"The History of Middle-Earth" - Christopher Tolkie

[duke]

Last time I checked Christopher Tolkien had gone through JRRT's work and has put together 12 volumes of JRRT's unpublished writing. "The History of Middle-Earth".

My question is, are those books worth reading, or are they really only of interest to hard-core Tolkien fans?

[Variol Farseer]

Mostly of interest either to hardcore Tolkien fans, or to writers who want to see how it's done. For writers, the most interesting book is Volume 6, The Return of the Shadow, which shows how LOTR began as another kids' book like The Hobbit. (The hero was originally named Bingo!) Volume 3, The Lays of Beleriand, is of considerable interest if you liked The Silmarillion and dig large quantities of poetry. The two volumes of The Book of Lost Tales are quite charming juvenilia, and show that Tolkien wasn't born with his literary skill. 'The Fall of Gondolin', the first story written (in 1916), was downright awful — prolix accounts of house-to-house urban combat in the prose style of Sir Thomas Malory. In a way, it reminds me of the battle scene at the end of 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.

Some of the best stuff is found in Volume 12, The Peoples of Middle-earth, which contains the openings of two stories that never got beyond a few pages: Tal-elmar, a story about the coming of the Númenórëans to the shores of Middle-earth, and The New Shadow, the famous abortive sequel to LOTR, set in the Fourth Age. Makes you ache with longing for the stuff Tolkien could have written if he hadn't spent so much of his life doing routine academic drudgework. He was a brilliant and productive philologist up until the early years of WWII; then the war, and the dreary bureaucratic grind of postwar Oxford, took their toll. By the time he retired in 1959, he was past his prime. If he had been able to leave his Oxford chair even five years earlier, what stories he would have had the time and energy to write!

In all, I found the series fascinating, but so ridiculously expensive that I have never yet troubled to collect the entire set.

[duke]

Thanks for the detailed description VF. Your summaries of novels are much better than trawling the net for reviews.

[wayfriend]

I've personally only read the ones which describe how LOTR was written, Volumes 6-9, which have been granted their own overarching title The History of the Lord of the Rings.

It's fascinating but it's dry. Be in the mood to read something scholarly rather than a story. However, moreso earlier than later, you can read largish sections of the earliest drafts. For example:

'First of all to tell you that I am immensely fond of you, and that seventy years is too short a time to live among such excellent and charming Hobbits' - 'hear, hear!' 'I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and less than half of you half as well as you deserve.' No cheers, a few claps - most of them were trying to work it out. 'Secondly, to celebrate my birthday and the twentieth year of my return' - an uncomfortable rustle. 'Lastly, to make an Announcement.' He said this very loud and everyone sat up who could. 'Goodbye! I am going away after dinner. Also I am going to get married.'

He sat down. The silence was flabbergastation. It was broken only by Mr. Proudfoot, who kicked over the table; Mrs. Proudfoot choked in the middle of a drink.

What's interesting to me is to see how the story changed as it was written, and to discover, by thinking about these changes, what it was that Tolkien was trying to convey.

[High Lord Tolkien]

(I assume that you've already read The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales. If you didn't I wouldn't even bother with any of the History. Both the Sil and UT have better story structures and are easier to read. UT will give you more of an idea on the way History is written. If you don't have any problem with it check out History)

And duke, don't be put off by the first few books!

The first two, Book of Lost Tales I and II are brutal reads.
It's so alien to what you know about Middle Earth you might not like it.
Infact I've started BLT I 3 times and always put it down in disgust.
But then I stopped trying to read it from beginning to end but rather just jumped in at different parts and started liking it.

It's the very beginning of Tolkiens writings.
It's amazing how rich and fantastic his ideas are.
He really wanted to include every magical being that was known in England.
And you can see it in Books I and II.
But for some reason the communication between Alfwine (spelling?) and others just drove me crazy and I stopped reading, as I said.

Actually none of these books are a fun casual read.
They are fragments of different stories that Christopher put together/salvaged from Tolkiens notes and rewrites.

There's no great hidden secrets or answers but they are fasinating.

I loved the Sillmarilion more than the LotR so I enjoyed "Morgoth's Ring"
"The War of the Jewels" and "The Peoples of Middle-earth" the most.

If you enjoyed the Sill you can just jump into Morgoth's Ring and be fine.

Have fun!

[Caer Bombadil]

Vol 12, as V.F. said, is full of quite interesting stuff, including also some late essays that explain such matters as Glorfindel, Cirdan, the early mutually beneficial relationships b/t Dwarves & Men in the 1st Age. There are several overlapping versions of a First Age Tale of Years. Also, there are some hints at his thinking re fundamental issues of the "science" underlying Arda, such as that business of the Sun & Moon being created relatively late in the "classical" Silmarillion, and the implications for the early history of Men, that presumably he might have incorporated into his final version of the Silmarillion had he lived to complete it. (For which, I suspect, he would have needed the lifespan of an Elf, given his tendency to endlessly deliberate and revise!)

