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH. Perhaps even less since those books already gave us the vast majority of the story and even more.

Sorry, I have to disagree with your argument here. Firstly, I haven't read HOME and I really struggled with Sil so I still haven't decided whether to get CoH yet. Having read and enjoyed the Hobbit as a child, I read LotR and was blown away by undoubtedly my favourite book (and films) of all time, then I decided to read the Silmarillion and to be honest it took me three attempts and I still didn't "enjoy" it much at all. I suspect that there are many other LotR fans out there with similar experiences. To those that have read HOME, all I can say is "congratulations", but history was never my strong point at school, hence I won't be joining you. Surely, then, if anything, knowing that it was part of HOME would more likely put off the "Tolkien readers and collectors" as they would think "I already have that". For the vast majority of Tolkien fans, who've never progressed beyond LotR (maybe into the Sil), this is therefore a "new" book. I accept that the marketing was a little economical with the truth, but of those 500,000 sold how many of them do you think will have previously read HOME? I don't know the sales figures for HOME, but I would guess the number is somewhere around 10%, ie 50,000, at best. So, by my reckoning, if the publisher had come out and said "this is the first time that various excerpts from HOME have been pulled together to make a fascinating tale... blah, blah, blah, you get the idea", then it would'nt have made that much impact on the sales figures, as the vast majority of people haven't read HOME. I understand your frustration and I'm not trying to excuse what the publisher (and the estate) did, however, as I said previously, I think that for the large majority of Tolkien "fans", this was indeed a "new" book.

I do, however, think that they wouldn't have sold half as many if it wasn't for the films, but thats another can of worms.....

 

[gideon]

For the vast majority of Tolkien fans, who've never progressed beyond LotR (maybe into the Sil), this is therefore a "new" book.

By that logic the following is also true:

A TV network has figures which indicates that only 20% of TV owners watched their programs last year. So they bring back every show in reruns advertising them as a "new schedule with new programs" simply because they will be new to that 80% who missed them the first time.

A music company releases a "new Beatles album" knowing that 85% of todays CD buying target audience has never bought a Beatles album before. It contains 12 songs - 10 of which are exactly as were released forty years ago note for note and word for word. The other two are remixes of old material.

This is not NEW by any stretch of that word. Something may be undiscovered or even new to you - but it is not NEW in the defining sense of the term. A book which by its editors own figures contains 85% previously published material with the remaining 15% being re-edited and rearranged material published in a slightly different manner is not NEW.

This is how the COH was advertised and marketed. This is how it was described on the Tolkien website .... "the first new Tolkien book in thirty years".

The tag line for the campaign should have been "NEW SALES BUT NO NEW TALES".

 

[crazytrain]

By that logic the following is also true:

A TV network has figures which indicates that only 20% of TV owners watched their programs last year. So they bring back every show in reruns advertising them as a "new schedule with new programs" simply because they will be new to that 80% who missed them the first time.

A music company releases a "new Beatles album" knowing that 85% of todays CD buying target audience has never bought a Beatles album before. It contains 12 songs - 10 of which are exactly as were released forty years ago note for note and word for word. The other two are remixes of old material.

This is not NEW by any stretch of that word. Something may be undiscovered or even new to you - but it is not NEW in the defining sense of the term. A book which by its editors own figures contains 85% previously published material with the remaining 15% being re-edited and rearranged material published in a slightly different manner is not NEW.

This is how the COH was advertised and marketed. This is how it was described on the Tolkien website .... "the first new Tolkien book in thirty years".

The tag line for the campaign should have been "NEW SALES BUT NO NEW TALES".

My point wasn't particularly to get into the rights and wrongs of how the book was marketed, but to point out the (IMHO) flaw in your argument about who would be most likely to buy the book....

I accept your Beatles analogy, but the TV one is somewhat different. I think the album would be marketed as a "new" compilation, which, continuing the analogy, would perhaps be a better description of CoH! "New in store today, the greatest hits of Hurin!!" (Now thats a good name for a band!!) How many compilation albums are out there for countless bands, and they're all described as "new" when they first come out, and are bought by many thousands of people every time? In the end, its all about marketing, and whilst, as I said before, I sympathise with you, for the vast majority of people buying this book, I suspect there is no problem. The fact is that readers can now get the story of the CoH without trawling through several other tomes, hence making it more accessible; surely thats a good thing overall?

