Tag Archives: J.R.R. Tolkien

Get Ready To Read Tolkien’s “The Fall of Arthur”

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British readers are reminded by Tolkien Society chairman Shaun Gunner that a brand new J.R.R. Tolkien epic, The Fall of Arthur, will be released in that country on May 23. (The book was released in the U.S. yesterday.)

Gunner comments:

We are all used to seeing Tolkien’s stories set in Middle-earth, but this is the first time we’ve ever seen Tolkien write about legendary Britain. We know Tolkien loved the powerful alliterative verse of Anglo-Saxon epics so Tolkien’s own re-imagining of Arthur’s downfall in this format will make for an interesting read. This is fundamentally important in terms of considering Tolkien’s academic career and his wider creative process, but it will also be fascinating to see how The Fall of Arthur – written before The Hobbit – may have parallels in Tolkien’s other stories.

It is always important when a new book is published by such a well-known and much-loved author, but this is particularly special due to the poetic format and subject matter. I am in no doubt that we will see the same skill and creativity on display in The Fall of Arthur as in Tolkien’s other works – this book will be a permanent feature of the Arthurian canon for centuries to come and will add to Tolkien’s own reputation as one of the most brilliant writers this country has ever produced.

HarperCollins says Tolkien set aside this work to write The Hobbit. It was left untouched for 80 years:

The Fall of Arthur recounts in verse the last campaign of King Arthur who, even as he stands at the threshold of Mirkwood is summoned back to Britain by news of the treachery of Mordred. Already weakened in spirit by Guinevere’s infidelity with the now-exiled Lancelot, Arthur must rouse his knights to battle one last time against Mordred’s rebels and foreign mercenaries.

Christopher Tolkien edited the manuscript and wrote three essays for the book, (1) about the literary world of King Arthur, (2) the deeper meaning of the verses, and (3) his father’s work to bring it to a finished form.

Tolkien Litigation No Place for the Humble

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When the Tolkien Estate and HarperCollins’ sued Warner Bros., New Line and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz in November, they told the court that The Lord of the Rings is “reported to be the second most-read book in the United States after the Bible.” (Maybe you thought that honor belonged to Redshirts?)

But in Saul Zaentz’ answer to the lawsuit he is quick to correct the mistaken impression that LOTR’s or The Hobbit’s value has anything to do with the books:

Zaentz admits that The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (and associated and proprietary characters, elements and marks) are among the most famous and valuable marks in the world, and that an excellent reputation and highly valuable goodwill has been developed in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (and associated characters, elements and marks) and in the products, goods and services featuring them. Zaentz denies that this is a result of Plaintiffs’ efforts; rather, the fame and goodwill developed in these marks, products, goods, and services is largely the result of the dedicated efforts of Zaentz and its licensees (including Warner Bros.) over the past four decades.

The answer also calls upon the court the affirm that under earlier agreements with the Tolkien Estate Zaentz holds “broad merchandising rights in such services such as hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, ringtones, and online games, casino gambling and online/downloadable video games.”

This includes Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Online Slot Game, the most notorious example of the digital exploitation of Tolkien’s brand. (See What Has It Got In Its Jackpotses?) The Estate’s view is that the “defendants have, with increasing boldness, engaged in a continuing and escalating pattern of usurping rights to which they are not entitled.” However, Zaentz’ answer claims they have been doing this without objection for a long time, and that in 1996 the parties confirmed rights to online video games.

Short Subjects

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I’ve been to see The Hobbit, though not as a human guinea pig for the 48-frame rate process — the most convenient screening for me was shown in 2D, 24-frame.

As for the movie: I was pleasantly surprised that this rocking, three-hour epic kept me engaged all the way. No dull stretches, like in a previous stfnal marathon, The Postman, where I took a 10-minute walk in the middle of the film.

True, as the reviewers point out, a lot of The Hobbit’s time is lavished showing the “unexpected party.” But beyond the obvious slapstick comedy, the extended sequence endows every dwarf with an individual character and personality. No doubt it’s sacrilege to say I thought most of the dwarves in the book were fungible except for the two extremes, kingly Thorin and corpulent Bombur, while the movie works hard to make them deeply distinctive in every way, not just in costume and hairstyle. (The riot will begin in five, four….)

The last half of the movie is largely a series of calamities orchestrated in CGI. There was more of that than I needed, partly because I felt I’d seen some of this action before and didn’t like it the first time, watching hordes of goblins chase our heroes through underground passages and over rickety scaffolding within the mountain in a mashup of the mine chase from Temple of Doom and the descent of the unbalanced stairs and landings in National Treasure. But I don’t say they should have done something different – the record box office speaks for itself – much as I found other parts of the movie more to my taste.

