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The History of Middle-Earth #9
Sauron Defeated
In the first section of Sauron Defeated Christopher Tolkien completes his fascinating study of The Lord of the Rings. Beginning with Sam's rescue of Frodo from the Tower of Cirith Ungol, and giving a very different account of the Scouring of the Shire, this section ends with versions of the hitherto unpublished Epilogue, in which, years after the departure of Bilbo and Frodo from the Grey Havens, Sam attempts to answer his children's questions.
The second section is an edition of The Notion Club Papers, now published for the first time. These mysterious papers, discovered in the early years of the twenty-first century, report the discussions of an Oxford club in the years 1986-7, in which, after a number of topics, the centre of interest turns to the legends of Atlantis, the strange communications received by other members of the club from the past, and the violent irruption of the legend into the North-west of Europe.
Closely associated with the Papers is the new version of the Drowning of Anadûnê, which constitutes the third part of the book. At this time the language of the Men of the West, Adûnaic, was first devised, and the book concludes with an account of its structure provided by Arundel Lowdham, a member of the Notion Club, who learned it in his dreams.
The second section is an edition of The Notion Club Papers, now published for the first time. These mysterious papers, discovered in the early years of the twenty-first century, report the discussions of an Oxford club in the years 1986-7, in which, after a number of topics, the centre of interest turns to the legends of Atlantis, the strange communications received by other members of the club from the past, and the violent irruption of the legend into the North-west of Europe.
Closely associated with the Papers is the new version of the Drowning of Anadûnê, which constitutes the third part of the book. At this time the language of the Men of the West, Adûnaic, was first devised, and the book concludes with an account of its structure provided by Arundel Lowdham, a member of the Notion Club, who learned it in his dreams.
496 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 1992
150 people are currently reading
9694 people want to read
About the author
J.R.R. Tolkien
799 books78.1k followersJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.
Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.
Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.
Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.
Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.
Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.
Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.
Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.
Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life.
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September 3, 2023
Jos jedna jako bitna i vredna knjiga iz Serijala "Istorija Srednje Zemlje". Nnjen cilj je isti, da nam predstavi genezu dela Gospodar Prstenova ali u ovom slucaju ona se takodje okrece i Drugom Dobu Sednje Zemlje, Numenoru i njegovom jeziku. Nema potrebe havaliti ovakve knjiege, one su to za najvece fanove, te ako se prepoznajete Istorija Srednje Zemlje nesto je sto ne smete propustiti.
February 9, 2021
The history of the writing of the Lord of the Rings comes to a close with _Sauron Defeated_ (well, with the exception of the appendices which get discussed in _The Peoples of Middle Earth_, but I think we can consider that a slightly different thread). This volume is broken up into two major sections, only one of which directly relates to the writing of the LotR. The first section gives the final details about the development of the story of the LotR from the destruction of the ring at Mount Doom to the return of the hobbits to the Shire, while the second gives us a completely different story that further develops the tale of Numenor which composed in 1945-46 when Tolkien had taken a long hiatus from writing the LotR. I must admit that I found the second section much more compelling, even surprising and enlightening, in a way that the first simply couldn’t compare to. That’s not to say that there weren’t interesting nuggets to be gleaned from the first section, such as the fact of just how late the character of Arwen Undomiel and her role in the story came about, or the significant changes in the fate of Saruman and the exact nature of what would become the scouring of the Shire, and the inclusion of an unpublished epilogue to the story, but the second section was just so different, and in many ways seemed to give us a glimpse into Tolkien the man and the artist, that I couldn’t help but be mesmerized by it. The only obvious link between the two sections that would warrant their inclusion in the same volume of the History of Middle-Earth (aside from convenience) is found in the title, since both deal with a time in which the defeat of Sauron in different parts of Tolkien’s legendarium is central.
The second half of the book presents a story called _The Notion Club Papers_, which is an interesting amalgamation of several things: in part it appears as something of a parody of a group of pseudo-Inklings, perhaps giving the reader a glimpse into what kind of meetings Tolkien and his literary friends had; it morphs into what could be considered a continuation, or revision, of the earlier abandoned _Lost Road_ in which the story of the Fall of Numenor continues to develop and take on new features as it is mysteriously communicated to a modern day audience; and finally it also gives us the perhaps most complete glimpse we are likely to get of Tolkien the language-maker as we witness the birth and development of the Numenorean language of Adunaic.
I was surprised at first with how point-blank Tolkien’s apparent caricature of the Inklings was. We start off with a title (“Beyond Lewis or Out of the Talkative Planet”) that lets the reader know that Tolkien’s initial purpose (apparently) was to put C. S. Lewis in his sights and give a fictional (though perhaps no less serious for all that) critique of his (at the time) newly published work _Perelandra_ and its related prequel _Out of the Silent Planet_. In my view none of the Inkling characters presented here come across in what could be called a truly positive light (though it’s certainly not character assassination either), and while Tolkien explicitly states that one should not look for one-to-one correspondences between the fictional and real Inklings, he certainly seemed to be taking at least some of the less than flattering characteristics of his friends and putting them on display.
The Notion Club Papers starts with a discussion of the problem of convincingly portraying in a science fiction story the mechanism for getting one’s protagonist onto an alien world. To a modern reader (or me at least) this seemed an odd point of contention since the use of the tried-and-true space ship/rocket seems to me to be unproblematic, but I suppose in the days before the moon landing or any real results in attempted forays into space this may have seemed like nothing more than a pipe-dream. Apparently Tolkien felt that Lewis’ solution in both of the then published Cosmic trilogy was less than ideal. This debate soon shifts gears, though, as one member monopolizes the conversation by going into an in-depth description of his recent forays into the manipulation and use of dreams as a valid way to actually travel through time or space. The ‘dream frame’ is an old literary device often used by medieval authors, though its use here brought more contemporary authors such as E. R. Eddison and especially David Lindsay (in his _Voyage to Arcturus_) to mind for me. I couldn’t help but see this section as giving some real insights into Tolkien’s working process, esp. in regards to inspiration as he had often, albeit in a much more oblique way, made reference to the feeling that he was more of a transcriber of his stories looking for the ‘real’ tale as opposed to someone making things up purely from his imagination. I always took this to be simply metaphorical, but the way in which the process is presented, and the conviction and detail with which it is outlined here, made me think that perhaps there was a bit more of the esoteric to Tolkien’s own method than I would have at first credited. Of course Tolkien would no doubt be shocked and dismayed at my immediate desire to ascribe such a large auto-biographical element to The Notion Club Papers, and certainly always warned against the dangers of reading biography into a writer’s work, but in this case I really couldn’t help myself. The fact that I doubt Tolkien ever meant for this to be published to the wider public beyond his intimate friends (if at all), and that it deals with several elements of his personal life in a very close way, may mean that he was willing to be more transparent than he otherwise would have been. Of course, I could just be reading way too much into it, but I can’t help but think that the work as a whole really does give us a glimpse into some of the inner workings of the mind of Tolkien the artist.
As the meetings develop a new pair of members take center stage, detailing their own successful forays into the deep past using this dream method, out of which comes the burgeoning tale of the Fall of Numenor. It turns out that both characters are actual descendants of characters in the old tale (shades of the Lost Road here) and are picking up what I can only call the psychic resonances of the story (which nonetheless manages to break into the ‘real’ world in a very physical way). There’s a lot going on here, but I think the most significant elements are the drastic changes to the Silmarillion legendarium that take place, most surprisingly in the paucity (or complete disappearance) of the Elves. In the end Christopher Tolkien has what I think is a very valid explanation for this: that his father was likely trying to convey the story of Numenor (which was still very much within the context of his Middle-Earth legendarium) from a purely “mannish” perspective that had been eroded by time and thus, even with the implied dream/time travel element in the story, many of the ‘true’ elements that included the Eldar and their battles with Melkor were lost in the mists of time.
One might wonder why Tolkien returned to this tale of Numenor when he was in the very midst of writing what would (though unbeknownst to him) become his magnum opus. Part of the answer appears to lie in the fact that at the time Tolkien underwent what might have been a breakdown due to professional (and perhaps personal) pressures that left him with a severe case of writer’s block. Added to that may have been the fact that, as his new tale, ostensibly nothing more than a sequel to _The Hobbit_, became subsumed into his greater legends of the Silmarillion (something to which it had not really been connected to before) he needed to figure out how to make the divergent aspects of each gel. In some ways the tale of Numenor became central to this as it sets up the situation in Middle Earth at the time of the LotR and has direct links with the story of Aragorn and the kingdom of Gondor which was rapidly taking shape. I would also argue that the apparently recent inspirations around the Numenorean tongue Adunaic, which are interwoven into the tale and very much form a basis for the whole story itself, gave him the push he needed to write something new. The importance of Tolkien’s languages, and linguistic creation, to his story writing process (always stressed by him, but I think often misunderstood or overlooked by many readers) thus comes through very clearly. I will admit that the final section of the book, in which the excruciating details of Adunaic’s grammar and linguistic structure are detailed, was more or less skipped over by me. I really do not have a linguistic mind, but for those who do I imagine this would be a real treasure trove of information and insight.
