Beren And Lúthien

This book was not what I expected. I must not have read the pre-order description carefully enough. I was expecting another “Children of Hurin”. A narrative built from existing Beren and Luthien sources. But it was not that. It was several versions of the prose and verse story along with commentary and notes by Christopher Tolkien. Had I understood what was contained in the book I still would have ordered it, I just would have had different expectations. And I still will give it five stars. “The Lay of Leithian” is my favorite of Tolkien’s poems, and the fact that it remained unfinished is, to me, a great tragedy. It is actually my favorite of Tolkien’s posthumously published works. This includes “The Children Of Hurin”, which I thought was very well crafted from the various sources. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy “The Children Of Hurin”, I did. But I just liked “The Lay of Leithian” better, both as writing and as a story. But the fact that Christopher Tolkien did such a good job assembling “The Children Of Hurin”, raised my hopes that this new volume would be just like that: a prose story assembled from various sources, including the unfinished “Lay of Leithian”, with minimal editorial commentary. It was not. That is not to say that it wasn’t well done. Because of the story and the material it is certainly going to be a well written and a well plotted story. And that it was. The highlight is the section culled from the “Lay of Leithian” (the 1930s version). These verses are magical to me. Of course I can read this at any time in the previously published “The Lays Of Beleriand”, and I do periodically read through it. The original story, where Beren is an elf, is nice to read, since I was not as familiar with it. And it was interesting to see how many changes the story went through over the various versions. Tolkien seemed to have it in for cats, at least based on this early version of the story. But Tevildo was not quite as menacing as Thu (Sauron). Nonetheless, it was very entertaining. The main characters, Beren and Luthien, are fairly well fleshed out in the poem, at least with respect to their personalities. There’s very little in the way of physical description of Beren, but Luthien is described a little more fully, usually referred to as “the most beautiful” elf-maid ever. But her determination comes through much more than Beren’s. She is the one with the magic and ability to mesmerize even Morgoth. Luthien Tuniviel is just as much a hero in this story as Beren. The characters of the hound Huan and his evil counterpart the wolf Carcharoth, were well developed in the limited space. The description of Carcharoth’s whelping and growth were sufficiently grim and greatly added to the atmosphere around the Gate of Angband. It is a much fuller description than the one in the Silmarillion. And the fact that we occasionally seem to get in to Carcharoth’s head is a nice touch. The ending, as we know it from various notes or short narratives, is possibly the most happy of any of the major First Age stories. Certainly there is tragedy, but nothing on the scale of Turin’s tragic story or the fall of Gondolin. And Beren and Luthien, after their tragedy, explicitly get to live out their days in relative happiness. In spite of the curse of the Oath of Feanor. In Middle-Earth terms this is a very happy ending indeed! As I mentioned above, the story is one of Tolkien’s major stories of the First Age of Middle-Earth. It is foundational to much of what we glimpse in “The Lord Of The Rings”, especially the Aragorn/Arwen love story, which it somewhat parallels. This makes the new volume a very good addition to any Tolkien library. So now the whole story (as it exists) is available in one book, rather than searching through various other volumes. And then there are the Alan Lee illustrations. Starting with the cover, which is a great depiction of Luthien riding Huan with Beren at their side, they are very evocative of the First Age of Middle-Earth. Everything is grim and grey – which is to be expected throughout most of the journey. Though I would have hoped for a little more color in Doriath. But these compare favorably to the illustrations in “The Children Of Hurin”. I would say that this is a worthwhile purchase, if you are looking for a single source for all versions of the story. It is not, however, a stand-alone narrative like “The Children Of Hurin”, which is what I was expecting and hoping for. But that’s on me and doesn’t prevent this from earning five stars. One thing I would point out as a shortcoming (to me) is the lack of a map. It's not like there doesn't exist a map of Beleriand that could easily have been inserted in the back of the book. It would have made the journey of Beren and Luthien that much more real to me. This is apparently going to be the last of his father’s work that Christopher Tolkien publishes, so unless there is a new literary executor, this may be the last we get from JRRT Tolkien. Perhaps what I was expecting, a completed prose narrative, is impossible to do with the writings that are left.

Tolkien had a dream to gift his beloved England with a national epic mythology. Volumes of criticism have been dedicated to whether he accomplished this, or, resigned from the quest. Judging from the plethora of unfinished epics examined by Christopher Tolkien in his magisterial History of Middle Earth series it would seem Tolkien failed as many of his planned epics never came to fruition (I would disagree with this position); chief among these epics were to be three tales of the First Age, The Children of Hurin, Beren and Luthien and The Fall of Gondolin. As I understand things Guy Gavriel Kay was hired to assist Christopher Tolkien to edit the Silmarillion and make it suitable for publication. Upon completion of that task Kay wanted to complete the unfinished manuscripts that exist while Christopher wanted to publish the History. Needless to say, the History was the chosen path and it seemed the unfinished works contained therein would never see the light of day. Not so. Christopher brought forth a coherent Children of Hurin and now he gives us Bern and Luthien, I can only hope a Fall of Gondolin is sitting there waiting to be published! Not that there are not concerns, if you are expecting an epic addition like Children, you will be disappointed. Tolkien never brought together enough threads to finish this epic and Christopher seems to be reticent to complete what his father didn't, perhaps because of criticism of him doing that to The Silmarillion. If this is so, it's a shame as Christopher not only has real talent, his work in The Silmarillion is some of the (if not the best) writing in the book; but it overlooks one of the true nature of a mythos, it's never the work of just one man. Be it the Greek and Roman myths as we have them, the Irish, or the Finnish, those works are the works of many hands, of many minds. That being so, and given that we have Christopher's HoME, if Christopher had fleshed out a coherent epic with large contributions of his own I feel he would of been following in this tradition and aided in the development of the mythos JRRT wanted to create. Be that as it may, what we have before us is very good, it's pretty much almost all Tolkien has written on B&L (with the qualification, see 2 star review below) with beautiful Alan Lee illustrations throughout. I can only hope that Christopher spent some of the time between the completion of the HoME and the publishing of Children completing some of his fathers other works as he has not only the talent to do so, but he would bring much need beauty into the world. Ignore the gainsayers Christopher, if you have finished other works publish them!

