Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Christopher Tolkien interviewed in LE MONDE

So, a few days ago (July 6th/7th), an interview with Christopher Tolkien appeared in LE MONDE, France's major newspaper. The original piece was only available for subscribers, and though it was possible to buy a single article (for a euro or so, I think), I didn't have time to try to navigate the directions,* what with being busy babysitting a six-year-old and a year-old toddler all weekend. Thanks to links posted by some good folks on the MythSoc list,** I was able to find the original (in French), which was made available for free online after the first few days:***


I've been slowly working my way through this -- my college French being such that while I'm pretty good on the nouns and adjectives I'm often uncertain on the verbs (so many variants due to tense) -- and finding it of great interest. Now, thanks to another post on the MythSoc list (thanks, Jason), a pretty good translation is available. Given that interviews with C.T. are so rare -- the last I can think of is in the 1992 film documentary on JRRT's centenary (the Landseer video), rather than comment on this one I'd just like to help draw people's attention to it; I particularly liked the bit about Christopher Tolkien having no regrets at leaving academia behind.


--JDR
current reading: A DAMSEL IN DISTRESS (1919) by P. G. Wodehouse


* (thinking the potential for error was high, what with them being in French)

**thanks to Vincent F, Paul W, GHC, and Romuald L.

***although this version seems to lack the reproduction of one of Tolkien's maps that apparently accompanied the original (paper version).

2 comments:

grodog said...

Great article, John, thanks for sharing it!

Elf_NFB said...

Thanks for sharing, John. And thanks for the link to the translation. Especially since I took German in high school. :)
I do wish Christopher Tolkien and the others who believe as he does would just relax. The movies have brought MILLIONS to Tolkien and really only a snap shot in time. These movies will fade but the books will be around FAR, FAR longer. He's done a tremendous job maintaining and extending his father's work. Just relax. :)