It’s no secret that Christopher Tolkien has made every effort to stay away from the spotlight generated by his father’s works. For years, the octogenarian has been quietly laboring as the head of the Tolkien Estate to preserve and promote J.R.R. Tolkien’s works, especially those like The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin that had yet to see the light of day before the professor passed away in 1973. Recently, and to everyone’s surprise, Le Monde was granted an interview with Christopher and his wife Baille at their home in southern France. In the interview, the Le Monde talks about much of the history of Christopher’s decades of work, and Christopher himself shares his sadness about the commercialism surrounding The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit:
The chasm between the beauty and seriousness of the work, and what it has become, has gone too far for me. Such commercialisation has reduced the esthetic and philosophical impact of this creation to nothing. There is only one solution for me: turning my head away.
The full text of the original interview has been translated into English on Sedulia’s Translations.
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