This was, for me, one of the best entries in the History of the Lord of the Rings segments of the HoME series, though ironically less because of it’s depiction of how the LotR itself was developed, than because of a new (though related) story and the insights it seemingly gives to Tolkien the man and the artist. Recommended.
The second half of the book presents a story called _The Notion Club Papers_, which is an interesting amalgamation of several things: in part it appears as something of a parody of a group of pseudo-Inklings, perhaps giving the reader a glimpse into what kind of meetings Tolkien and his literary friends had; it morphs into what could be considered a continuation, or revision, of the earlier abandoned _Lost Road_ in which the story of the Fall of Numenor continues to develop and take on new features as it is mysteriously communicated to a modern day audience; and finally it also gives us the perhaps most complete glimpse we are likely to get of Tolkien the language-maker as we witness the birth and development of the Numenorean language of Adunaic.
I was surprised at first with how point-blank Tolkien’s apparent caricature of the Inklings was. We start off with a title (“Beyond Lewis or Out of the Talkative Planet”) that lets the reader know that Tolkien’s initial purpose (apparently) was to put C. S. Lewis in his sights and give a fictional (though perhaps no less serious for all that) critique of his (at the time) newly published work _Perelandra_ and its related prequel _Out of the Silent Planet_. In my view none of the Inkling characters presented here come across in what could be called a truly positive light (though it’s certainly not character assassination either), and while Tolkien explicitly states that one should not look for one-to-one correspondences between the fictional and real Inklings, he certainly seemed to be taking at least some of the less than flattering characteristics of his friends and putting them on display.
The Notion Club Papers starts with a discussion of the problem of convincingly portraying in a science fiction story the mechanism for getting one’s protagonist onto an alien world. To a modern reader (or me at least) this seemed an odd point of contention since the use of the tried-and-true space ship/rocket seems to me to be unproblematic, but I suppose in the days before the moon landing or any real results in attempted forays into space this may have seemed like nothing more than a pipe-dream. Apparently Tolkien felt that Lewis’ solution in both of the then published Cosmic trilogy was less than ideal. This debate soon shifts gears, though, as one member monopolizes the conversation by going into an in-depth description of his recent forays into the manipulation and use of dreams as a valid way to actually travel through time or space. The ‘dream frame’ is an old literary device often used by medieval authors, though its use here brought more contemporary authors such as E. R. Eddison and especially David Lindsay (in his _Voyage to Arcturus_) to mind for me. I couldn’t help but see this section as giving some real insights into Tolkien’s working process, esp. in regards to inspiration as he had often, albeit in a much more oblique way, made reference to the feeling that he was more of a transcriber of his stories looking for the ‘real’ tale as opposed to someone making things up purely from his imagination. I always took this to be simply metaphorical, but the way in which the process is presented, and the conviction and detail with which it is outlined here, made me think that perhaps there was a bit more of the esoteric to Tolkien’s own method than I would have at first credited. Of course Tolkien would no doubt be shocked and dismayed at my immediate desire to ascribe such a large auto-biographical element to The Notion Club Papers, and certainly always warned against the dangers of reading biography into a writer’s work, but in this case I really couldn’t help myself. The fact that I doubt Tolkien ever meant for this to be published to the wider public beyond his intimate friends (if at all), and that it deals with several elements of his personal life in a very close way, may mean that he was willing to be more transparent than he otherwise would have been. Of course, I could just be reading way too much into it, but I can’t help but think that the work as a whole really does give us a glimpse into some of the inner workings of the mind of Tolkien the artist.
As the meetings develop a new pair of members take center stage, detailing their own successful forays into the deep past using this dream method, out of which comes the burgeoning tale of the Fall of Numenor. It turns out that both characters are actual descendants of characters in the old tale (shades of the Lost Road here) and are picking up what I can only call the psychic resonances of the story (which nonetheless manages to break into the ‘real’ world in a very physical way). There’s a lot going on here, but I think the most significant elements are the drastic changes to the Silmarillion legendarium that take place, most surprisingly in the paucity (or complete disappearance) of the Elves. In the end Christopher Tolkien has what I think is a very valid explanation for this: that his father was likely trying to convey the story of Numenor (which was still very much within the context of his Middle-Earth legendarium) from a purely “mannish” perspective that had been eroded by time and thus, even with the implied dream/time travel element in the story, many of the ‘true’ elements that included the Eldar and their battles with Melkor were lost in the mists of time.
One might wonder why Tolkien returned to this tale of Numenor when he was in the very midst of writing what would (though unbeknownst to him) become his magnum opus. Part of the answer appears to lie in the fact that at the time Tolkien underwent what might have been a breakdown due to professional (and perhaps personal) pressures that left him with a severe case of writer’s block. Added to that may have been the fact that, as his new tale, ostensibly nothing more than a sequel to _The Hobbit_, became subsumed into his greater legends of the Silmarillion (something to which it had not really been connected to before) he needed to figure out how to make the divergent aspects of each gel. In some ways the tale of Numenor became central to this as it sets up the situation in Middle Earth at the time of the LotR and has direct links with the story of Aragorn and the kingdom of Gondor which was rapidly taking shape. I would also argue that the apparently recent inspirations around the Numenorean tongue Adunaic, which are interwoven into the tale and very much form a basis for the whole story itself, gave him the push he needed to write something new. The importance of Tolkien’s languages, and linguistic creation, to his story writing process (always stressed by him, but I think often misunderstood or overlooked by many readers) thus comes through very clearly. I will admit that the final section of the book, in which the excruciating details of Adunaic’s grammar and linguistic structure are detailed, was more or less skipped over by me. I really do not have a linguistic mind, but for those who do I imagine this would be a real treasure trove of information and insight.
This was, for me, one of the best entries in the History of the Lord of the Rings segments of the HoME series, though ironically less because of it’s depiction of how the LotR itself was developed, than because of a new (though related) story and the insights it seemingly gives to Tolkien the man and the artist. Recommended.
June 16, 2021
El Fin De La Tercera Edad.- J.R.R. Tolkien
"Bien, aquí, queridos amigos, en las playas del Mar, termina por fin nuestra comunidad en la Tierra Media. Id en paz. No os diré: no lloréis, porque no todas las lágrimas son malas."
El Fin De La Tercera Edad es la cuarta y última entrega de La Historia De El Señor De Los Anillos, una serie de libros que gestó Christopher Tolkien en la que nos comparte y analiza las distintas etapas de la escritura de El Señor De Los Anillos y las diferencias con los primeros borradores hasta la versión finalmente publicada de la historia.
En este último libro encontramos los borradores de el último tramo de la aventura, con todo lo referente a la Torre de Cirith Ungol, la vuelta a la Comarca con una versión distinta del saneamiento de ella y quizá lo más importante (o por lo menos lo que a mí me gustó mucho) un par de versiones de un epílogo en el que Sam comparte historias con sus hijos previo a una visita importante cercana a la Comarca.
Sin dudas estos libros no son una lectura para acercarse a Tolkien; son publicaciones que apuntan al fanático y conocedor de la Trilogía original, que quiera profundizar su conocimiento y disfrutar de un recorrido desde la gestación hasta la publicación de una de las más grandes historias de la alta fantasía.
🤘🤘🤘
Libro leído para la #tolkienreadalong2019
"Bien, aquí, queridos amigos, en las playas del Mar, termina por fin nuestra comunidad en la Tierra Media. Id en paz. No os diré: no lloréis, porque no todas las lágrimas son malas."
El Fin De La Tercera Edad es la cuarta y última entrega de La Historia De El Señor De Los Anillos, una serie de libros que gestó Christopher Tolkien en la que nos comparte y analiza las distintas etapas de la escritura de El Señor De Los Anillos y las diferencias con los primeros borradores hasta la versión finalmente publicada de la historia.
En este último libro encontramos los borradores de el último tramo de la aventura, con todo lo referente a la Torre de Cirith Ungol, la vuelta a la Comarca con una versión distinta del saneamiento de ella y quizá lo más importante (o por lo menos lo que a mí me gustó mucho) un par de versiones de un epílogo en el que Sam comparte historias con sus hijos previo a una visita importante cercana a la Comarca.
Sin dudas estos libros no son una lectura para acercarse a Tolkien; son publicaciones que apuntan al fanático y conocedor de la Trilogía original, que quiera profundizar su conocimiento y disfrutar de un recorrido desde la gestación hasta la publicación de una de las más grandes historias de la alta fantasía.
