Book – The book of lost tales (1)

Book – The book of lost tales (1)
(= History of Middle-Earth 1/12) 

Author: J.R.R Tolkien, edited and commented by Christopher Tolkien 

Score: 7/10
Year: 1983

Publisher: Del Rey - Balllantine books 

ISBN 0-345-37521-1

Pages (VII-)XXI-345

Language: English 

I read a few of Tolkien's books thus far (the hobbit, LOTR, the Silmarillion and the ''reader''), and decided to tackle the History of Middle-Earth series, comprised of 12 books. 

The series has been the work of Christopher Tolkien in gathering all the various stories, organizing them into the logical order that had at one point or another been the intentions of his father to include in the Legendarium of Middle-Earth, before and after the stories of the Silmarilion/Hobbit/LOTR, in a huge mythological jigsaw and invented a history covering many thousands of years. 

Christopher comments each segment, explaining his own best understanding of the visions that his father had during his lifetime, as JRR had composed for many decades all these pieces that would become that ensemble of myths. 

Many of the stories (if not all - I don't know at this point) , had never been properly finalized by JRR. 

The first two books are called The book of lost tales (1 & 2).  Let me start with the table of contents, with a few small notes. 
Pages VII to XXI is the book forward
Tales, with corresponding pages (the gaps are always commentaries and notes) 

1. The Cottage of lost play 1-10
2. The music of the Ainur 40-45 & 49-58
3. The coming of the Valar & the building of Valinor 63-80
4. The chaining of Melko99-114
5. The coming of the Elves & the making of Kôr 121-140
6. The theft of Melko & the darkening of Valinor 154-171
7. The flight of the Noldoli 180-188
8. The tale of the Sun and Moon  194-219
9. The Hiding of Valinor 233-248
10. Gliffanon's Tale : the Travail of the Noldoli and the Coming of Mankind 259-278

Appendix : 

names 280-319

Short glossary 319-322

Index 322-345

• The Cottage of lost play is a very short story, initially intended as a back story and which JRR had abandoned altogether. Christopher includes it to show the evolution of composition of the tales that would be the History... even those bits that he discarded. 

Pages 11-39 are various notes by Christopher, including (and this isn't specified in the book's TOC) are poems that JRR had written as companions to the Cottage story. Thus far I liked only the poems and songs in the Hobbit and LOTR, but not the Bombadil, nor the ones given here, with their various writing stages. I find the Cottage poems to lack in fluidity and their rhymes don't satisfy me. They seem a bit too heavy on the reading, and don't even rhyme everywhere.

I want, however, to be clear that this is only my own taste, nor a literary critic - I'm not really into poetry, in general. Those I like tend to have shorter phrases and rhyme more often.

• 40-45 & 49-58  The music of the Ainur 

45 commentary on the link between The cottage... and The music... 
58-62 commentary on the music of the Ainur 
You'll recognize the title from a Silmarillion chapter and indeed, just like subsequent tales in the book are the earliest forms of the myths that would eventually become the Silmarillion, or other tales, though the exact contents, order and shape of stories, as well as many names would gradually evolve and become sometimes drastically different during the decades of composition. 

In each case, Christopher Tolkien comments the segments and explains these differences and my blog entry shall never be enough. Therefore, I'll direct you to his comments. 

However, what I can say here is that the narrative is far heavier and continues with various characters telling the past myths to Eriol, this visitor of the lost Cottage. Each time that their discussion ends, the chapter ends with it, and although  Christopher's comments are informative, they interrupt the flow in the tales. 

In this first reading, I follow the order of the book : tale-comment-tale-comment... but I plan for a second reading, some time in the future, without those interruptions, in the hope that the regained flow in narrative will allow me a better understanding of this complex world JRR had created, reshaped and modified so much throughout his life, only to abandon most of the ideas he had initially given birth to. 

It's therefore an interesting read, not so much to close gaps in the stories of the hobbit and LOTR, but to see what came before them. I can see both the compelling nature of JRR's inspirations but also why he gave up on them : their style was very heavy (mid 1910's literature...) whilst that of the Silmarillion served the greater purpose of a backstory and was contained into one book, with a much easier flow to read, without interruptions in characters narrating to a guest, and didn't require extensive notes between each chapter. 

Out of the 9 first tales that I read thus far (April 17th), my favorite was #4,  the Chaining of Melko ; it's narrative flowed the best, it had better prose in my opinion and contains more exciting events. 

During #6, the theft of Melko, however, is my favorite passage of the entire book ; "for she sucked light greedily, and it fed her, but she brought forth only that darkness that is a denial of all light". This is so beautiful, eloquent in prose, philosophical and a foreshadowing of passages in the Lord of the Rings. 

#8 &9 are quite linked, prolonging the creation mythes to that of the sun, and moon, additionally to some important stars in Tolkien's Legendarium (even in his later re-worked pieces) as well as the passage and measures of time in a wonderfully worded piece at the end of #9. 

#10 isn't really a tale, but a collection of commentary Christopher makes of his father's largely unfinished 4 versions of what could have been Gilfanon's tale. He explains the differences in each of these 4 unfinished writings and how their common points outline the earliest forms of inspirations that would later be finalized in the Silmarillion.

All in all, the Lost tales have been a tough but pleasant read. Tough, due to the complexity of the stories and how they differ so much from JRR's later works in the mythos of Middle Earth and also, mostly, the quaint language that is English in a high fantasy JRR of 1915-20ish.... 

Otherwise, it was pleasant and showed many of JRR's inspirations and earliest forms of all his Legendarium, with its rich and epic storylines, and even his imagination of creation myths, gods, Elves and the Men peoples have been quite nicely written in places, and one can see how the prose, though heavier here than later, was developing and taking shape.