Oh, if only The Silmarillion was this good! Well, let me clarify. The “best” of what Tolkien left unpublished upon his death was cobbled together into the book known as The Silmarillion. That would be the stories about the making, marring and bending of the world and the epic of the elves’ war against the first dark lord. Unfinished Tales contains the second tier of that unpublished oeuvre. This book is full of the unknown adventures of the also-rans, alternate versions of cannon events and author Tolkien’s after-the-fact musings about how exactly his story world was put together. It’s all good stuff, but with the exception of the first piece (a detailed account of Tuor’s journey to Gondolin), it’s not great stuff. That being said, what makes it a better book for me is that editor Tolkien as left well enough alone. Admitting from the title page on that everything is “unfinished” frees him to keep his editorial presence to a minimum and present each piece essentially as he found it in his father’s papers. There is no need to jury-rig it all into a “readable” whole; it’s just a collection of unfinished tales. I appreciate that raw, clipped and cut-short feeling. It fits perfectly with the “this is a collection of documents I found” writing style that author Tolkien used in his published works. You can leave The Silmarillion for later. When you finish The Lord of the Rings and wonder, “What’s next?,” this book is the answer.
16 July 2010
A Review: Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-Earth – J.R.R. Tolkien
4.5 / 5 Stars
Oh, if only The Silmarillion was this good! Well, let me clarify. The “best” of what Tolkien left unpublished upon his death was cobbled together into the book known as The Silmarillion. That would be the stories about the making, marring and bending of the world and the epic of the elves’ war against the first dark lord. Unfinished Tales contains the second tier of that unpublished oeuvre. This book is full of the unknown adventures of the also-rans, alternate versions of cannon events and author Tolkien’s after-the-fact musings about how exactly his story world was put together. It’s all good stuff, but with the exception of the first piece (a detailed account of Tuor’s journey to Gondolin), it’s not great stuff. That being said, what makes it a better book for me is that editor Tolkien as left well enough alone. Admitting from the title page on that everything is “unfinished” frees him to keep his editorial presence to a minimum and present each piece essentially as he found it in his father’s papers. There is no need to jury-rig it all into a “readable” whole; it’s just a collection of unfinished tales. I appreciate that raw, clipped and cut-short feeling. It fits perfectly with the “this is a collection of documents I found” writing style that author Tolkien used in his published works. You can leave The Silmarillion for later. When you finish The Lord of the Rings and wonder, “What’s next?,” this book is the answer.
Oh, if only The Silmarillion was this good! Well, let me clarify. The “best” of what Tolkien left unpublished upon his death was cobbled together into the book known as The Silmarillion. That would be the stories about the making, marring and bending of the world and the epic of the elves’ war against the first dark lord. Unfinished Tales contains the second tier of that unpublished oeuvre. This book is full of the unknown adventures of the also-rans, alternate versions of cannon events and author Tolkien’s after-the-fact musings about how exactly his story world was put together. It’s all good stuff, but with the exception of the first piece (a detailed account of Tuor’s journey to Gondolin), it’s not great stuff. That being said, what makes it a better book for me is that editor Tolkien as left well enough alone. Admitting from the title page on that everything is “unfinished” frees him to keep his editorial presence to a minimum and present each piece essentially as he found it in his father’s papers. There is no need to jury-rig it all into a “readable” whole; it’s just a collection of unfinished tales. I appreciate that raw, clipped and cut-short feeling. It fits perfectly with the “this is a collection of documents I found” writing style that author Tolkien used in his published works. You can leave The Silmarillion for later. When you finish The Lord of the Rings and wonder, “What’s next?,” this book is the answer.
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