🤘🤘🤘
Libro leído para la #tolkienreadalong2019
October 6, 2025
We lost the plot with this one.
Based on title alone, I has full expectations for this to be my the best of the History Of Middle Earth Series.
And then...
then we've entered into some odd fan-fiction, cosplay, thingy Tolkien did with some other professors that he worked with. (help, i'm scared)
He called it the notion club papers, but ending up abandoning the project. (It's probably for the best!)
But yeah, like 3/4 of this book was the most confusing thing I have ever read. I am pretty sure my brain quit working at one point and my eyes were just looking at the words.
I did finish it! But at what cost?
Based on title alone, I has full expectations for this to be my the best of the History Of Middle Earth Series.
And then...
then we've entered into some odd fan-fiction, cosplay, thingy Tolkien did with some other professors that he worked with. (help, i'm scared)
He called it the notion club papers, but ending up abandoning the project. (It's probably for the best!)
But yeah, like 3/4 of this book was the most confusing thing I have ever read. I am pretty sure my brain quit working at one point and my eyes were just looking at the words.
I did finish it! But at what cost?
May 23, 2025
3.5 stars
When I was making my way through the HoME a few years ago, it became quickly apparent that my copy of Volume 9, The End of the Third Age, was missing a lot of info. This full version of volume 9 has four sections.
Section one is obviously everything included in The End of the Third Age, which covers the last part of the Histories of LOTR. I didn't reread that part for this read, except the epilogues. Review for that part is here.
Section two is The Notion Club Papers, which takes up a good chunk of this volume. And I have to say, I was never more glad that Tolkien abandoned a project than I was this thing. On the one hand, this was clearly thinly disguised self-insert fanfic about him and his fellow Inklings, and in that aspect, it was nice to get a glimpse, as it were, of what it might have been like to hang out with those guys. On the other hand, for a "sci-fi" set in the future, it was so thin on sci-fi and anything futuristic as to be laughable. And 1987 wasn't even that far in the future when he was working on this. He also folds in his meta about select modern day people who are able to find the straight road to Valinor. For as much as there was included in this, it was dry and dull. I finally gave up with only 30 pages left of that section. I just couldn't take it anymore. However, it wasn't a complete waste of effort on Tolkien's part because that led him to...
Section three goes over the fall of Númenor, which I had also noticed was largely missing from the other volumes. This picks up where Tolkien had left Eärendel after the Fall of Gondolin and develops the story of Númenor to near completion. It was such a relief to get back to classic Tolkien writing after the Notion Club Papers, like a breath of fresh air.
The last section is an abandoned essay on some of Tolkien's languages, which I wasn't particularly interested in and skipped. But for those who want to learn all his languages, this will no doubt prove useful, as well as the all the philology and Elvish discussion included in The Notion Club Papers.
When I was making my way through the HoME a few years ago, it became quickly apparent that my copy of Volume 9, The End of the Third Age, was missing a lot of info. This full version of volume 9 has four sections.
Section one is obviously everything included in The End of the Third Age, which covers the last part of the Histories of LOTR. I didn't reread that part for this read, except the epilogues. Review for that part is here.
Section two is The Notion Club Papers, which takes up a good chunk of this volume. And I have to say, I was never more glad that Tolkien abandoned a project than I was this thing. On the one hand, this was clearly thinly disguised self-insert fanfic about him and his fellow Inklings, and in that aspect, it was nice to get a glimpse, as it were, of what it might have been like to hang out with those guys. On the other hand, for a "sci-fi" set in the future, it was so thin on sci-fi and anything futuristic as to be laughable. And 1987 wasn't even that far in the future when he was working on this. He also folds in his meta about select modern day people who are able to find the straight road to Valinor. For as much as there was included in this, it was dry and dull. I finally gave up with only 30 pages left of that section. I just couldn't take it anymore. However, it wasn't a complete waste of effort on Tolkien's part because that led him to...
Section three goes over the fall of Númenor, which I had also noticed was largely missing from the other volumes. This picks up where Tolkien had left Eärendel after the Fall of Gondolin and develops the story of Númenor to near completion. It was such a relief to get back to classic Tolkien writing after the Notion Club Papers, like a breath of fresh air.
The last section is an abandoned essay on some of Tolkien's languages, which I wasn't particularly interested in and skipped. But for those who want to learn all his languages, this will no doubt prove useful, as well as the all the philology and Elvish discussion included in The Notion Club Papers.
April 24, 2019
No I didn't read all of this, and probably most of it is boring, but it includes an alternate ending which is a must-read for all Tolkien-lovers. In this version, Sam tells his children about what happened after the events of the book and it's truly lovely and would have worked really nicely in the book (though the ending Tolkien went with is amazing too). That alone is worth the price of admission. Please go read this. Please, please, please.
Oh, and I skipped the last half of the book: all I want is Lord of the Rings, thank you Christopher Tolkien, you genius scholar of Middle Earth. The first bits are not particularly good, although Tolkien repeats the intriguing idea of Frodo hearing a soothing voice tempting him to claim the ring, and then Frodo repents instantly but cannot take off the ring. Gollum has to intervene, in some versions repentantly. And Frodo tells the Witch King to throw himself into Mount Doom and it does (that would have been cool). There isn't that much fun stuff until we get to the Scouring of the Shire. It seems that it too was unplanned and that initially a ruffian named Sharky was to be at the back of it, but Tolkien "discovered" that it was Saruman, based on a careless line in which Merry invites Saruman to the shire when they meet and give him tobacco. At any rate, Gandalf goes with them to the Shire in some versions, and in others Frodo himself kills quite a few ruffians and even kills Sharky, striking the last blow in the war of the ring. I almost wish that this had been how it happened, because the Frodo we see in the books is really tortured almost out of his masculinity. I do find it interesting though that some of the earlier drafts would have been closer to Frodo's perspective in the ending, but that Tolkien felt the need to distance himself from the hobbit the more like Jesus he became.
Also, since we're talking about The Return of the King, why not observe that Tolkien chose to make the final confrontation on Mount Doom an illustration of the Lord's Prayer. Jackson's changing of the ending, almost nonchalantly, always seemed to me to be the worst crime in adapting the books (even more so than Frodo and Sam's parting). It's kind of like getting to the end of the Iliad and having Priam steal Hector's body, or like coming to the end of the Aeneid and having Turnus assassinated, or like coming to the end of Dante and seeing a non-Trinitarian God. Anyway, that's my two cents against the movies: they really don't capture the nobility of the characters or the theme of human sinfulness and the need for divine mercy.
Oh, and I skipped the last half of the book: all I want is Lord of the Rings, thank you Christopher Tolkien, you genius scholar of Middle Earth. The first bits are not particularly good, although Tolkien repeats the intriguing idea of Frodo hearing a soothing voice tempting him to claim the ring, and then Frodo repents instantly but cannot take off the ring. Gollum has to intervene, in some versions repentantly. And Frodo tells the Witch King to throw himself into Mount Doom and it does (that would have been cool). There isn't that much fun stuff until we get to the Scouring of the Shire. It seems that it too was unplanned and that initially a ruffian named Sharky was to be at the back of it, but Tolkien "discovered" that it was Saruman, based on a careless line in which Merry invites Saruman to the shire when they meet and give him tobacco. At any rate, Gandalf goes with them to the Shire in some versions, and in others Frodo himself kills quite a few ruffians and even kills Sharky, striking the last blow in the war of the ring. I almost wish that this had been how it happened, because the Frodo we see in the books is really tortured almost out of his masculinity. I do find it interesting though that some of the earlier drafts would have been closer to Frodo's perspective in the ending, but that Tolkien felt the need to distance himself from the hobbit the more like Jesus he became.
Also, since we're talking about The Return of the King, why not observe that Tolkien chose to make the final confrontation on Mount Doom an illustration of the Lord's Prayer. Jackson's changing of the ending, almost nonchalantly, always seemed to me to be the worst crime in adapting the books (even more so than Frodo and Sam's parting). It's kind of like getting to the end of the Iliad and having Priam steal Hector's body, or like coming to the end of the Aeneid and having Turnus assassinated, or like coming to the end of Dante and seeing a non-Trinitarian God. Anyway, that's my two cents against the movies: they really don't capture the nobility of the characters or the theme of human sinfulness and the need for divine mercy.
Read
November 18, 2022
χρόνος ανάγνωσης κριτικής: 48 δευτερόλεπτα
Μια βδομάδα μετά την άφιξή μου από Ιταλία είχα πάρει φόρα
και διάβασα 6 βιβλία.
Έτσι είπα να δοκιμάσω και με τον 8ο τόμο που άφησα στην μέση
και να δω πώς θα πήγαινε αυτή τη φορά.
Και η φόρα-κατηφόρα που απέκτησα με έκανε να διαβάσω το
υπόλοιπο μισό μέσα σε 2! μέρες.
