Of the Strength of Men
I just finished reading the latest Tolkien book, Children of Hurin. I hadn’t planned on finishing it this quickly, but my untimely bout with the flu resulted in some extended downtime cozying up with the tome. Children sure didn’t brighten my spirits; the story is wild and viciously dark. Yet, there are bright spots too. If you’re familiar with Biblical stories you’ll find The Children of Hurin is a story that looks kind of similar to the story of Sampson; you have an incredibly powerful hero with a mighty calling, but the hero struggles with sharply pronounced character flaws. Stories in that vain have a vivid attraction, because I think humanity as a whole finds itself in a similar condition as the hero–we have desires for glory,...
New Tolkien Available Today
Christopher Tolkien, the third son of JRR Tolkien, has been working for thirty years on an unfinished manuscript left by his father. J.R.R Tolkien began “The Children of Hurin” in 1918 but never finished it. His third son, Christopher, has spent nearly 30 years piecing together drafts to turn them a single story, written entirely in his father’s words. “After a long study of the manuscripts, I tried to build a coherent narrative without editorial invention,” Christopher Tolkien told the Internet site dedicated to his father’s work. The Children of Hurin is set in Tolkien’s imaginary world of Middle-Earth but takes place long before the events in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Children of Hurin hits the shelves...
Great Fantasy
I’ve been craving some George MacDonald lately. I’ve scoured all the best used bookstores in town over the last week and have come up essentially dry. I did find an old illustrated hardback copy of At the Back of the North Wind, but it was illustrated by Jessie Willcox Smith, and I guess anything illustrated by her is semi-precious, out of my price range at least. I found a slim copy of MacDonald’s The Fisherman’s Lady too, which I’ve never read and never heard of and so consequently wasn’t craving. Really, I want to read Phantastes or one of the Curdie books or the North Wind thing again. I’ve got this overweening desire for superb literary fantasy right now, and clearly MacDonald is it. The man is one of masters, if not...
On the Destruction of Man
How is a man destroyed? Is it through a grievous defect of character? Is it through a series of uncontrollable circumstances that place him in an impossible situation? Is it through a man’s own cultivated perversion? Are these destroyed men dealt a bad hand from Fate herself? Or are they twisted sociopaths who get their due? I’ve been thinking about those questions thanks to The Brothers Karamazov. Looking at Dmitri, especially, I wonder how he could get so carried away about Grushenka and how he could be driven to shed blood, and here is the key part: I wonder how different Dmitri and I are. In looking at Dostoyevsky’s characters it seems to me that even the worst protagonists maintain their humanity. In looking at...
Three Sentences
Ariel was kind enough (is that the right adjective?) to hoist upon me the considerable responsibility of grabbing the nearest book at hand and dishing out a random choice morsel. I frown upon most memes, but the pathway to my heart in this matter has certainly been found. I find it hard to stay away from any chance to talk about my books. Without further ado I give you my foray into a round of “Literary Lucky-Dipping:” 1) Skillfully grab the book closest to you. I didn’t have to reach far; I have two copies of this book and they are both out at the moment (one battered paperback for the road, and one nice immaculate hardback for reading at home). In fact, you ought to expect more quotations here from this book as time goes by. 2) Quickly...