Beren & Luthien: The Heart of Tolkien

I am rather late to the party here. While I was extraordinarily excited to learn that a Beren and Luthien book was coming out this (past) summer, here I am not even getting to the book until fall. That, however, is the wonderful thing about fiction: it exists outside of time and the story is always there, replaying itself, ready for whenever you're ready.

The story of Beren and Luthien most Tolkien fans know from The Silmarillion. If you have never braved reading The Silmarillion (it can be intimidating to read for the first time), then the story of Beren and Luthien is a wonderful incentive: it's one of Tolkien's best stories, despite the fact that it doesn't appear in "full" form. That is, we don't have a novel about Beren and Luthien. And no, this new publication is not, like The Children of Hurin from a few years back, the story told in novel form.

As Christopher Tolkien writes, there is no new material in this book and most of it is previously published in things like The Silmarillion and The Book of Lost Tales. What the book is is a look at how Tolkien's handling of this story developed over time and in the various forms. So you get to see how he first wrote it and then later changed it and how he wrote it in verse and so forth. For Tolkien enthusiasts and also people interested in writing, the way that Christopher Tolkien has arranged this book is fascinating. I don't know, however, that this book, being more of a study than just a story, would be a good first introduction to the story for someone who hasn't read The Silmarillion yet. So bear that in mind.

The early version of the story is intriguing: it reads more like a fairy tale than like very specific "Tolkien fantasy" that we would all come to know. Beren becomes almost a Cinderella character, working in the kitchens of Melko (later Melkor, Morgoth). And if you've never read of Tevildo Prince of Cats (who later is, of course, completely removed from the story), that character alone makes this version of the story fun to read. The verse version is also quite nice to have. If it has been previously published, I don't know where that might be; it was new to me. Some of it is quite beautiful, displaying Tolkien's ability to describe images laced with nature and faerie. You could in fact, if you already know the tale of Beren and Luthien from other publications and you're not interested in reading about all of the details of the changes in the story, get this book just to read the verse form of the story.

And of course let's not forget about the beautiful illustrations from Alan Lee, whose work by this point feels so Tolkien to most of us that it feels like he is painting real images, not simply "his take" on the visuals of the text. Sadly, Christopher Tolkien writes that because he is now 93, this will probably be the last of the books of his father's writing that he edits. I had grown so used to new publications like this that this is a strange thought. Beren and Luthien, though, as he mentions, is indeed a fitting way to come to a close: these are the names that mark the graves of Tolkien and his wife, bringing fiction and real life to a meeting place.

Beowulf & Beewolf

I know, I know, I was so excited about Tolkien's translation of Beowulf being published and then it took me over a month to get through it. But you know, for being a translation of what is not a hugely long poem, this is a thick volume. It's over 400 pages, being composed of: the Preface, the Introduction to the Translation, the translation itself, Notes on the text of the Translation, Introductory note to the Commentary, Commentary, Sellic Spell, and The Lay of Beowulf. It isn't just one read: it's a lot of material. 

I've found that what interested me most when I moved through everything was not the translation. The three times that I read Beowulf in college, it was Seamus Heaney's version--and I think that one was, in a way, a more pleasant read than Tolkien's. But, of course, Tolkien never published his translation--and he did most of it when he was still fairly young; so, as Christopher Tolkien constantly asserts, you can't just look at it on its own. What I enjoyed most was finding parallels to his Middle-earth writings, whether in content, approach, or language. And it was a change from Heaney's version to see how Tolkien wrote in prose while still maintaining something of the beat or flow of words from the old manuscript. Anyway.

I didn't read all of the commentary. Sorry, I'm still enjoying being out of school so I didn't quite feel like going through all of it--plus, I never studied Old English, so much of the material regarding the translation is sort of beyond my scope. But when I got over to Sellic Spell towards the end, oh, that was when I got happy. Sellic Spell was Tolkien's way of imagining what the Beowulf story would have been like closer to its original form, back when it was still a folk tale. It's about 26 pages of straightforward language, and it is fantastic. 

Sellic Spell concisely brings in the significant portions of Beowulf's story. Beowulf (renamed Beewolf) becomes a hero all over again, someone admirable and courageous and strong and noble. The action becomes perilous and exciting. The monsters, they're good. And if your interest is in crossovers with Middle-earth, you'll find some. The inklings of Theoden and Rohan and Eowyn, Wormtongue and Gollum and the Black Riders, Aragorn in his isolation and in all his glory. Oh, yes, and then there is The Lay of Beowulf. The two poems bring back memories of Tolkien's poems about Nimrodel and Amroth, Gil-galad, and the others. My college professor who taught the Beowulf and Lord of the Rings classes must be having a field day.