Και πλέον ήμουν έτοιμος για αυτόν, τον 9ο και τελευταίο τόμο
που ασχολείται με την κειμενική ιστορία του Άρχοντα.
Και φυσικά μόλις το ένα τρίτο του βιβλίου και αυτό μου έδωσε επιπλέον ώθηση
να το πάρω καπάκι με το προηγούμενο και να το διαβάσω.
Το άλλο τρίτο του βιβλίου είναι ένα ημιτελές μυθιστόρημα του Τόλκιν,
όπου ένα γκρουπ ακαδημαϊκών στην Οξφόρδη των 80's διαβάζουν τα έργα τους
και συζητούν για τρόπο να ταξιδέψεις στο διάστημα και στο χρόνο.
Δύο από αυτούς κατά κάποιον τρόπο πάνε πίσω στην 2η εποχή της Μέσης Γης
και συγκεκριμένα την εποχή του καταποντισμού του Νούμενορ.
Το τελευταίο τρίτο του βιβλίου είναι η τρίτη εκδοχή του καταποντισμού
όπως επίσης και η μίνι γραμματική της γλώσσας του Νούμενορ γραμμένη από
ένα από τους ακαδημαϊκούς του προηγουμένου μέρους.
Τώρα (μέσα Νοεμβρίου) δεν ξέρω κατά πόσο θα πάρω άλλον Τόλκιν φέτος ή του χρόνου.
3 τόμοι μου έμειναν και είμαι πια λεύτερος (που θα 'λεγε κι ο Καζαντζάκης)
να συνεχίσω με πιο βατά έργα του Τόλκιν.
November 30, 2022
I guess there's a reason I shouldn't give all of these five stars out of loyalty to Christopher and JRR: this one has been one of my favorites! I'm astounded that the Notion Club Papers hasn't been published independently, as the themes Tolkien develops there were also taken up by later writers. (Robert Holdstock came to mind immediately.) I suppose 'just' because it's not finished. Well. A few chapters by a master are worth more than a dozen novels by a hack.
PS Reading CS Lewis' space-travel trilogy is not only good to read for its own sake, it might help you understand better what is going on in The Notion Club Papers.
(Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength)
PS Reading CS Lewis' space-travel trilogy is not only good to read for its own sake, it might help you understand better what is going on in The Notion Club Papers.
(Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength)
March 14, 2021
On the title page it says that it's The History of The Lord of the Rings part 4, but actually that is true only about the first third of the book - which easily might have been a final 140 pages of the part 3. 140 pages is not that much. Feels like an unnecessary drag or filler for commercial purposes. Furthermore, this book might have been called much more accurately the history of Silmarillion, specifically the history of Númenor, which is what the second and third part of the book largely deals with.
Yet again I am amazed of the constant changing of the names from draft to draft to the final version. There probably was some logic in there for Tolkien, but it feels just so arbitrary. Especially as his names usually mean something literally. In the Middle-earth that seems like a must and if the parents got the name somehow a bit wrong because they're not seers, the name was later changed to something more appropriate to the function of the beholder. Like a pair of socks. But ok, you can say it's their culture, just a bit weird to the reader.
And then there's the middle part of this HOME volume 9 where JRRT takes time off from writing LOTR in the 1940s and starts fiddling around with a new story - The Notion Club Papers, taking place in the 1980s of UK. So you could say he was writing a speculative fiction of the near future! What a surprise.
Of course it almost has no connection to the Middle-earth and is a very boring account of an academic club who talk about their dreams and about adventures in dreams. But they try to convey the notion of dream-traveling to other times and places. Supposedly real places. Maybe JRRT read some HP Lovecraft Dream Cycle stories? Randolph Carter and the Silver Key. Or maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars stories where another Carter also travels space and perhaps time in a dream-like method? But seems that JRRT wanted a bit of variety as an author from the depths of high fantasy. But sadly in the current form it's just another unfinished draft that lacks a strong ending. Well, actually also the beginning and the middle.
Basically also Christopher Tolkien agrees that maybe the middle part is not that relevant in the HOME series, but he doesn't have a better place to put it and since he has this 140 pages of LOTR history to finish and leftover room in the book. On the other hand HOME is essentially a series of JRRT leftovers and drafts that he might or might not have wanted published, so for the academical research it might have it's place in the history.
Yet again I am amazed of the constant changing of the names from draft to draft to the final version. There probably was some logic in there for Tolkien, but it feels just so arbitrary. Especially as his names usually mean something literally. In the Middle-earth that seems like a must and if the parents got the name somehow a bit wrong because they're not seers, the name was later changed to something more appropriate to the function of the beholder. Like a pair of socks. But ok, you can say it's their culture, just a bit weird to the reader.
And then there's the middle part of this HOME volume 9 where JRRT takes time off from writing LOTR in the 1940s and starts fiddling around with a new story - The Notion Club Papers, taking place in the 1980s of UK. So you could say he was writing a speculative fiction of the near future! What a surprise.
Of course it almost has no connection to the Middle-earth and is a very boring account of an academic club who talk about their dreams and about adventures in dreams. But they try to convey the notion of dream-traveling to other times and places. Supposedly real places. Maybe JRRT read some HP Lovecraft Dream Cycle stories? Randolph Carter and the Silver Key. Or maybe Edgar Rice Burroughs Mars stories where another Carter also travels space and perhaps time in a dream-like method? But seems that JRRT wanted a bit of variety as an author from the depths of high fantasy. But sadly in the current form it's just another unfinished draft that lacks a strong ending. Well, actually also the beginning and the middle.
Basically also Christopher Tolkien agrees that maybe the middle part is not that relevant in the HOME series, but he doesn't have a better place to put it and since he has this 140 pages of LOTR history to finish and leftover room in the book. On the other hand HOME is essentially a series of JRRT leftovers and drafts that he might or might not have wanted published, so for the academical research it might have it's place in the history.
March 2, 2019
Great installment in the History-series. This one contains a lot of versions of the Lord of the Rings stories, so read this one if you're mostly interested in LotR. The Notion Club Papers part didn't really interest me, I skimmed through those parts.
March 6, 2025
Full disclosure: I only read “The Epilogue” chapter which is about Samwise and his family. Very satisfying!
March 29, 2021
Do you know who else was defeated? Me!!
March 16, 2025
I have no idea who in editorial messed up so badly as to create this utter Frankenstein’s monster of a book. The first third is the ending to volume 8. Why it was not included with volume 8 and was instead attached to volume 9 is beyond me. (There’s some hemming and hawing about page counts as if those of us who are committed enough to read the 12 volume draft history for a 1,200 page book would look at volume 8 being expanded to 650 pages and go, “Whoa! Too much for me! I’m out!”) That first chunk of the book is actually excellent. I enjoyed it the most of any book since volume 6. It had a lot of quirks and false starts that were fun to experience.
It’s the second 2/3 of this book that is an utter slog. Aside from some minor connections strengthened at the end, it has nothing at all to do with the History of Middle-Earth and is quite terrible to boot. It largely consists of an unfinished novel called the Notion Club Papers, part 1 of which consists of fictionalized versions of Tolkien and his friends discussing where ideas come from (not the imagination, oh no, we actually intuit them from the memories of the inanimate objects around us) and part 2 of which consists of these same elderly British men being possessed by Numenorean ghosts and traipsing their way around England. It’s bizarrely executed and represents a return to the worst idea of the Lost Tales/ Lost Road eras: Aelfwine and the conception of Middle-Earth as a proto-Europe. It just doesn’t work. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now and each attempt feels even more awkwardly plotted than the last.
Fortunately, there is a decent new take on Numenor (The Fall of Anadune, draft 2) hiding in this mess. It features a weird backtracking on the established mythology, particularly concerning elves, but is noteworthy because it was written concurrently with Lord of the Rings, which references Westernesse quite heavily. Still, that’s… 20 pages out of the back 300?
It’s the second 2/3 of this book that is an utter slog. Aside from some minor connections strengthened at the end, it has nothing at all to do with the History of Middle-Earth and is quite terrible to boot. It largely consists of an unfinished novel called the Notion Club Papers, part 1 of which consists of fictionalized versions of Tolkien and his friends discussing where ideas come from (not the imagination, oh no, we actually intuit them from the memories of the inanimate objects around us) and part 2 of which consists of these same elderly British men being possessed by Numenorean ghosts and traipsing their way around England. It’s bizarrely executed and represents a return to the worst idea of the Lost Tales/ Lost Road eras: Aelfwine and the conception of Middle-Earth as a proto-Europe. It just doesn’t work. It didn’t work then and it doesn’t work now and each attempt feels even more awkwardly plotted than the last.
