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Where have all the Hobbits gone?

A new J.R.R. Tolkien book has fans rejoicing, but some readers may prefer not to save this dark, involved tale for bedtime perusal.

By COLETTE BANCROFT
Published April 17, 2007

Get in line: The new J.R.R. Tolkien novel hits bookstores today. You might want to leave the kids at home.

Tolkien died in 1973, but his literary legacy seems as immortal as the elves who live in his great creation, Middle-earth.

The new book, The Children of Hurin, isn't really new. Its tragic story, set 6,000 years before the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy in Middle-earth's massive mythical history, appears in other forms in several Tolkien works, including The Silmarillion.

But this will be the first time the dark tale of the warrior Hurin and his dragonslayer son, Turin, is contained as a complete narrative in a standalone novel. Putting it all together was the work of decades for Tolkien's youngest son and literary executor, Christopher.

No one else could have done it, Michael Drout says. Drout, a professor of Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., is a founder and editor of the scholarly journal Tolkien Studies and editor of The J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia - all 808 pages of it.

Adopting Harry Potter-style security measures, Houghton Mifflin did not send out advance copies of The Children of Hurin. But Drout has seen a table of contents and knows the story from his studies of the sources.

"I don't think any of the words are new," he says, but having the story in this form means Tolkien enthusiasts won't have to pull half a dozen volumes off the shelf to piece it together. "This is going to be readable."

It is not, however, going to be as warm and fuzzy as a Hobbit's foot. "This is a dark story. Even the darker parts of Lord of the Rings aren't like this," he says.

Not for the nightstand

"There's brother-sister incest, there's suicide, there's a curse on the family. There is no triumph."

As he did for The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien drew from ancient myths from several cultures to create the Hurin story, including German and Norse mythic cycles, Beowulf and the Finnish Kalevala.

Tolkien's scholarly training as a philologist shaped his work, but so did his personal life. He wrote the earliest versions of Hurin, Drout says, around 1918, while he was on medical leave from WWI after fighting in the Battle of Somme, which killed or wounded 1-million.

"Some people say, oh, J.R.R. never meant this to be published" and accuse Christopher of overriding his father's wishes, Drout says. "That's just not true. Christopher Tolkien has more money than God, and he's 82 years old. He simply wants the textual record and the reputation of his father to be as complete as possible."

Christopher's status as his father's editor began early, says Drout, who has not met Christopher but has long corresponded with him. "When he was a kid, he was down at the Eagle and Child pub listening to his father read to C. S. Lewis."

The elder Tolkien tended to rework material endlessly, Drout says. "He only ever got something published when someone literally pulled it out of his hands," and that someone was often Christopher. In addition to following in his father's footsteps to become an Oxford don, Christopher has devoted much of his life to overseeing J.R.R.'s enormous literary estate, editing The Silmarillion, The History of Middle-earth and other works.

Readers who come to The Chil- dren of Hurin without having read any of Tolkien's books might find it tough sledding, Drout says. He expects most of its fans to be those who have read The Lord of the Rings, "probably multiple times. They love Middle-earth, and they want to go back there."

The Children of Hurin is likely to garner a burst of initial interest, Drout says. "Then, once people have buckled down and read it, I think there will be a split word of mouth.

"Some, and I think it will be mostly high school and college age kids, will say, 'This is so deep.' They'll like the big, important themes.

"The other side will say, 'Where are the Hobbits?' "

Colette Bancroft can be reached at 727 893-8435 or bancroft@sptimes.com.

The Children of HurinBy J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien; illustrated by Alan LeeHoughton Mifflin, 320 pages, $26

[Last modified April 16, 2007, 17:02:06]