By : JRR Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
Illustrations : Alan Lee
Score : 10/10
Year : 2017
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN : 978-0-00-821419-7
Pages : 288* (starts at 8, so actually 280)
Language: English
My wife offered this magnificent book for our wedding anniversary, in its hardcover edition, and I must say, I'm blown both by her gift and by the content, edited by the ever-faithful son of JRR, Christopher Tolkien.
He presents us with all the various verse and prose versions of his father's Beren and Lúthien, as he kept writing, editing and re-writing.
Thus, The Tale of Tinúviel (pages 40 to 88) the tale is told in a style much like that of The Children of Hurin. It's very a very poetic prose, with many of the details read in chapter 19 of the final, published version of the Silmarillion, and yet, in a much fuller form (as can be imagined by the comparitve length, as the latter one ranges p. 189-221).
C.Tolkien comments and inserts information about the evolution of writing and published or previously unpublished forms of the narrative, and here, we can see the numerous changes in the story, its details and at times, the intents his father had for the characters.
The Silmarilion on which his father had, for a time, worked, was going to have much of the same stylistic wording as of the Tale seen above. This can be seen from some of the exracts.
Christopher shares with us the Sketch of the Mythology, sent by JRR to the editors (pages 90-92) and various extracts, telling the same story from diferent perspectives, in different lengths, precise contents and styles.
These extracts are proposed in succession, showing either complementary content in the tale, or variances.
They are from
The Lay of Leithian (94-102) ; (111-132) ; (142-217)
The Quenta Noldorinwa (105-110) ; (133-141)
Each extract is presented either at its start, or at the end of the previous, by C. Tolkien's comments.
The Quenta Noldorinwa is the earliest shape that JRR had completed for the Silmarillion, around or in 1930, as far as C. Tolkien could ascertain.
In the chapter the Quenta Silmarillion (218-232) C. Tolkien accounts of the process of his father's writing, shifting between verse and prose ; and also the choice that Beren, initially an Elf, became a Man in the latter versions, shifting from Immortal, to Mortal, and the consequences these changes had on the main plot.
The return of Beren and Lúthien according to the Quenta Noldorinwa (233-238) accounts of stories after Beren and Lúthien's initial disappearance in the previous forms of the tale, on how they are heard of again later on.
Christopher then offers us an extract from the Lost Tale of the Nauglafring (239-249), a crown with the Silmaril from Beren's tale, starting with a passage concerning the approach of the Dwarves, led by Naugladur, to Sarn Athrad, on their return from the sack of the Thousand Caves. This chapter includes notes and also an extract from the Quenta Noldorinwa pertaining to this portion of the tale (in pages 246-249).
There follows an interesting bonus to end the various forms of Beren and Lúthien, in the chapter called The Morning and Evening star (250-255), pertaining to Eärendil and Elwing, their voyage to Valinor, and which is a central mythological story told in the Lord of the Rings, thus giving us another tie-in portion for the Legendarium, much like appendices, and name glossaries in LOTR and elsewhere.
Beren and Lúthien (this book) also needs such additions : the appendice gives us the first, unfinished revision that JRR Tolkien made to the Lay of Leithian after he completed LOTR (258-273). This is very different in shape, content and even the poetry, to the previous form of the Lay given in the extracts described above. Another noticeable difference is the inclusion of Sauron, who hadn't been named in the decades before.
List of names in the original text (274-285) and a glossary, with page references for rare, out-of-fashion words that the reader may not know are also presented (286-288).
C. Tolkien also included notes on the elder days (18-25), concerning various races and locations in the Legendarium, pertaining to this tale.
Beren and Lúthien (this book) offers 9 full-colour plates by Alan Lee, facing pages 32, 64, 96, 128, 144, 160, 192, 208 & 256, and is presumably the very last that Christopher Tolkien will edit, as said by himself in the Preface (p. 9-17), simply because he was already 93 years old upon completion of the massive work therein.
In case you are confused about Tinúviel and Lúthien in the different titles above, it is the same person. Beren renaming, out of love, Lúthien (daughter of flowers, or blossom, in Beleriandic dialect of Sindarin) into Tinúviel (daughter of the starry twilight, or nightingale).
As you see in the tags of this entry, this book offers both fiction (in the various forms of the tale) and nonfiction (in the comments, glossaries and other notes).
I absolutely adored reading it and tying-in various elements of names and places already heard of in The book of lost tales 2 (in which I took a reading pause for this one) and the Lord of the Rings. An absolute must for all Tolkien fans!
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