Fortunately, there is a decent new take on Numenor (The Fall of Anadune, draft 2) hiding in this mess. It features a weird backtracking on the established mythology, particularly concerning elves, but is noteworthy because it was written concurrently with Lord of the Rings, which references Westernesse quite heavily. Still, that’s… 20 pages out of the back 300?
August 24, 2019
Up 'til now I've been totally game for whatever rabbit holes Christopher wants to take me down, but this is the first volume of HoME (of the 8 I've read so far) where I just hit a brick wall.
Now, the first section of the book covers the end of RotK and the various epilogues, and it's sublime. But it has no relation to anything else in "Sauron Defeated," so was even published separately (and rated separately by me).
Everything else in "Sauron Defeated" after that first section is.... well... yeah. The Notion Club Papers seemed out of place, a very niche interest in what is already a very niche 12-part book series. I almost wonder if the most appropriate place for them would have been as an extended appendix to Humphrey Carpenter's book on the Inklings? The first set of Notion Club Papers isn't even about Middle Earth at all, but a nearly 100-page discussion of Lewis's 'Out of the Silent Planet' books. We do *eventually,* *finally* get to relevant material in the second set of papers, but these still would have benefited from a lot of cutting and excerpting.
I kept reading through to the end mainly for the notes on Adunaic, because I'm a linguistics nerd. I've read Ruth S. Noel's book on Tolkien's language construction, and I've been able to follow all the linguistics discussions in the rest of HoME, but this is the chapter that finally defeated me. I think you honestly need grad-level philology training to understand that.
A bit of a frustrating read, tbh. Heavy skimming.
Now, the first section of the book covers the end of RotK and the various epilogues, and it's sublime. But it has no relation to anything else in "Sauron Defeated," so was even published separately (and rated separately by me).
Everything else in "Sauron Defeated" after that first section is.... well... yeah. The Notion Club Papers seemed out of place, a very niche interest in what is already a very niche 12-part book series. I almost wonder if the most appropriate place for them would have been as an extended appendix to Humphrey Carpenter's book on the Inklings? The first set of Notion Club Papers isn't even about Middle Earth at all, but a nearly 100-page discussion of Lewis's 'Out of the Silent Planet' books. We do *eventually,* *finally* get to relevant material in the second set of papers, but these still would have benefited from a lot of cutting and excerpting.
I kept reading through to the end mainly for the notes on Adunaic, because I'm a linguistics nerd. I've read Ruth S. Noel's book on Tolkien's language construction, and I've been able to follow all the linguistics discussions in the rest of HoME, but this is the chapter that finally defeated me. I think you honestly need grad-level philology training to understand that.
A bit of a frustrating read, tbh. Heavy skimming.
July 31, 2020
Parts of this were interesting, but I have very little interest in the grammar or phonology of invented languages, and that's what the book closes with.
Here's something from p. 433 that I liked:
And there's some interesting discussion of fairy-stories at 169-170. That's where we see probably the best or most famous quip from the Notion Club papers, Guildford's claim to have determined "the only known or likely way in which any one has ever landed on a world." He teases the others, in response to their inquiries, that "it's not private, though I've used it once." The big reveal? His method is "Incarnation. By being born."
Here's something from p. 433 that I liked:
But members of the royal house seem often to have lived to be close on 300; while kings seem normally to have been succeeded by the grandsons (their sons were as a rule as old as 200 or even 250 before the king 'fell asleep', and passed on the crown to their own sons, so that as long and unbroken a reign as possible might be maintained, and because they themselves had become engrossed in some branch of art or learning).
And there's some interesting discussion of fairy-stories at 169-170. That's where we see probably the best or most famous quip from the Notion Club papers, Guildford's claim to have determined "the only known or likely way in which any one has ever landed on a world." He teases the others, in response to their inquiries, that "it's not private, though I've used it once." The big reveal? His method is "Incarnation. By being born."
November 18, 2019
This one was overall a mixed bag for me, loved Part I, the end of the history of LOTR, Part II with the The Notion Papers was so-so for me, it definitely had interesting sections but probably wasn’t one I’ll go back and re-read, then ended with Part III where Tolkien expanded and developed his early Númenorean legend as his Atlantis-esque retelling story shifted and grew to fit into his growing legendarium of interrelated tales. I couldn’t help but think of his Leaf by Niggle short story again.
February 27, 2021
The last section on Adunaic was rough going, but very interesting to see the ebbs and flows of the Numenor story. Best part was the end of the textual history of LOTR, including the epilogue. Onwards to the next volume!
January 15, 2018
Rounding out the tale of how The Lord of the Rings was written, with the final chapters in Mordor, the rejoicings after, the Scouring of the Shire, the end it now has, and his intended epilogue, where much that got relegated to the appendices about future history was put into a conversation between Sam and his children over the age of five. (Several below had already been packed off to bed.) Much less flexibility than in the first volume, as the plot builds up steam.
Then it's filled out with some stuff he worked on about this time. The Notion Club Papers contain very little about even Middle Earth, and I skimmed most very lightly, and then a bit about the fall of Numenor.
Then it's filled out with some stuff he worked on about this time. The Notion Club Papers contain very little about even Middle Earth, and I skimmed most very lightly, and then a bit about the fall of Numenor.
January 20, 2023
The beauty of the narrative, the motives of the characters, the texture of truth behind the downfall of Numenor—all add up to one of Tolkien’s grandest tales of the elder days. Click below for full review.
https://thatladywhoreadsalot.wordpres...
https://thatladywhoreadsalot.wordpres...
March 5, 2025
This book is almost impossible to rate, given that it consists of three distinct parts, only the last two of which are linked.
PART ONE: THE END OF THE THIRD AGE
This is the final section of the history of the writing of The Lord of the Rings and I give it a 5 star rating.
I loved this history of Book VI. At this point most of the original drafting comes very close to the final version published, so most chapters are relatively short and there is hardly any of the lengthy discussions on chronology and geography which rather bogged down Book 8 of HoMe. It is, however, quite surprising to learn just how many changes were made between the First and Second Editions of The Lord of the Rings.
The main exception is The Scouring of the Shire, which has a number of different storylines before JRRT worked out “what really happened”. In the early versions it is Frodo who leads the overthrow of the Ruffians and even kills Sharkey (then an orc-man, not yet Saruman) in single combat. Massively different from the final conception.
The last LotR chapter is an unpublished Epilogue with Sam talking to his family 15 years after The Grey Havens, answering questions about the Red Book and telling them about next week’s visit of the King and Queen to Brandywine Bridge. It deliberately ends the book, inevitably, on 25th March, concluding with a passage clearly foretelling that Sam, too, would eventually get to go over the Sea to the True West as the last of the Ringbearers to leave Middle-earth. I found this epilogue, in every draft version, very touching and think it was a shame that JRRT was dissuaded from including it. Perhaps it is too sentimental for many people’s taste.
PART TWO: THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS
Overall, I think a 4 star rating is merited, although Part One is very heavy going with lots of abstruse argument amongst a lot of Oxford Professors (presented as lost papers being the minutes of a club like The Inklings). However Part Two rapidly becomes a retelling of Akallabêth or The Downfall of Númenor. It’s too linguistic and philology based for me to fully appreciate all its charms - I suspect not many can - but it became quite fascinating. Tolkien even critiques Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy in Part One (a good job I read it once, some 40 years ago - some ancient strands of life occasionally come back to reward you!) It’s useful to be aware that Lewis and Tolkien had agreed before WW2 to write the sort of stuff they’d like to read (as nobody else was writing it) with Lewis taking on Space Travel, and Tolkien Time Travel. Inevitably Lewis managed to create a trilogy, whilst Tolkien’s effort was never completed and this is the first publication of what he did manage to write.
Tolkien uses dreaming and the repetition of father-son relationships and mystic memories through the centuries as a means to provide his time-travelling “vehicle”. He also includes some “remembered” history of the Danish invasions along the west coast of Britain during the Anglo-Saxon period. These include some lengthy pieces purportedly written in West Midland Saxon, including many phonetic symbols which are meaningless to me, but fortunately full translations are provided.
These Papers, and Part Three that follows, were written during a very long period (1946/47) when he had got stuck, or put aside, his LotR writings (just after the end of The Two Towers had been reached and Book V barely begun). JRRT claimed in a letter to Stanley Unwin that he’d only spent 2 weeks on them - it seems more likely it was something like most of the 18 month hiatus in his LotR writings.
PART THREE: THE DROWNING OF ANADÛNÊ
Three stars - and would have been lower but for Christopher’s lengthy (long-winded?) discussion of the theory behind these writings. It would have been so much better if this theory or at least the text on page 406 had been presented first. (NB this book is 482 pages long, not the 400 Goodreads has recorded.)