Credit where it is due the technology, though, which is crucial to the movie’s dramatic meeting between Bilbo and Gollum, certainly one of the highlights.

With further thought I might also be able to put into words my appreciation for the parallels between the Lord of the Rings trilogy and this first of the three Hobbit pictures. Consider, for example, what does it mean to be a king in Middle-Earth? Contrast Thorin Oakenshield’s obvious nobility and clarity about his role, a character Aragorn kept under wraps for two-and-a-half movies.

Anyway, The Hobbit is a fair trade for the time and bucks required to see it.

Before The Hobbit

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As a reminder of the day, and possibly inspired by the story of the Indiana Jones packet with its fake stamps, John King Tarpinian pointed me to the Wikipedia entry on J.R.R. Tolkien’s Father Christmas letters:

The letters themselves were written over a period of over 20 years to entertain Tolkien’s children each Christmas. Starting in 1920 when Tolkien’s oldest son was aged three, each Christmas Tolkien would write a letter from Father Christmas about his travels and adventures. Each letter was delivered in an envelope, including North Pole stamps and postage marks as designed by Tolkien.

And the characters and doings in the letters have been said to prefigure elements of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth adventures.

Hobbit Twacks!

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The LOTR geneology project has created a visual aid for moviegoers…

Here are some choice links to stories inspired by the imminent release of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

(1) If you’re curious about the movie’s score, listen to the closing theme, ”Song of the Lonely Mountain” by Neil Finn.

(2) Christopher Tolkien’s first-ever press interview, published in Le Monde on July 9, is available online. Christopher is not a Peter Jackson enthusiast:

Invited to meet Peter Jackson, the Tolkien family preferred not to. Why? “They eviscerated the book by making it an action movie for young people aged 15 to 25,” Christopher says regretfully. “And it seems that The Hobbit will be the same kind of film.”

This divorce has been systematically driven by the logic of Hollywood. “Tolkien has become a monster, devoured by his own popularity and absorbed into the absurdity of our time,” Christopher Tolkien observes sadly. “The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has overwhelmed me. The commercialization has reduced the aesthetic and philosophical impact of the creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: to turn my head away.”

(3) I’m betting the Tolkien estate wishes it could inflict on Jackson the same fate a court just inflicted on Global Asylum’s faux Hobbit film:

A U.S. District Court in California granted a temporary restraining order on Monday preventing a parody of “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” from going on sale three days before Peter Jackson’s movie opens in theaters nationwide.

Global Asylum, a film production company that makes parodies of blockbuster films, such as “Transmorphers” in place of ‘Transformers,” has made a parody of “The Hobbit” titled “Age of the Hobbits.” It was set to go on sale on DVD, Blu-Ray and online platforms December 11.

(4) Scholars interested in The Hobbit know all roads lead to… Milwaukee? Well, if not all roads, surely a superhighway or two. That’s home to Marquette University, where Christopher Tolkien deposited many of J.R.R. Tolkien’s original manuscripts:

Yes, Tolkien fans: the stories belong to the ages, but the manuscripts belong to Marquette University. It has been so since 1957, thanks to a very smart librarian, William Ready, who had been hired the year before to help fill a then-new Memorial Library. He approached the not-yet-famous Professor Tolkien through a British rare-book seller, struck a deal for less than $5,000, and in 1957 and 1958 the boxes from Oxford arrived: “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit,” in longhand drafts, typewritten manuscripts and page proofs, with revisions and rejected fragments, along with minor and then-unpublished texts and other papers. After the professor died in 1973, his son Christopher sent more papers still, until Marquette came to hold the vast machinery of Middle-earth in all its original parts, along with thousands of pages of articles, commentary and fan fiction — the vast forests and foothills of secondary scholarship now girding Mount Tolkien.

[Thanks for these links goes out to David Klaus, Martin Morse Wooster and Andrew Porter.]

What Has It Got In Its Jackpotses?

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The Tolkien estate and its book publisher HarperCollins have filed an $80 million lawsuit against Warner Bros., its New Line subsidiary and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz Co. for copyright infringement and breach of contract. The gist of the suit is that their agreement allows the studio to create only “tangible” merchandise based on the books, not digital products like the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Online Slot Game.