God, I love Tolkein.Every Tolkein fans out there need to buy this immediately and add it to your collection. This is one of the most captivating and enchanting tales from the Silmarillion and is described in much detail here. It also has some beautiful illustrations by the famed Alan Lee.

This is probably from the most recent version of the story of Beren and Luthien. This story is most complete and detailed version than the one in The Silmarillon. It keeps most of its origin from Tolkien's writing with some edits from his son. Really good book, however its good to note that the writing style of this book is very different from LOTR and The Silmarillon; but still very appealing.

Great edition for LOTR fans

Beautiful book, great illustrations and the history of the tale is told magnificently with lots of interesting discarded versions. Pretty neat if you ask me.

This review is for the Deluxe Edition and I had it shipped to the U.S. It’s a very high quality edition, printed on very good paper and comes in a slipcase. I also purchased the U.S. standard edition of the book and the rest of this review is from the Amazon U.S. posting I made. This book was not what I expected. I must not have read the pre-order description carefully enough. I was expecting another “Children of Hurin”. A narrative built from existing Beren and Luthien sources. But it was not that. It was several versions of the prose and verse story along with commentary and notes by Christopher Tolkien. Had I understood what was contained in the book I still would have ordered it, I just would have had different expectations. And I still will give it five stars. “The Lay of Leithian” is my favorite of Tolkien’s poems, and the fact that it remained unfinished is, to me, a great tragedy. It is actually my favorite of Tolkien’s posthumously published works. This includes “The Children Of Hurin”, which I thought was very well crafted from the various sources. That is not to say I didn’t enjoy “The Children Of Hurin”, I did. But I just liked “The Lay of Leithian” better, both as writing and as a story. But the fact that Christopher Tolkien did such a good job assembling “The Children Of Hurin”, raised my hopes that this new volume would be just like that: a prose story assembled from various sources, including the unfinished “Lay of Leithian”, with minimal editorial commentary. It was not. That is not to say that it wasn’t well done. Because of the story and the material it is certainly going to be a well written and a well plotted story. And that it was. The highlight is the section culled from the “Lay of Leithian” (the 1930s version). These verses are magical to me. Of course I can read this at any time in the previously published “The Lays Of Beleriand”, and I do periodically read through it. The original story, where Beren is an elf, is nice to read, since I was not as familiar with it. And it was interesting to see how many changes the story went through over the various versions. Tolkien seemed to have it in for cats, at least based on this early version of the story. But Tevildo was not quite as menacing as Thu (Sauron). Nonetheless, it was very entertaining. The main characters, Beren and Luthien, are fairly well fleshed out in the poem, at least with respect to their personalities. There’s very little in the way of physical description of Beren, but Luthien is described a little more fully, usually referred to as “the most beautiful” elf-maid ever. But her determination comes through much more than Beren’s. She is the one with the magic and ability to mesmerize even Morgoth. Luthien Tuniviel is just as much a hero in this story as Beren. The characters of the hound Huan and his evil counterpart the wolf Carcharoth, were well developed in the limited space. The description of Carcharoth’s whelping and growth were sufficiently grim and greatly added to the atmosphere around the Gate of Angband. It is a much fuller description than the one in the Silmarillion. And the fact that we occasionally seem to get in to Carcharoth’s head is a nice touch. The ending, as we know it from various notes or short narratives, is possibly the most happy of any of the major First Age stories. Certainly there is tragedy, but nothing on the scale of Turin’s tragic story or the fall of Gondolin. And Beren and Luthien, after their tragedy, explicitly get to live out their days in relative happiness. In spite of the curse of the Oath of Feanor. In Middle-Earth terms this is a very happy ending indeed! As I mentioned above, the story is one of Tolkien’s major stories of the First Age of Middle-Earth. It is foundational to much of what we glimpse in “The Lord Of The Rings”, especially the Aragorn/Arwen love story, which it somewhat parallels. This makes the new volume a very good addition to any Tolkien library. So now the whole story (as it exists) is available in one book, rather than searching through various other volumes. And then there are the Alan Lee illustrations. Starting with the cover, which is a great depiction of Luthien riding Huan with Beren at their side, they are very evocative of the First Age of Middle-Earth. Everything is grim and grey – which is to be expected throughout most of the journey. Though I would have hoped for a little more color in Doriath. But these compare favorably to the illustrations in “The Children Of Hurin”. I would say that this is a worthwhile purchase, if you are looking for a single source for all versions of the story. It is not, however, a stand-alone narrative like “The Children Of Hurin”, which is what I was expecting and hoping for. But that’s on me and doesn’t prevent this from earning five stars. One thing I would point out as a shortcoming (to me) is the lack of a map. It's not like there doesn't exist a map of Beleriand that could easily have been inserted in the back of the book. It would have made the journey of Beren and Luthien that much more real to me. This is apparently going to be the last of his father’s work that Christopher Tolkien publishes, so unless there is a new literary executor, this may be the last we get from JRR Tolkien. Perhaps what I was expecting, a completed prose narrative, is impossible to do with the writings that are left.