As an aside, do you have any idea of how many "copies" of HOME have been sold in the US (I use the term lightly as I know its a (12 book??) set) to compare with the sales of CoH? I wouldn't even know where to begin to look, but I think it would be an interesting stat if its out there...

 

[gideon]

https://www.tolkienbooks.net/html/print_runs.htm

crazytrain - I think that this link may give you some of what you ask about however it looks like the figures are for the UK editions only. I imagine the US market is two to three times what the UK market is but that is only a wild guess based on population.

I understand your points and certainly when you compare the stats it is obvious that most purchasers - perhaps 90% of them - did not also have the History series. So to them, it is something "new". However, in my mind that does not justify a very questionable advertising and marketing campaign that (in my humble opinion) is an outright falsehood and borders on fraud.

I would love to have future volumes of all the Gondolin writings or all the Beren & Luthien writings in individual volumes which stand by themselves. I would love it to see them illustrated with more work by Alan Lee or even Ten Naismith or John Howe. I just do not want them advertised as a NEW BOOK when the tales have been around the block a few times and already were sold under a different title and format.

 

[crazytrain]

Gideon, I totally agree, it is unfortunately just another example of the times in which we live. Everything is "dumbed down" and the bottom line is sales/money. I suspect they thought that to "come clean" would not only reduce sales (their number one priority undoubtedly), but also had the potential to confuse the average Joe like me!! The bottom line is that it all depends on your interpretation of "new" and, unfortunately it is obviously "new" enough for them to have got away with the marketing blurb. The fact that this work has never before been released in its current format is enough for them to call it new; the fact that, as you say, this borders on the fraudulent, is irrelevant in marketing terms for the reasons I've outlined above, hence they can get away with it. Doesn't make it right, as I said, just a sign of the times....

BTW thanks for the link, as you say, it does support my theory that HOME is not too well read.

I'm still undecided; in your opinion, marketing "lies" aside, is it worth the read (based on the fact that I found Sil very hard going). I get the impression that this comes somewhere between the Sil and LotR, but would like some more expert opinion from people such as you (and the others on this thread..).

Thanks

 

[gideon]

crazytrain ... as for my opinion regarding if it is worth the read .... I fear that the vast majority of copies will go mostly unread after the first few pages or even chapters. If people bought this based on the success of both LOTR and the LOTR films, they are in for a few surprises. The style - like SIL - is archaic and probably difficult for people raised on Stephen King and Rowling.

I have read SIL at least a half dozen times and love every page of it. Of course, I love history and found the style and approach a great part of its charm. But the entire story of Turin is one of my least favorite themes found in the SIL. The character is hardly sympathetic and the story is certainly a huge downer. I just do not find it clicking with todays audience the way that LOTR did.

 

[crazytrain]

gideon - thanks for that - so from what you've said it sounds much more like the Sil, in which case I think I'll check out the library and see if they have a copy first!

 

[Fritz]

gideon, I'm curious. If you were the Tolkien estate (ie C.T.), how would you have marketed the book?

It's hard to tell via posts but by the tone of your writing, you seem to be genuinely offended by the use of the term "new". Did you expect a lot of new material before purchasing the book?

Although I consider myself a bigger Tolkien fan than most of the general public, I never delved into the HoME very extensively. I've read (and continue to re-read) LotR and Hobbit most often and the Silmarillion quite a few times but less often than the main four books but I still enjoyed CoH very much and didn't feel cheated by the reproduced content.

 

[gideon]

I do not know if the term "offended" is the right one. I certainly feel that using the word "new" constitutes fraud since the tale of the Children of Hurin is not new. The Tolkien Estate was not interested in new tales. Rather their goal was new sales.

I suspect - and this is speculation on my part without any substantitive foundation - that the Estate grew miffed at all the attention the films garnered and felt that it was at the expense of the books. Of course, this ignores the massive increase in LOTR sales which garnered them several millions of dollars in increased royalties over and above the pre- film era.

