As with Part One lots depth and early development of what would eventually become the Silmarillion, from brainstorming to outlines, to early and discarded drafts & entirely reworked ideas, all researched and expertly presented by Christopher Tolkien. As always great history into Middle Earth, but even more so into the writing process and the writer’s working evolution as they craft their unique story.

Deuxième tome des contes perdus.

Comme pour le premier, la lecture est plutôt réservée à ceux et celles qui ont lus le Silmarillon et les contes et légendes perdus dans un premier temps.

Dans ce livre, on revient sur les premières versions des histoires suivantes :
- le conte de Tinuviel (Beren et Luthien)
- Turambar et le Foaloke (les enfants de Hurin)
- La chute de Gondolin
- Le Naugalfring
- le conte d'Eärendel (Eärendil)
- L'histoire d'Eriol ou Elfwine

Les deux dernières parties sont objectivement plus difficiles à suivre. Les notes sont beaucoup plus nombreuses.

Les versions présentes dans le Silmarillon sont plus faciles à comprendre, Christopher Tolkien ayant "nettoyé" les textes. Ici, il revient sur les modifications apportées par son père, les éventuelles contradictions que l'on retrouve au fil des changements et les évolutions notamment dans les noms des personnages.

Ouvrage très intéressant mais réservé aux initiés.

The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two (The History of Middle-Earth #2), J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien (Editor)
The Book of Lost Tales is a collection of early stories by English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, published as the first two volumes of Christopher Tolkien's 12-volume series The History of Middle-earth, in which he presents and analyzes the manuscripts of those stories, which were the earliest form of the complex fictional myths that would eventually comprise The Silmarillion. Each of the Tales is followed by notes and a detailed commentary by Christopher Tolkien. For publication the book was split into two volumes: The Book of Lost Tales 1 (1983) and The Book of Lost Tales 2 (1984), but this is simply an editorial division. Both volumes are separated into several "Lost Tales".
This is the second part of the Book of the Lost Tales of Elfinesse which Eriol the Mariner learned from the Elves of Tol Eressëa, the Lonely Isle in the western ocean, and afterwards wrote in the Golden Book of Tavrobel. Herein are told the Tales of Beren and Tinúviel, of the Fall of Gondolin and the Necklace of the Dwarves.
Book 2:
The Tale of Tinúviel —first version of the tale of Beren and Lúthien
Turambar and the Foalókë —first version of the Túrin saga
The Fall of Gondolin —the only full narrative of the Fall of Gondolin
The Nauglafring — tale of the Dwarven necklace known as the Nauglamír
The Tale of Eärendel —the only full narrative of Eärendil's travels
The History of Eriol or Ælfwine and the End of the Tales—an essay about the changes in the framework, and the "unwritten" tales.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و ششم ماه فوریه سال 2010 میلادی
عنوان: داستانهای فراموش شده (قسمت دوم)؛ نویسنده: جی.آر.آر. تالکین؛ ادیتور: کریستوفر تالکین؛
دومین جلد از سری «تاریخ سرزمین میانه»، که نخستین بار: در ماه آگوست سال 1984 میلادی، در انگلستان، و در ماه نوامبر سال 1984 میلادی، در آمریکا، به چاپ رسید، عنوان جلد دوم سری «تاریخ سرزمین میانه»، با عنوان: «داستانهای فراموش شده (قسمت دوم)» نام دارد، و همانند کتاب نخستین از این سری، شامل نسخه های نخستین بخشهای گوناگون داستانهای منتشر شده ی «تالکین»: افسانه ها، و اسطوره های دوران اول است، که حتی برخی از آنها، نسخه های بسیار ویژه، و یکتایی هستند. پس از هر داستان، یک نقد، در قالب یک مقاله ی کوتاه، با قلم: «کریستوفر تالکین»، پسر «جی. آر. آر. تالکین»، به همراه اشعار، توضیحاتی در مورد نامها، و نحوه ی تلفظ، و نکات مهم دیگری در مورد آن داستان، برای خوانشگران پیدا و آشکار میشود. ا. شربیانی

Exhausting and overwhelming, but I left with a sense of accomplishment rather than the frustration I felt after Part One. There were definitely times when Christopher overexplained, overanalyzed, and overpresented his father's works, especially some of the earlier writing fragments that didn't really go anywhere. Still it's better to have too much than too little, and for Tolkien completists, The Book of Lost Tales is indispensable.

So stinking cool

♥️

For only the truly devoted Tolkien fan. And even then there are spots that may be a bit of a trial. I think Christopher Tolkien does as good a job as is possible presenting these early tales and, in some cases in this volume, early fragments and outlines that indicate part of the textual history of Tolkien's subcreated world. For those who love Tolkien enough to enjoy textual history the path of evolution the stories reveal for Tolkien's work is fascinating, although except within some of the tales themselves this book reads more like an academic work than it does a straightforward novel or collection of "tales."

It took me like a month but I did it! I enjoyed the different versions of familiar stories - Beren and Luthien (though clearly JRRT was not a fan of cats, boo on him), the Fall of Gondolin, the Nauglafring, and the Tale of Earendel. I don't think I'll ever enjoy reading about disaster-man Turin and I did not care at all for Eriol's tale and the whole, let's try and make this England, glad JRRT seemed to let go of a lot of that as time went on.

I really tried to get through this. In all honesty, all of these “lost and unfinished” tales books have all the same stories in them. The tales of Turin or Beren and Luthien are all great stories, but I don’t need to read them five times.

Though I liked the first Book of Lost Tales better, this one was still amazing. The stories in it not only give depth to the Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings, but also as JRR Tolkien himself AND what being a human and an artist really means. Some of the work of both prose and poetry in this volume is equal in beauty to the most wonderfully beautiful pieces Tolkien himself published. Anyone who enjoys writing in any form should read these tales.

What serves to be an expenasion and simplification of a part of the tales as given in the Silmarillion also tends to simplify the story quite a bit. I personally liked the complexity of the tales as given in the original text and while the tales as present in The Book of Lost Tales as a whole collection of two volumes are far more comprehensible and provide a better picture combined with more details, notes, and references to the original manuscript, it also takes away a few large factors from the original tales as published in the Silmarillion.

Reading through the book, you can easily tell how it took Tolkien years upon years to refine the tales that he conceived, with his earliest records being from before the first World War and how the language, narration, and plot changed with the man's age and demeanour. It is quite reflective of how he matured as a human being and what he began to prioritise more and more.

However, the Books of Lost Tales seem to be more about what the refined versions of the manuscripts said rather than the stories themselves for even though Christopher Tolkien put his best efforts into assimilating them and stitching them together without conflict, there are places where he could not really find much to proceed with, and just like the first book, the second book has multiple versions of the same story with multiple manuscripts as well where Christopher painstakingly points out all the subtle differences and how the affect the tales and the lore as a whole.

Unfortunately, while some stories might count for an entertaining read, there are a few that shall remain unfinished or at least with skeletal outlines where the large portion of the rest is for you to colour in and perhaps deduce from the existing politics and the impressions of the characters.

Like the first one, at times a bit hard going but still fascinating.

This one gets really down in the weeds, particularly in the last chapters where Christopher is talking about multiple versions of outlines on scraps of paper. There's a reason there's a joke about the next book to be released being the collected shopping lists of JRR Tolkien.

Highlights are "The Fall of Gondolin" and the material around the legends being based in the real world - ie England etc.