Part Three had repeated variations, with much detail completely contradictory between them, of the story of the destruction of Númenor. The reason for these contradictory re-tellings is that Tolkien was deliberately writing three different versions as if they had come down through history and become corrupted in the process. So one gets:
a) Mannish tradition
b) Elvish tradition
c) Mixed Dúnedanic tradition
Consequently as with books 1 & 2 in HoMe one reads the same story repeatedly, but with different bits changed, some quite fundamentally. Layered on top of this, of course, one also gets the different drafts he created to try to reach each of these “traditions” - hence creative repetition is layered upon the planned different “traditions” repetition and it becomes a somewhat tedious read as a result, although well written and it can be interesting to note for oneself how the story is changing. I managed to read all of it in a dedicated few days, so it was possible to remember the subtleties of differences - any attempt to read it in short stretches, say every evening after work, would probably be much, much less satisfying.
It is clear that it was in the writing of Parts Two and Three of this book that the Adunaic language was invented. Consequently there is even more frequent changing of names than normal.
Nowhere is the fact that Tolkien wrote his whole Legendarium to be a vehicle for the development of his languages more clearly demonstrated than in the final section of this book. A highly detailed philological discussion over 27 pages purports to be “Lowdham’s Report on the Adunaic Language” - Lowdham being a main character from the Notion Club Papers in Part Two, who is somehow seeing and even experiencing ancient history, including the Downfall of Númenor. Without appropriate training and a full knowledge of phonetics this entire section is impenetrable. I could understand this no better, and possibly much worse, than I would be able to understand an expert in particle physics providing the latest report on experiments at CERN to her professional colleagues using all the technical jargon and standard symbolism inherent to that world of expertise, with zero consideration for the layman. No doubt fascinating to those for whom this is their field, but utterly meaningless to the rest of us.
(One final point. I am reading HoMe out of order (1, 2, 10, 6, 7, 8 and 9 so far). Reference is made in this book to text in books 4 and 5 which obviously meant little to me, other than to make clear that even earlier versions of the Akallabêth await me when I finally get to them. I don’t think it mattered very much - without looking up such references I can’t believe I would ever have remembered the differences Christopher was seeking to highlight.)
PART ONE: THE END OF THE THIRD AGE
This is the final section of the history of the writing of The Lord of the Rings and I give it a 5 star rating.
I loved this history of Book VI. At this point most of the original drafting comes very close to the final version published, so most chapters are relatively short and there is hardly any of the lengthy discussions on chronology and geography which rather bogged down Book 8 of HoMe. It is, however, quite surprising to learn just how many changes were made between the First and Second Editions of The Lord of the Rings.
The main exception is The Scouring of the Shire, which has a number of different storylines before JRRT worked out “what really happened”. In the early versions it is Frodo who leads the overthrow of the Ruffians and even kills Sharkey (then an orc-man, not yet Saruman) in single combat. Massively different from the final conception.
The last LotR chapter is an unpublished Epilogue with Sam talking to his family 15 years after The Grey Havens, answering questions about the Red Book and telling them about next week’s visit of the King and Queen to Brandywine Bridge. It deliberately ends the book, inevitably, on 25th March, concluding with a passage clearly foretelling that Sam, too, would eventually get to go over the Sea to the True West as the last of the Ringbearers to leave Middle-earth. I found this epilogue, in every draft version, very touching and think it was a shame that JRRT was dissuaded from including it. Perhaps it is too sentimental for many people’s taste.
PART TWO: THE NOTION CLUB PAPERS
Overall, I think a 4 star rating is merited, although Part One is very heavy going with lots of abstruse argument amongst a lot of Oxford Professors (presented as lost papers being the minutes of a club like The Inklings). However Part Two rapidly becomes a retelling of Akallabêth or The Downfall of Númenor. It’s too linguistic and philology based for me to fully appreciate all its charms - I suspect not many can - but it became quite fascinating. Tolkien even critiques Lewis’s Cosmic Trilogy in Part One (a good job I read it once, some 40 years ago - some ancient strands of life occasionally come back to reward you!) It’s useful to be aware that Lewis and Tolkien had agreed before WW2 to write the sort of stuff they’d like to read (as nobody else was writing it) with Lewis taking on Space Travel, and Tolkien Time Travel. Inevitably Lewis managed to create a trilogy, whilst Tolkien’s effort was never completed and this is the first publication of what he did manage to write.
Tolkien uses dreaming and the repetition of father-son relationships and mystic memories through the centuries as a means to provide his time-travelling “vehicle”. He also includes some “remembered” history of the Danish invasions along the west coast of Britain during the Anglo-Saxon period. These include some lengthy pieces purportedly written in West Midland Saxon, including many phonetic symbols which are meaningless to me, but fortunately full translations are provided.
These Papers, and Part Three that follows, were written during a very long period (1946/47) when he had got stuck, or put aside, his LotR writings (just after the end of The Two Towers had been reached and Book V barely begun). JRRT claimed in a letter to Stanley Unwin that he’d only spent 2 weeks on them - it seems more likely it was something like most of the 18 month hiatus in his LotR writings.
PART THREE: THE DROWNING OF ANADÛNÊ
Three stars - and would have been lower but for Christopher’s lengthy (long-winded?) discussion of the theory behind these writings. It would have been so much better if this theory or at least the text on page 406 had been presented first. (NB this book is 482 pages long, not the 400 Goodreads has recorded.)
Part Three had repeated variations, with much detail completely contradictory between them, of the story of the destruction of Númenor. The reason for these contradictory re-tellings is that Tolkien was deliberately writing three different versions as if they had come down through history and become corrupted in the process. So one gets:
a) Mannish tradition
b) Elvish tradition
c) Mixed Dúnedanic tradition
Consequently as with books 1 & 2 in HoMe one reads the same story repeatedly, but with different bits changed, some quite fundamentally. Layered on top of this, of course, one also gets the different drafts he created to try to reach each of these “traditions” - hence creative repetition is layered upon the planned different “traditions” repetition and it becomes a somewhat tedious read as a result, although well written and it can be interesting to note for oneself how the story is changing. I managed to read all of it in a dedicated few days, so it was possible to remember the subtleties of differences - any attempt to read it in short stretches, say every evening after work, would probably be much, much less satisfying.
It is clear that it was in the writing of Parts Two and Three of this book that the Adunaic language was invented. Consequently there is even more frequent changing of names than normal.
Nowhere is the fact that Tolkien wrote his whole Legendarium to be a vehicle for the development of his languages more clearly demonstrated than in the final section of this book. A highly detailed philological discussion over 27 pages purports to be “Lowdham’s Report on the Adunaic Language” - Lowdham being a main character from the Notion Club Papers in Part Two, who is somehow seeing and even experiencing ancient history, including the Downfall of Númenor. Without appropriate training and a full knowledge of phonetics this entire section is impenetrable. I could understand this no better, and possibly much worse, than I would be able to understand an expert in particle physics providing the latest report on experiments at CERN to her professional colleagues using all the technical jargon and standard symbolism inherent to that world of expertise, with zero consideration for the layman. No doubt fascinating to those for whom this is their field, but utterly meaningless to the rest of us.
(One final point. I am reading HoMe out of order (1, 2, 10, 6, 7, 8 and 9 so far). Reference is made in this book to text in books 4 and 5 which obviously meant little to me, other than to make clear that even earlier versions of the Akallabêth await me when I finally get to them. I don’t think it mattered very much - without looking up such references I can’t believe I would ever have remembered the differences Christopher was seeking to highlight.)
