Christopher Tolkien Passes Away at Age 95

I really didn't want to write this post, for several reasons. Primarily, of course, because this is very sad news. Less of importance is the further weight it places on my seasonal gloom. I cannot add anything more to his importance: how he heard "The Hobbit" from J. R. R. Tolkien as a bedtime story with his siblings, the support and interest he showed his father during the writing of "The Lord of the Rings", his re-drawing of the Middle Earth maps to replace his father's original sketches, his constant work as conservator of his father's legendarium up until almost a year ago. Did he resign because he knew he was going to die, or did he pass away because he felt he could finally rest?

What can I say that would add to that? I can only recount my own opinions of him through the years. When I first heard about Christopher Tolkien, I couldn't help but feel jealous. Next to actually being Professor Tolkien, what could be better than being his son? Then I was annoyed with him in the person of the Tolkien Estate, and the slowness of the release of unpublished work. Only gradually did I become aware of the enormous task he had taken on his shoulders, and his protection of his father's legacy. The more I learned about his own unique qualifications, his enormous scholarship, his careful analysis of the ancient, sometimes overwritten pile of manuscripts that had become scattered through the years, the more I appreciated his efforts. In the end I respected him almost as much as his father, if only for protecting Middle Earth from even my own juvenile desires.

What happens to this legacy now that the door-warden is gone? I shudder to think what comes after. But Christopher Tolkien's work will still stand as an enduring monument, whatever grows up around it.

The Fall of Gondolin: A Review and a Farewell

THE FALL OF GONDOLIN, by J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien, concludes what might be considered the Great Tales Trilogy, begun with THE CHILDREN OF HURIN and continued in BEREN AND LUTHIEN, in which the three most engaging strands of narrative from the Middle Earth 'Legendarium' are followed and developed, from their earliest conceptions to their last and latest forms. This book, as the others before it, incorporates the artwork of Alan Lee, a name that has come to be associated by an entire generation with the Tolkien brand, in eight color plates and fifteen pencil sketches. A fold-out map of Beleriand is included, the part of Middle Earth where the story takes place, and which has been drowned for many centuries by the time the events of THE LORD OF THE RINGS take place. It is, altogether, a lovely and lovingly-made book.

THE FALL OF GONDOLIN gathers together scattered material mostly already published throughout the monumental twelve volumes of THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH into one convenient location. This allows the development of this Great Tale to be examined more minutely and the workings of J. R. R. Tolkien's mythopoeic mind and methods, his hopes and dreams, to be laid bare. Someone who has had the time and leisure to follow these threads for nearly forty years, and has had access to every volume in the ever-growing mythos, may think there is nothing new to be found, but such a person would be wrong. The ever-maturing insights of Christopher Tolkien into his father's work, the scholarly labor he brings into classifying and clarifying the different layers of composition, the guardianship and identification he has come to have with that work, has reached its ultimate expression in this book. And at ninety-four (thirteen years older than his father ever lived) Christopher states that this is 'indubitably' the last volume of his father's 'Legendarium' he will ever edit. It is the end of an age. Whatever follows after this must be at best third-hand accounts and analyses, and more or less faithful 'retellings' and retailings from the authentic material.

The story of THE FALL OF GONDOLIN, both of the tale itself and the real-life account of its development, tells of a high achievement that 'founders'. The story follows the fate of the hidden Elvish realm and city of Gondolin, which has been preserved in hidden secrecy from the malice of the Dark Lord, Morgoth. The time of its fate draws near, however, and the great Vala of the sea, Ulmo, who still pities the Elves in their exile, sends the man Tuor to warn the Elven King Turgon of approaching doom. The downfall of the city, the workings out of hope and treachery and fear and fidelity, and an epic battle and defense, are the substance of the narrative. The story's finest flower and embellishment in its last version ends at the poignant point where the questing Tuor pierces the encircling mountains and gets a vision of the white city of Gondolin from afar off. There Tolkien drops the tale, perhaps too tired and in poor hopes of ever getting his stories of the First Age published, perhaps despairing that he could ever raise his powers again high enough to match the visions of his youth. It remains, as Gimli says in THE RETURN OF THE KING of the works of men, a 'might-have-been'. But it is a glimpse, a far-off dream, that can still stir the heart.

And so Christopher Tolkien lays down his steward's rod. I must confess that, after what was the obvious necessity of having a version of THE SILMARILLION edited together, I had some doubts about his releases of Tolkien's unpublished works, fearing a mere 'cash grab'. But the years of his scholarly application and the wary preservation of his father's legacy, even in the face of enormous sums of money to be had, has led me to be ashamed of my original fears. If J. R. R. Tolkien has been Earendil, a star rising with hope unlooked-for in the firmament of literature, Christopher Tolkien has been his son Elrond, preserving lore and wisdom into another age. I believe I have said it before: when we enjoy these posthumously published works of Tolkien we are not merely reading the work of one great man; we find the work of two.

Beren and Lúthien: A Review

"Hobbits delighted in such things, if they were accurate: they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions." -- Prologue, The Fellowship of the Ring.

I have at long last got a copy of the most recent Tolkien book, "Beren and Luthien," and, as I imagined I would, gulped it down in one swallow. It contains, as Christopher Tolkien himself admits, "not a single page of original or unpublished work," always excepting his own thorough and scholarly editorial work and comments.

So why buy and read such a book? There are several good reasons. For one thing, it draws together all the materials from one of the three great tales of the 'Legendarium,' around which "The Silmarillion" itself could be said to have coalesced. If one does not wish to go hunting and pecking through the twelve massive volumes of "The History of Middle Earth," the three volumes of "The Lord of the Rings," or indeed quotes from "The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien," here you may find the numerous versions gathered together for your convenience, and in chronological order of composition, no less; all "set out fair and square."

Another would be the inimitable illustrations of Alan Lee, whose work with the producers of the "The Lord of the Rings" films has cemented him in the position of THE illustrator of Tolkien's world. With ten new color pictures (including the cover) and numerous pencil sketches, he fills in more of the visuals of Middle Earth, including alternate visions from "The Book of Lost Tales," where we see Sauron in his original form of Thu, a monstrous black cat.

I got this book close on the heels of the announcement of the coming, on August 30th, of "The Fall of Gondolin," which, with "The Children of Hurin" and "Beren and Luthien," will be the third digest of the founding myths. Christopher Tolkien, with these final volumes, has struck an elegiac note, as, at the age of 93, he finally lays down the care of his great father's work and world.