It's Tolkien, 'nough said! haha

But on a more serious note, this book is not for just any LotR fan. This deep dive into the Tolkienverse can be gruelling. This is some of his earliest work, so not only is it in some ways radically different from the stories we know and love, that were published in The Silmarilion. It was also written using archaic English.

So, if you are a truly a Tolkien fanatic, and you can trudge through the antiquated use of language, then this is the book for you!

Same as part 1, only for people who are really nerdy about Tolkien.

This book is only for the most hard-core fan of Tolkien. If you've read the unfinished tales and the Silmarillion, then this one won't add anything to your repertoire. It's a book about the writing of Middle-Earth, not a story in Middle-Earth. That's the case for the entire series. It's more of a history of the composition and creation of the world; what was type-written, and what was written long-hand on old exercise books. How did the content change from the early drafts to the later ones? What were some of the original character names before the final edit? It's an interesting literary analysis and chronology, but NOT FOR THE CASUAL FAN!

3.5 / Al igual que la primera parte me parece que el papel de Christopher Tolkien se ha pasado bastante por alto entre ciertos círculos, pues esta obra es más una especie de tesis creada a partir de los manuscritos y borradores de alguien más que, casualmente es su mismo padre. Gracias a Christopher el mundo de El Señor de los Anillos no se queda ni en una trilogía ni en una obra compleja, se extiende y se adapta a mucho más.
Personalmente lo que me parece más interesante de este libro es el final descartado de la mitología de Tolkien, donde elfos y humanos terminan siendo los antepasados de los habitantes de todo Gran Bretaña y Europa. Definitivamente descartar este texto terminó de convertir a Tolkien en un escritor para todo el mundo.

Cristopher Tolkien has done an admirable job of putting together his father’s notes in an accessible manner. JRR’s initial conception of the world and mythology of the Lord of the Rings universe is laid bare and one can truly appreciate the sheer amount of thought that has gone into its conception to create a Saga that can rival those produced by certain cultures in their entire lifetime.

The stories themselves demonstrably create a sense of longing for a time long gone, fulfilling JRR’s purpose for the text. He has us wishing we were among the verdant gardens and lively cottages of times long past, as surely he must have when recovering from the vagaries of his World War I experience.

It is, however, a cumbersome text. Only those who are ardent followers of the craft of writing and the crafting of imaginary worlds would find it rewarding.

Tolkien/10

If part one of The Book of Lost Tales was dedicated to Valar and to the World creation concepts, second part is dedicated to 6 pivotal stories for The Silmarillion substance. I enjoyed in the first version of the story of Beren and Luthien, where Sauron is mentioned for the first time, but in form of demon Tevildo - prince of cats. Also, tale about Turin is slightly different than the one in final version. The story about the fall of Gondolin is narrated in all its majesty and details. Also, full version of the creation of the Nauglafring (i.e. Nauglamir) is present in this book, as well as slaying of king Tinwelint (Thingol), that is different than the one in final version, and more logical and consecutive.

The second of the 12 volume "History of Middle-Earth" was another dry read, but had much more interest to me than the first volume. Notably, the early versions of the Fall of Gondolin and Beren and Luthien were very interesting. That said, these are historic tomes full of fragments that are only for the Tolkien completionist. (Which I am).

Wow! All I can say after completing this volume...and the 1st...is that Tolkien had an incredible, complex, ultra-creative mind! "The Book of Lost Tales 2" was interesting in its slowest sections and downright epic in its faster ones! Indeed, it seemed to have a lot more action than the first volume. From an alternate telling of Luthien and Beren to the siege of Gondolin to Aelfwine, this is a must-read for any fellow Tolkienite!

Well, the reason I read this book is because Richard Armitage, the actor who plays Thorin in The Hobbit, has read it. If he is fluent in Tolkien lores, then why can't I? :-)

The story that I wanted to read is actually the Nauglafring (Necklace of the Dwarves). But it was interesting as well to read a more thorough version (at least from the version told in The Silmarillion) of Beren-Luthien's and Turin Turambar's stories. I found out that Beren was a gnome (don't freak out yet, gnome here apparently means that he was one of the Noldors) and that he was helpless without Luthien went to rescue him and left her kingdom shattered, broke her parents' hearts and her brother lost. Spoiled brat. Melian should have put her girdle around that girl. Anyway, Turin's story is awesome, it's always is. Children of Hurin, if you haven't read it then fly you fools to the nearest book store! Sad, extremely harrowing. Tolkien at his best.

