Hecklerspray has read many a bad book in our time.
And – whether we were halfway through Martin Amis's ludicrously self-indulgent Yellow Dog or trying our best to figure what all the fuss was about that rubbish Bukowski chap – one thought has remained constant: "at least this isn't a bloody Tolkien book."
J.R.R Tolkien, for those of you lucky enough not to know, is the man responsible for The Lord Of The Rings – the archetypal book for people who don't like books, and perennial fanboy favourite for those who love discussing exotic fantasy creatures like Elves, Orcs and Pixies (but never girls. Oh no. They're just scary).
Tolkien, however, popped his clogs 34 years ago, which might fool you into thinking that the world is safe from his tedious emotionally-stunted 'literature'.
Think again, kids.
With the assistance of his son Christopher, a long-lost Tolkien manuscript has finally been dug up and cobbled together into something worthy of the great man himself (i.e they took out any characterisation and replaced it with three-page long descriptions of swords instead).
The Children Of Hurin has been exciting Tolkien fans across the nation, probably making them all drop their Games Workshop toys and say stuff like "come, let us venture to ye stout booksellers of Waterstones" or "Quickly, Nigel, let's run out and buy it before those nasty boys in Form 8F give us wedgies and call us gay."
The book – to anyone who cares – takes place:
"…in a part of Middle-earth that doesn't exist any more when Lord of the Rings takes place but it is very much Middle-earth, it is very much the same world but it is a more serious tale. It's a beautiful tale in itself but it may not strike a chord because people feel there aren't enough hobbits in it – because there aren't any."
Ah. So it's all serious, then? Like the depiction of sexual self-discovery from Proust's Within A Budding Grove? Or the ruminations on a narcotic-addled entertainment-saturated culture that can be found within David Foster Wallace's amazing Infinite Jest?
Or… maybe… at a pinch… possibly a story about some people with silly names walking up some hills and having a fight every now and then?
Do let us know.
Read More:
As_if_i'd_tell_you says
What a nasty piece of writing?
Go play with your Star Wars toys.
Or perhaps try to read (if you can) something with more than two syllables.
Want to know what I think?
You’re a wanker.
Pedro says
Now, Tolkien IS rubbish – that’s a inarguable fact – but Infinite Jest? Amazing? Come now, we all know that David Foster Wallace is a lot of pretentious wank, don’t we?
Mark Smith says
You are hilarious! No, seriously, do yourself a favor and become a stand-up comedian…
Euclid says
“tedious emotionally-stunted ‘literature'” – brilliant.
Succinct and to the heart of it. You have cuffed the
Inner Child handsomely about the ears. As it well deserves.
Diminutive figures engage in diminutive dramas for
fragile readers. Readers who protect the safe little experience
with the fierce injured pride of fundamentalist martyrs.
His books present a cosmology that enshrines self-pity,
a facile reduction of innocence to idiocy, and a celebration of impotence.
Dante, Vergil, Homer, etc had a novel idea:
the epic was meant to inform us, to deliver us
better equipped into reality, not offer us a
false sanctuary from it.
What do you learn of yourself from reading Tolkien’s work?
Nothing. Enjoy.
Richard Howard says
Really enjoying the book! Love it when something I like gets such hostile treatment – I think this hardly constitutes a review, this is an attack,
someone taking the affections of Tolkien reader’s personally because none of the writers they enjoy have achieved such acclaim.
Such hostility can only come from bitterness, jealousy and inferiority – which damages its claim to be a valid literal viewpoint.
What is the real issue here? No book – and I’ve read many bad ones – has ever got under my skin in such a negative way. Why let it?
Would an Orc enjoy reading ‘The Children of Hurin’?
Bridget says
what a complete waste of your time! why even bother posting something like this? just becuase a stick seems to be more literate than you doesn’t mean you have to cover your inability to understand Tolkiens works with a review that basically says you’ve never even read LOTR or any other of books or you wouldn’t make a stupid comment that he never wrote about females.
you also seem to be homophobic, which you must be so proud of.
have a nice day, i hope you find literature that lives up to your wonderful standards.
gandalf_rawks69 says
Bah! How dare you mock the silly little piece of fiction that I have pathetically based my entire life around! I’ve stepped in dog shit more literate than you considering your dislike of a book about elves hitting things and magical rings! Also, you seem to hate Bosnians!