November 3, 2024
The long road comes to a winding end, having taken the long way around, and one peculiar shortcut. So here – just before my beginning – is also rooted (so conveniently) something of a conclusion. If my theme in visiting these many reflections on Middle-earth has been that of textual history, it is in Sauron Defeated that we at last arrive at that spectral ambition that seems sewn throughout the late-Tolkien. A complete work for which there are several competing traditions. The Fall of Númenor, The Drowning of Anadûnê, and the Akallabeth all depict the same event, but by different perspectives. The Elvish, the Mannish, and the combined Dúnedain vantage. Here there is a neat knitting of the meta and the textual: insofar as the Akallabeth is, itself, derived from The Fall and The Drowning, both in actual fact as much as in textual tradition. It is a marrying of the two older conceptions. The qualities of these mutual-histories are not, of course, completely expressed. We wonder if the ‘Elvish’ history would contain reports of ‘flying craft’ built by the Númenóreans if the text were revisited (probably not); and therefore there is some remaining dream in how these texts may have been adapted if they had a coterminous finish. Nonetheless, they achieve the effect of ‘perspective’, both in their incompatible narratives and in their divergent use of language. The one written in appeal to Adûnaic, the others toward Elvish – and therein a different texture for each edition. Had Tolkien’s final wishes been fulfilled in the way he laid them out, perhaps we could imagine an entire Silmarillion tradition broken in this manner: the Mannish myths against the Elvish history (or vectors pointing both ways). So much of the Middle-earth project is, really, the distinction between myth and history. The point by which one yields to the other, or the degree by which both might co-exist simultaneously. This is then taken into the matter of The Notion Club Papers, an otherwise improved stake at the same idea attempted in The Lost Road. This version takes its own narrative somewhat more seriously, and – if the concept remains ludicrous – it seems built so as to excavate and justify its fiction. (Perhaps, in typical form, it expends too much energy in this disposition.) The club-members discuss early on the distinction between history and legend in the frame of psychic-dream-travelling, in which it is said that both history and legend are accessible in this means of travel, partially on the suggestion that neither is in fact an objective record, and both are in some way matted into the experienced-world. The balance is accorded by time: the further back one travels, the greater myth becomes and the smaller history; this is not merely a point at which ‘fiction’ overtakes ‘fact’, but wherein certain narratives (first understood through history) take on a grander arc, and are calcified in outsized tales. These tales represent, in their essence, a fundamental truth that is not therefore diminished in their being told in such a way. Tolkien is here exposing both his formal method, but as much determining the worth of his work and those works he admires; it is not just a means of distraction and entertainment (which, in his more defensive sallies against allegory, Tolkien sometimes appears to suggest), but an ethical-historical framework reshaped according to certain axiomatic principles. But this should be understood not as a read of Europe, or Christendom, or any such thing: the principles on which most myth, and most Tolkien is based are more abstract and fundamental than a particular edition/reflection of the record as it exists. Had Tolkien achieved his multiple-stream narrative, we might have seen Middle-earth itself (as a project) doubled within itself: in which the people of Middle-earth create their own mythological structure, which both misrepresents history but (perhaps) captures some essential quality that history cannot render.
Though, in this last assay into the Tolkien blueprints, it is perhaps worth suggesting another point of interest, rather than all those things that did not come to be. Because these books, and their affluence of drafts and abandonments, are not strictly an expression of failed designs and regretful stoppages. I was reminded frequently of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, in which the sessions to Let It Be are expressed in long, circuitous, laborious detail. The classic music biopic will typically light on the moment of inspiration, forgetting that the creative act is only determined by such moments on occasion (perhaps Tolkien’s ‘In a hole’ sentence appeals to this fancy). In large it is a long action, filled with dead-ends and sudden shifts; it contains much in the way of repetition; a work is not so much invented as it is discovered. Tolkien uses similar wording when he talks about his languages, and makes this a very literal experience in The Notion Club Papers – and it applies just as much to the rest of his legendarium. These long, sedulous books express this mode and this feeling: it is a tracing, not only of the essential but also of the inessential, patching an artist together by means of negative space. If Tolkien was once understood on the output of two novels, we can now understand the rootwork beneath them: an enormous tangle of subterranean complexity, which seem to determine not merely a ‘project’, or an artwork, but a significant portion of life. We see here the creative lifeblood; we see here the creative impulse. In ending this volume, Christopher writes appositely on the incomplete Adûnaic grammar: ‘For ‘completion’, the achievement of a fixed Grammar and Lexicon, was not, in my belief, the overriding aim. Delight lay in the creation itself, the creation of new linguistic form evolving within the compass of an imagined time. ‘Incompletion’ and unceasing change, often frustrating to those who study these languages, was inherent in this art.’ In miniature, Christopher describes the art of his father. Not a study in finality (perhaps excepting the volumes on The Lord of the Rings – which I have yet to read), but of change, of the distance between one state and another. We cannot see this as the ruin of a failed artist: delight lay in the creation itself.
Though, in this last assay into the Tolkien blueprints, it is perhaps worth suggesting another point of interest, rather than all those things that did not come to be. Because these books, and their affluence of drafts and abandonments, are not strictly an expression of failed designs and regretful stoppages. I was reminded frequently of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, in which the sessions to Let It Be are expressed in long, circuitous, laborious detail. The classic music biopic will typically light on the moment of inspiration, forgetting that the creative act is only determined by such moments on occasion (perhaps Tolkien’s ‘In a hole’ sentence appeals to this fancy). In large it is a long action, filled with dead-ends and sudden shifts; it contains much in the way of repetition; a work is not so much invented as it is discovered. Tolkien uses similar wording when he talks about his languages, and makes this a very literal experience in The Notion Club Papers – and it applies just as much to the rest of his legendarium. These long, sedulous books express this mode and this feeling: it is a tracing, not only of the essential but also of the inessential, patching an artist together by means of negative space. If Tolkien was once understood on the output of two novels, we can now understand the rootwork beneath them: an enormous tangle of subterranean complexity, which seem to determine not merely a ‘project’, or an artwork, but a significant portion of life. We see here the creative lifeblood; we see here the creative impulse. In ending this volume, Christopher writes appositely on the incomplete Adûnaic grammar: ‘For ‘completion’, the achievement of a fixed Grammar and Lexicon, was not, in my belief, the overriding aim. Delight lay in the creation itself, the creation of new linguistic form evolving within the compass of an imagined time. ‘Incompletion’ and unceasing change, often frustrating to those who study these languages, was inherent in this art.’ In miniature, Christopher describes the art of his father. Not a study in finality (perhaps excepting the volumes on The Lord of the Rings – which I have yet to read), but of change, of the distance between one state and another. We cannot see this as the ruin of a failed artist: delight lay in the creation itself.
January 7, 2023
And just like that, I've finished the ninth book in the History of Middle-earth series--Sauron Defeated (SD).
Before talking about this specific volume, the unfamiliar may appreciate a brief rundown on what the HoMe series consists of. (Those already familiar can skip down to the 'OVERVIEW COMPLETE' line.)
The premise of this series is essentially J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher, publishing the notes of his father in such a way as to show readers the progression and development of the mythology and tales of his legendarium. He started drafting what would later be known as The Silmarillion far back in the days before he even knew what a hobbit was, and worked on this larger, grander work off and on literally into the last month of his life. As a result, he left behind REAMS of notes and jottings and scribbles and letters and everything in between, spanning decades of thoughts and reconsiderations and re-reconsiderations concerning both the older myths as well as the most prominent and complete work of The Lord of the Rings. As a labor of love, Christopher Tolkien endeavored to sift through, sort, and organize (to the best of his ability) all of this information and attempt to publish it as a kind of literary history of it all (hence the title of the series).
So, the HoMe series is BASICALLY a collection of drafts of stories that we have published more fully and completely elsewhere–namely, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. I repeat this to emphasize the fact that its target audience is not only incredibly small, but also incredibly singular in their interests. THIS STUFF IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO JUST CASUALLY LIKE THE LORD OF THE RINGS (movies or book). Now, that isn’t to ‘gatekeep’ or anything–it’s just an attempt at honesty. Even as someone who LOVES Tolkien’s work and reads The Silmarillion for fun annually, some of the HoMe is quite dry and even boring–admittedly, I skipped a few sections here and there! That’s just how detailed and meticulous the Tolkien offspring was in compiling his father’s notes: it’s even too much for some hardcore fans!
However, HoMe does have an audience and I find myself numbered among them. Over the course of the last several years I have picked my way through this series very slowly, relative to my undying love for Tolkien’s work and the veracity with which I have devoured his more completed stuff. Nonetheless, I’ve set my face towards finishing the series and the end of the tunnel is in sight! (The inevitable, and likely much quicker, re-read is also in sight!)
-----OVERVIEW COMPLETE-------
The ninth volume, SD, is rather unique in the series in that it is split into two halves of relatively unrelated matter: the first half rounds out the history of the LotR material, and the second is devoted to an incredibly interesting unfinished tale named ‘The Notion Club Papers’. There is also a large section dedicated to information on revisiting the tale of Númenor and the Adunaic language at the end.
Getting to see the end of the development of one of the greatest stories ever written in the first half of the book is certainly a treat. As with most of the other volumes in HoMe, there are a lot of drafts of the story printed in full, with several partial drafts reproduced as well, sometimes back-to-back. This makes for some dull reading at times since you end up essentially reading the same (or very similar) material multiple times, but most of these alternative or incomplete drafts presented have interesting and distinct features that make some of the backtracking worth it. A lot of Tolkien’s ideas while developing LotR were drastically different from the finished tale, and some were downright crazy, out-of-left-field conceptions of certain characters and events. Discovering these gems make reading HoMe worth it to me.