Vol 10, Morgoth's Ring contains even more fascinating things, in addition to early versions of the "Aman" portion of the Sil. There are extensive essays on the nature of elvish lifespans, afterlives, and marriage customs. (Miriel's desire to "die" permanently, and Finwe's desire to remarry, touched off quite a legal and social crisis for the Valar to unsnarl, more than you'd think.)

There is a piece called "Anthrabeth" (Debate) for short, a dialogue between Finrod and a human woman named Andreth who was contemporary with Beor or his son, and loves/is loved by Aegnor (but they never consummate it, to the frustration of both.) It gets pretty heavily into the dark secret of men, where JRRT seems to explore a way to explain the Fall and Original Sin, and some hint of the promise of salvation given to Eve, in Arda terms.

Very worthwhile if you're that interested in Tolkien's Arda Cycle and all the underpinnings and paradoxes thereof with which JRRT struggled for 50+ years.

[Zarathustra]

Mostly of interest either to hardcore Tolkien fans, or to writers who want to see how it's done. For writers, the most interesting book is Volume 6, The Return of the Shadow, which shows how LOTR began as another kids' book like The Hobbit. (The hero was originally named Bingo!) ...

I'm currently about 100 pages into this book, and enjoying every page. For an aspiring fantasy writer, it's treasure trove of insights into the process of how inspiration catches a writer in the process of writing. The first Black Rider was supposed to be Gandalf! When they heard a horse on the road behind them (chapter 3), this was going to be Gandalf catching up. He even sniffed before revealing himself! And then Tolkien immediately discards this idea and it becomes a Black Rider. From there, everything else that makes it Lord of the Rings follows: the Rider has to be looking for Frodo (Bingo) for a reason. That reason must be the ring. Therefore the ring must have a history. And from that history we get everything else. It wasn't even called Lord of the Rings until this unpremeditated turn occurred to him.

Just a lesson for everyone else out there who is trying to write a book: you have to write in order for the magic to happen. The writer rides that same magical crest which later carries along all the readers ... the only difference being that he gets to decide which direction it takes. But this control can be misleading. Along the way a writer can be a reader just as much as everyone else, often knowing as little about the way ahead as they do. His control over the story may seem limitless, but stories exert their own pressure, and often navigate their own courses. Seeing this happen for Tolkien is just amazing.

If you keep a copy of Tolkien's letters nearby, you can also read his own impressions of this work in progress (and the impressions of his publishers/readers) as it happens. It's like getting a time machine and going back to peak over his shoulder while he writes it.

[Edit: whoa ... I meant peeking over his shoulder, not peaking. That would be quite awkward indeed. ]

[Zarathustra]

Well, I suppose I'm just talking to myself now.

Another thing I've realized is how good Tolkien's eye was for revision. The parts that are cut out or rewritten are exactly the ones I would have cut/revised. He clearly has a keen sense of what is working and what is not.

The flip side of this is that it's possible for The Mighty Tolkien to suck. It doesn't just flow from Valinor straight into his fingers like dictation. He really has to wrestle with the text to make it great. Seeing this glimpse into his flaws only makes the final product better. Now I can appreciate the concious choices which made the text better, and separate those from the "lucky breaks" where inspiration just struck him. You can actually see him sweating it out, writing multiple versions, working out the pros/cons of different approaches.

[ussusimiel]

Well, I suppose I'm just talking to myself now.

Aww. You're not alone!

There's also a new guy just signed up, DoctorGamgee. He mods a Tolkien site. He'll surely have something to add.

Just a general point. I've always appreciated Tolkien's storytelling mastery, that it emerged from editing and revisions just makes me more impressed. It reminds me of this:

....... 'A line will take us hours maybe;
Yet if it does not seem a moment's thought,
Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.

u.

[Zarathustra]

Another thing I've noticed while reading this book ...

Several of the changes introduced in the film version of Fellowship were changes either written out or at least contemplated by Tolkien himself. Such as Frodo and Sam embarking on their journey by themselves (no Pippin). I wish I had kept track of more of these instances, but I've been getting the feeling for a while now that the screenwriters read this book. Or maybe the permutations they dealt with were simply the same variables Tolkien juggled to get his narrative into shape.

[ussusimiel]

but I've been getting the feeling for a while now that the screenwriters read this book.

I wouldn't be a bit surprised. They knew early on that they were going to have to make a fair number of narrative alterations, so I'd say any source that might have helped with that would have been used.

I wasn't gone on the changes the first time I saw the films, but as time has gone on I don't know if I object to any of them now. The Elves arriving in Helm's Deep is one of my favourite scenes from the films.

u.