Not only does the production of gambling games patently exceed the scope of defendants’ rights, but this infringing conduct has outraged Tolkien’s devoted fan base, causing irreparable harm to Tolkien’s legacy and reputation and the valuable goodwill generated by his works.

The suit also complains the defendants have asserted rights to exploit the books through anything from ringtones and downloadable games to hotels, restaurants and travel agencies.

[Thanks to Michael J. Walsh and Martin Morse Wooster for the story.]

Tolkien’s Fall of Arthur Coming in 2013

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J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Fall of Arthur, a never-before-published poem over 200 pages in length, will be released by HarperCollins in May 2013.

HarperCollins says Tolkien set aside this work to write The Hobbit and it was left untouched for 80 years:

The Fall of Arthur recounts in verse the last campaign of King Arthur who, even as he stands at the threshold of Mirkwood is summoned back to Britain by news of the treachery of Mordred. Already weakened in spirit by Guinevere’s infidelity with the now-exiled Lancelot, Arthur must rouse his knights to battle one last time against Mordred’s rebels and foreign mercenaries.

Christopher Tolkien edited the manuscript and wrote three essays for the book, (1) about the literary world of King Arthur, (2) the deeper meaning of the verses, and (3) his father’s work to bring it to a finished form.

The poem’s opening lines appeared in The Guardian:

Arthur eastward in arms purposed
his war to wage on the wild marches,
over seas sailing to Saxon lands,
from the Roman realm ruin defending.
Thus the tides of time to turn backward
and the heathen to humble, his hope urged him,
that with harrying ships they should hunt no more
on the shining shores and shallow waters
of South Britain, booty seeking.

John Lundberg observes how different this verse form is from that of 15th century poet by Thomas Malory in his piece for Huffpost Arts & Culture:

Tolkien, who passed away in 1973, took the Arthurian legends so far back, in fact, that he passed over hundreds of years wherein blank verse was the standard form of English epic poetry. That means his new poem won’t feature the rhythms you’d recognize from most English language epics, like translations of Dante’s The Divine Comedy … Tolkien instead embraced the Old English tradition of alliterative verse — the language of Beowulf and much of the medieval poetry he loved.

The stock question at times like this, against all sense, is whether Tolkien’s latest posthumous work will live up to The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, or even “Leaf by Niggle.” Despite what’s known about Tolkien’s procrastination and perfectionism, I believe it speaks for itself that any manuscript he left in the drawer is one he knew he was capable of improving if he chose to invest the effort. So Tolkien fans should be delighted to get a peek at The Fall of Arthur – which was by no means certain to happen – and be pleased if it is readable and appealing.

Blue Plate Special

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Photo of 2 Darnley Road taken in 1945.

The house where J. R. R. Tolkien and his family lived while he was a Reader in English language at the University of Leeds in the 1920s will be acknowledged with a blue plaque by the Leeds Civic Trust on October 1.

The Tolkien family lived at 2 Darnley Road, West Park for over a year before Tolkien’s election to the Rawlinson and Bosworth chair of Anglo-Saxon saw them return to Oxford in 1926. During his time at the University of Leeds Tolkien was instrumental in shaping the English Language syllabus at the university; some aspects of this were still present sixty years later. He also worked with E.V. Gordon to produce an edition of the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which was published in 1925.

The Tolkiens resided briefly at 5 Holly Bank, Headingley and then leasing a house in St Mark’s Terrace before buying the semi-detached property in Darnley Road in 1924.

Ian Spittlehouse, Trustee and the Tolkien Society’s liaison with the representatives of West Park and the Leeds Civic Trust said, “This is a timely recognition of Tolkien’s tenure in Leeds, and a welcome addition to Yorkshire’s influence on his academic and literary career.”

2012 Oxenmoot Planned

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The Tolkien Society’s 2012 Oxenmoot takes place September 21-23 at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. The annual event always coincides with the birthdays of Bilbo and Frodo, but the date is especially significant this year because it occurs on the 75th anniversary of The Hobbit’s publication on September 21, 1937. Tolkien’s popular book has been translated into over 50 languages and sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide.

Helen Armstrong, Oxonmoot’s chair, further promises “We have a little surprise for attendees in honour of this momentous occasion.”

The Tolkien Society was founded in 1969 by Vera Chapman. Tolkien himself supported the organization and gave it his seal of approval by agreeing to become The Tolkien Society’s President. On Tolkien’s death the family recommended he stay as President, therefore he continues as The Tolkien Society’s Honorary President in perpetuo. (And here I thought that “Death will not release you” clause was exclusive to LASFS!)