January 12, 2009

New material from beyond the grave!

by

Sigurd the Warrior

Sigurd the Warrior

Some literary franchises just keep going – on, and on, and on… J K Rowling ruined Christmas for untold thousands when she “bowed to public will” and allowed Tales of Beedle the Bard to be sold to the mass market. Think of all those writers who had hoped that 2008 might be the year when, with no biggie fiction titles in contention, their sales would pick up; all those stocking fillers, carefully penned, now consigned to the discount bucket because bloody Beedle thought he could write a fairy story. The ghastly Virginia Andrews, who specialised in the misfortunes of abnormally beautiful girls, continues to produce from beyond the grave, each plot more nauseating than the last. Now, nearly 25 years after his death, a new book by J R R Tolkien has just been signed by HarperCollins. As Katie Allen reports in the Bookseller, The Legend of Sigurd was written in the 1930s, before The Lord of the Rings, when Tolkien was an assistant professor at Oxford. Previously unpublished, the poem is Tolkien’s retelling of the ancient Norse legends of Sigurd the Warrior.

This is not Tolkien’s first posthumous effort: they have been coming out since his death, under the aegis of his son Christopher Tolkien. Each is of less literary merit than the last. Why can’t we let a good writer go, instead of bringing out all his early work when he is no longer there to prevent it? Presumably it remained hidden from the world for a reason. Hasn’t the publishing world reaped enough gold? Doubtless, if someone found a collection of his school essays they’d be issued in bound leather faster than you can say “money spinner”.

MobyLives