And then came the story of Nauglafring. A bit shorter that what I expected but alright. It explained to me the origin of the enmity between the elves and the dwarves. Both sides were wrong, that's the gist. The elves were ungrateful SOBs and the dwarves clearly overreacted. Alliance with the orcs? Seriously, guys.

Then the book went downhill for me. The Tale of Earendil was really boring. Or maybe because there were just so many versions of it in one chapter so it became hellishly repetitive. And I still didn't understand why he got separated from Elwing and why she drowned.

The weirdest part from the book to me is not the scholarly remarks and analysis given by Christopher Tolkien on various subjects from etymology of names to different versions of poems, but it was the fact that Elves became fairies. So while Men were getting more evil and stuff, Elves were fading, became transparent and smaller, until finally Men could not see them. I had a feeling by then that there would be some connection made with the real (our) world. And I was right. So apparently Tol Eressea is now the modern day England! Weird huh? So that confirms the theory that Middle Earth is now the modern day continental Europe. Ha! Can you guess which country is Hobbitton? Mordor?

Anyway, this is not a book for everyone. You have to at least read The Silmarillion first. And you gotta love Tolkien alot.

A J.R.R. Tolkien fan since my earliest adolescence, I have only in my middle age begun to read the notebooks his son Christopher has published in the 1980s and ‘90s as The History of Middle-earth. It is wise not to begin with these books. They do not draw us in to the great master’s enchanted realm as does The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and most especially (for me at least) The Silmarillion.

This, the second book of “Lost Tales” is no easy read, even for Tolkien geeks such as myself. The sentences are long, the words often archaic, the stories themselves often overwritten, and occasionally even convoluted. And yet, they give you incredible insight into the evolution of the master’s mythos. By the time he turned thirty, he had largely fleshed out the stories that form the backbone of The Silmarillion.In the first book, his son included the great cosmological tales up through the flight of the Noldor where a great tribe of elves breaks off from their brethren living among the deities who would become the Valar. In this the second, we see the first sketches of the stories which would become the three great tales of mortal men in the First Age of Middle-earth, Beren, Túrin, and Tuor—and through the son of that last man, the second from the Elder Days to marry an elf princess, of Eärendil and his voyage to the Undying West.

This volume also includes, as its last section, “The History of Eriol or Ælfwine and the End of the Tales.” Unlike the tales of the other men, no great revised version of this part made it into The Silmarillion. But, those familiar with Tolkien’s biography will recognize it as a kind of “missing link” (if you will) between his Middle-earth and the rise of England. J.R.R. Tolkien had long sought to craft a national mythology that he had found lacking in his homeland.

After attempting “to construct a narrative taking account of all the essential features” of that last tale, Christopher Tolkien writes:

I claim no more for this than that it seems to be to be the only way in which these disjecta membra can be set together into a comprehensive narrative scheme. It must be admitted even so that it requires some forcing of the evidence to secure apparent agreement…. Doubtless in these jottings my father was thinking with his pen, exploring independent narrative paths; one gets the impression of a ferment of ideas and possibilities rapidly displacing one another, from which no stable narrative core can be extracted.

And yet in this book, we did see such a “stable narrative core” for each of the three aforementioned tales of mortal men from the Elder Days as well as for Eärendil the Mariner and the Nauglamír (the dwarf-forged necklace referenced in The Silmarillion, referred to in this book as the Nauglafring).

Even without that “narrative core,” the last story (albeit challenging to read) should engage Tolkien geeks. As his son writes, the various “’plots’, abandoned and doubtless forgotten… bear witness to truths of my father’s heart that he never abandoned.” Those notes, he adds, “were scribbled down in his [father’s] youth”.

And these notes—as well as the more structured stories from Tolkien’s notebooks—show how early in his life the master has mapped out the great story he had to tell. They show another thing as well, that he had not yet found the voice with which he was to tell them.

TOLKIEN maratonu #2