There’s something deliciously perverse about reading JRR Tolkien’s Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth. Perhaps it’s the secret glimpses into a writer’s process, or maybe it’s because I now know more about the royalty of Númenor than I do about the royalty of England (although the relevance is about the same). Either way, it’s an odd read.
There are really only three unfinished tales here: “Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin,” “Narn I Hîn Húrin,” and “Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner’s Wife.” All three stories take place thousands of years prior to Lord of the Rings, and all three are imminently enjoyable despite their unfinished state. Of course, “Narn I Hîn Húrin” aka The Children of Húrin (see my post on The Children of Húrin) was recently published as a stand alone novel after the discovery of the rest of the manuscript.
Most of the rest of the book reads more like history than fiction, and there are two kinds of history at work here. The first is the history of Númenor and Middle-earth, and the second is a history of Tolkiens’s process. Regarding the former, it’s fascinating to learn more about Middle-earth even if it is in essays about the Istari (wizards), palantíri (seeing stones), the founding of Rohan, and the geography of Númenor (the Atlantis-like island from whose ancient kings Aragorn is descended). It’s all interesting stuff for those of us who can’t get enough of Middle-earth.
For fans of Tolkien’s better known works, there are some interesting pieces here. “The Disaster of the Gladden Fields” tells how Isildur lost the One Ring (this tale was part of the prelude to Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring) as well as two sections narrated by Gandalf. In “The Quest of Erebor,” Gandalf explains his reasoning behind sending Bilbo on the journey with the Dwarves recounted in The Hobbit. “The Hunt for the Ring” has Gandalf telling of what transpired between Aragorn, Gollum, Gandalf and Saruman in the years between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring.
Equally interesting are editor and compiler Christopher Tolkien’s notes and commentary on the texts. It is here that we see the depth of JRR Tolkien’s creation. Here we learn that everything in Middle-earth has a history. Every word in the languages, the names of all the rivers and mountains. It wasn’t enough for Tolkien to just stick some syllables together to make up a word for something or slap a name on his map. All those places, all those words the characters speak, all their names had to mean something. They all have linguistic history and lore associated with them, and Tolkien spent much time working all of that out.
I don’t know if he intended for all of these notes and histories, essays, and explanations to be published, but they are fascinating nonetheless and they provide insight into the discovery of – for it does seem as if Tolkien was discovering rather than inventing – the most fully realized imaginary world ever created.
Inititially, I expected to enjoy the Lord of the Rings related sections the most, but it was the older tales that really hooked me. Perhaps beacuse they were new stories that added yet more depth to a world I have already come to know and love.
James Brush is a teacher and writer who lives in Austin, TX. He tries to get outside as much as possible.
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