I say good day to you sir, and I hope you fall in front of a bus for having a different opinion to me!
Euclid says
While Tolkien’s scribblings are tedious,
it is the avid fans I find insufferable.
They display the self righteous indignation,
and the ready-made martyrdom one
would expect from a form of second-tier
quasi-religious zealotry.
All the while praising to the high heavens the
great triumph of imagination the books
to them represent. Which praise bespeaks
1) a lack of imagination
2) a paucity of meaningful experience, and
3) quite probably, Asperger’s Syndrome.
Granted, reading may well be the last bastion
of the poorly socialized, but we will not have
you and your legion of mutants appoint Tolkien
its king. Not as long as there are writers
capable of presenting a world view that asks
us as readers to re-examine our own and imagine
something better. Or something.
Squall says
Tolkien has made me re-examine the world we live in, regularly; his insights into the paucity of culture ever since we apparently forgot that there is ASG and PFE (Absolute Supreme Good and Pure Fscking Evil) never ceases to amaze.
Rather than speaking on minor issues such as “sexual self-discovery” (I suggest fscking women, myself…but then, that’s only the way I lean, being a male: I’m sure females often have other ideas) or airy “ruminations” on where a society which includes as many narcotics and shallow entertainment options as ours does is actually going (Should be obvious: glance downward, please; no, below the basement, way below. Now, next question?), Tolkien material dares to claim one thing above all else: “It is not who you are underneath, but what you do, that defines you.” Though that’s a Batman quote (guy who got royally PISSED that society and law enforcement did NOTHING to save his parents, and so embraces vigilantism…and more power to him, by the way), it certainly applies here.
Turin wanted to escape his destiny, but his actions always spoke of Pride; hmm, I wonder if anyone writing articles like these would have any experience with that word. No? Heh…I didn’t think so. He claims to want to do good, and the Noble, Right Thing, but ever so often, Nobility’s actions for Good are usually rather Nobility’s actions for Self. Selfishness, Pride…..no, nothing having to do with modern culture.
On the subject of “imaginary creatures,” you’re just lashing out at the notion of any form of life that is not, in fact, human. Isn’t that something called Ethnocentricism, these days? Like, something that Official, Politically Correct Culture claims to be…bad? I had just wondered… Also, isn’t the perceived necessity of “saying something about us, and about our society” basically the idea that stories can’t be interesting in their own right, which is like saying oceanography should be studied in order to dominate and control the seas, not to ‘merely’….enjoy…learning it…? Maybe…??
Tolkien wrote about people like that, actually; wrote plenty. He seemed to claim in one Middle-earthen work that they were PFE, all the way. Go figure: Turin acts like that a lot, too, and he’s the main character of The Children of Hurin.
Boring people. You mean people who aren’t titilated by stories of sexual self-discovery (can’t tell you how many times I’ve yawned through such movies), or decrying (translate: nonviolently protesting) the vulgar excesses of a society on steroids (they’re not going to listen, so long as it doesn’t threaten to kill THEM; the camera’s on THEM, after all, baby…)? Here’s my last suggestion: arm yourselves for bloody revolution, if you actually want real change. It happened in Tolkien, it happened with the fall of the Roman Empire, and I think it’s happened a few other times every now and then.
Oh, and incidentally: Tolkien writes in High English, not in eubonics; that might be why you don’t like him much.
Ever cordially yours,
“Squall”
Patriot
slo says
Worst biased writer EVER!!! And this is from neutral point of view.
John Wain says
Ho ho ho! That was some comment, C J, it really was. I had a good laugh now and then, but I, happening to be of those ‘gay’ enough to read Tolkien (as you in your own words described), think that you are beating about the bush. Oh well! some have to do this too, ours is a free world, but you might do some harm in having such a strongly negative review. Some people might really believe you, and oh! that would be scary!
Really, people, read Tolkien, he’s great, albeit somewhat difficult. Make up your mind on “The Children of Hurin” after completing it. After all, it’s about a quarter of “The Lord of the Rings”, it couldn’t be such a diificult job to get to the end.