If they went along with the plans of the publishers, they could have a major success AS A BOOK and steal some of the glory that the films had been reaping. But to do that they needed to find a NEW BOOK. They had no NEW BOOK. What they did have was large sections of something that had been around for some thirty years. Some of it in THE SILMARILLION and some of it in various volumes of the HISTORIES. So they did the equal of a cut and paste and came up with a book length tale.

Crazytrain seems to have hit the nail on the head with the line of thinking that the tale was indeed new to many who had never read either SIL or HOME. I am sure that was the line of thinking that both the publishers and the Estate bought into.

-- if you have not heard the Beatles before, their music is "new" to you.

-- if you have not seen BLADE RUNNER before, that film is "new" to you.

-- if you never have eaten sushi, that food is "new" to you.

Of course, all three are not new by any stretch of the imagination. They have been around for a long time. Just because you or anyone else did not partake of them does not make them new in the actual meaning of the term.

A Beatles song that may be "new" to you goes back forty years.

BLADE RUNNER, or any other film, was in theaters and other formats and seen my millions years and years before it became "new" to you or anyone else.

Sushi has been around for at least five-hundred years and for many decades in the western world.

But if we redefine NEW so that it means NEW TO YOU, then it opens up entire new sales opportunities and money, money and more money. So I tend to believe that was the thinking here.

Of course, its all baloney or even worse. This book was mass marketed to the whole world and it was marketed as "the first new book from JRRT in thirty years". The Estate went along with that. It is a false statement by every conceivable definition of the term. For a book to be sold as a new book it would have to be something that had not been published before. Maybe it was a manuscript found in a trunk or drawer or behind some secret panel or whatever. But that was not the case here by any stretch of imagination. 85% or more of COH was indeed published before in books sold by the same publishers and sold under the name of JRRT.

I am not offended at the liberties of modern advertising. I am simply stating that to sell this book as NEW was an outright falsehood - a lie - a fraud. And the Tolkien Estate went along with it 100%

And for some reason, very few people seem to raise more than a whimper about this. Especially Tolkien people who should - and do - know better. What are they afraid of?

 

[Captain Faramir]

I have absolutely no problem with Gideon's argument. In fact, I agree. However, as a Tolkien fan and reader, I find that the marketing is separate from the book itself. Marketed as new? Silly. But the story is a beautiful one, and now people have a chance to read it who may otherwise had never done so. Many do not care to read The Silmarillion (fools!), but this book is much easier to read and access. I think it does us a great favor by putting out Tolkien's works again. While it speaks poorly of the marketers and the estate, it nonetheless helps us by introducing Tolkien to new readers. So in that light, I forgive them whatever avaricious actions they may have taken, and take for myself the good that comes of this. It is, after all, a lovely, cathartic tale that deserves to be told again--in whatever format.

 

[gideon]

CF - and I agree with nearly all of your post. I too am very happy and glad to have this tale in one volume that is much easier to read and follow that it was previously. And the addition of the Alan Lee drawings is an extra bonus. I have no problem with that and am happy and thankful that it was done.

I have said earlier that I hope they also do this with at least two other tales - the story of Beren and Luthien, and the story of Gondolin. I would love to see that happen.

Just please do not bill this or future such compilations as a "new" book. Because that is just not true. In my eyes, it devalues the reputation of bothe the publishers and the Estate to engage in such falsehood in the quest of increasing sales and monetary profit.

 

[Captain Faramir]

In that, Gideon, we are in perfect accord. I want nothing more than the Lay of Luthien in the format, with as many Alan Lee drawings as possible. And furthermore, I concer--this isn't a "new" book, not ought it be marketed as such. It's not necessary. Tolkien's works have enough power and glory to sell on their own. New? Nope. But still gorgeous. I really hope we get those two tales soon in the same format. It doesn't have to be new to be wonderful. In fact, I think their age only adds to their beauty--sometimes the years can make things all the more wonderful. That seems to be what Tolkien is all about.

 

[tomandshell]

I really enjoy having a copy of this in my collection. I also have access to most of the material in other books, but having it presented this way is something I appreciate and find to be worth the money.

 

[gideon]

For those who enjoyed the Alan Lee illustrations - they have just released the 2008 TOLKIEN CALENDAR with illustrations from COH. It contains three paintings not in the book and a few new b&w illustrations.