The latter half of the volume was a bit of a surprise for me. I had heard mention of something Tolkien had written called The Notion Club Papers (NCP), but I had no idea what it was or that it was even related to Middle-earth. To be brief, the NCP story is basically the famed ‘time travel’ tale Tolkien said he would write when he made his alleged agreement with C.S. Lewis–Lewis would write a space travel story, and Tolkien would write one involving time travel. Lewis’ would materialize as his Space Trilogy (which I highly recommend), and Tolkien’s would begin as ‘The Lost Road’ (touched on briefly in a prior HoMe volume), evolve into NCP, but eventually peter out and be abandoned. The fundamentals of the story are: it’s set in the then-future (the 1980s), revolves around a small group of like-minded, professor-type men who meet regularly to discuss an array of literary and philosophical topics, and a couple of them not only develop (or discover?) an ability to ‘travel’ through time in their dreams, but they also discover they are connected to the Atlantis-like tale of Númenor through their distant ancestors. Yes, it’s that crazy. There is a lot of extant writing from NCP, but it’s almost entirely just the characters sitting around and discussing a handful of loosely-related topics in-depth before finally stumbling on some of the more important details of the story I just mentioned. Some of the early parts of the story are dry and drag quite a bit, but the latter parts are very interesting. The whole thing just surprised me. Its novelty alone is worth checking out SD for!
In the final analysis, the more I read of the HoMe series, the more I fall in love with it. The early volumes, when I was less familiar with the subject matter and the style of Christopher Tolkien’s documentary approach to it, were more of a slog to get through at times. Of course, there are slower and less interesting parts of the latter volumes, but there are also so many more unique gems of Tolkienian information to be mined from their pages. I won’t go so far as to say these are perfect books, or that every Tolkien fan ‘needs’ to read them, but they are so extraordinary, and I doubt there are many (if any) literary projects quite like them. I’m very much looking forward to the remainder of the series and recommend any hardcore Tolkien fan with a good deal of patience to take a look at these volumes if they have a chance.
Before talking about this specific volume, the unfamiliar may appreciate a brief rundown on what the HoMe series consists of. (Those already familiar can skip down to the 'OVERVIEW COMPLETE' line.)
The premise of this series is essentially J.R.R. Tolkien’s son, Christopher, publishing the notes of his father in such a way as to show readers the progression and development of the mythology and tales of his legendarium. He started drafting what would later be known as The Silmarillion far back in the days before he even knew what a hobbit was, and worked on this larger, grander work off and on literally into the last month of his life. As a result, he left behind REAMS of notes and jottings and scribbles and letters and everything in between, spanning decades of thoughts and reconsiderations and re-reconsiderations concerning both the older myths as well as the most prominent and complete work of The Lord of the Rings. As a labor of love, Christopher Tolkien endeavored to sift through, sort, and organize (to the best of his ability) all of this information and attempt to publish it as a kind of literary history of it all (hence the title of the series).
So, the HoMe series is BASICALLY a collection of drafts of stories that we have published more fully and completely elsewhere–namely, The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings. I repeat this to emphasize the fact that its target audience is not only incredibly small, but also incredibly singular in their interests. THIS STUFF IS NOT FOR PEOPLE WHO JUST CASUALLY LIKE THE LORD OF THE RINGS (movies or book). Now, that isn’t to ‘gatekeep’ or anything–it’s just an attempt at honesty. Even as someone who LOVES Tolkien’s work and reads The Silmarillion for fun annually, some of the HoMe is quite dry and even boring–admittedly, I skipped a few sections here and there! That’s just how detailed and meticulous the Tolkien offspring was in compiling his father’s notes: it’s even too much for some hardcore fans!
However, HoMe does have an audience and I find myself numbered among them. Over the course of the last several years I have picked my way through this series very slowly, relative to my undying love for Tolkien’s work and the veracity with which I have devoured his more completed stuff. Nonetheless, I’ve set my face towards finishing the series and the end of the tunnel is in sight! (The inevitable, and likely much quicker, re-read is also in sight!)
-----OVERVIEW COMPLETE-------
The ninth volume, SD, is rather unique in the series in that it is split into two halves of relatively unrelated matter: the first half rounds out the history of the LotR material, and the second is devoted to an incredibly interesting unfinished tale named ‘The Notion Club Papers’. There is also a large section dedicated to information on revisiting the tale of Númenor and the Adunaic language at the end.
Getting to see the end of the development of one of the greatest stories ever written in the first half of the book is certainly a treat. As with most of the other volumes in HoMe, there are a lot of drafts of the story printed in full, with several partial drafts reproduced as well, sometimes back-to-back. This makes for some dull reading at times since you end up essentially reading the same (or very similar) material multiple times, but most of these alternative or incomplete drafts presented have interesting and distinct features that make some of the backtracking worth it. A lot of Tolkien’s ideas while developing LotR were drastically different from the finished tale, and some were downright crazy, out-of-left-field conceptions of certain characters and events. Discovering these gems make reading HoMe worth it to me.
The latter half of the volume was a bit of a surprise for me. I had heard mention of something Tolkien had written called The Notion Club Papers (NCP), but I had no idea what it was or that it was even related to Middle-earth. To be brief, the NCP story is basically the famed ‘time travel’ tale Tolkien said he would write when he made his alleged agreement with C.S. Lewis–Lewis would write a space travel story, and Tolkien would write one involving time travel. Lewis’ would materialize as his Space Trilogy (which I highly recommend), and Tolkien’s would begin as ‘The Lost Road’ (touched on briefly in a prior HoMe volume), evolve into NCP, but eventually peter out and be abandoned. The fundamentals of the story are: it’s set in the then-future (the 1980s), revolves around a small group of like-minded, professor-type men who meet regularly to discuss an array of literary and philosophical topics, and a couple of them not only develop (or discover?) an ability to ‘travel’ through time in their dreams, but they also discover they are connected to the Atlantis-like tale of Númenor through their distant ancestors. Yes, it’s that crazy. There is a lot of extant writing from NCP, but it’s almost entirely just the characters sitting around and discussing a handful of loosely-related topics in-depth before finally stumbling on some of the more important details of the story I just mentioned. Some of the early parts of the story are dry and drag quite a bit, but the latter parts are very interesting. The whole thing just surprised me. Its novelty alone is worth checking out SD for!
In the final analysis, the more I read of the HoMe series, the more I fall in love with it. The early volumes, when I was less familiar with the subject matter and the style of Christopher Tolkien’s documentary approach to it, were more of a slog to get through at times. Of course, there are slower and less interesting parts of the latter volumes, but there are also so many more unique gems of Tolkienian information to be mined from their pages. I won’t go so far as to say these are perfect books, or that every Tolkien fan ‘needs’ to read them, but they are so extraordinary, and I doubt there are many (if any) literary projects quite like them. I’m very much looking forward to the remainder of the series and recommend any hardcore Tolkien fan with a good deal of patience to take a look at these volumes if they have a chance.
December 27, 2018
The book is split between the final part of the LOTR books and something called The Notion Club Papers and some more about Númenor.
I took a break after reading the part about LOTR (of which the versions of the Scouring of the Shire and the different epilogues were very interesting) because I had no idea what the Notion club Papers were and didn't think they'd interest me as much.
Boy was I wrong! When I finally read it, I couldn't put it down any more! I LOVED the Notion Club Papers a lot. I liked the discussions being held by the fictitious members (about sci-fi and dreams and such), as well as the whole mystery about the dream visits and the mysterious words and images appearing to some members. It was intriguing. On top of that, it was hilarious as well. It truly is a pity it was never smoothed into a complete work because I would have loved to read it in full.
As is true for every HOME book: not for everyone but if you love to read about Tolkien's work and his thought-process then the first and last part are for you. As for the Notion Club Papers, it might not be but I say give it a shot. I did and I regretted not doing so sooner.
I took a break after reading the part about LOTR (of which the versions of the Scouring of the Shire and the different epilogues were very interesting) because I had no idea what the Notion club Papers were and didn't think they'd interest me as much.
Boy was I wrong! When I finally read it, I couldn't put it down any more! I LOVED the Notion Club Papers a lot. I liked the discussions being held by the fictitious members (about sci-fi and dreams and such), as well as the whole mystery about the dream visits and the mysterious words and images appearing to some members. It was intriguing. On top of that, it was hilarious as well. It truly is a pity it was never smoothed into a complete work because I would have loved to read it in full.
As is true for every HOME book: not for everyone but if you love to read about Tolkien's work and his thought-process then the first and last part are for you. As for the Notion Club Papers, it might not be but I say give it a shot. I did and I regretted not doing so sooner.
September 29, 2019
I have to admit book nine is the first History of Middle Earth (HoME) book that I haven’t finished. I read about 385 pages out of about 440. The last fifty odd pages were very dry, almost textbook-ish, reading. I skimmed through it and got the general idea of what it was about. In general, the book was very dry compared to the other books in the series. It was in three parts: the conclusion of The Lord of the Rings, the Norton Club Papers, and the Fall of Numenor. The Norton Club Papers was particularly difficult to read, it being different than anything else Tolkien or his son Christopher published so far. Thank goodness for the Tolkien Professor’s podcast on this book. While I haven’t finished all seventeen episodes yet, it really helped me a lot in understanding the Norton Club papers. I found the majority of the book to be dry and not as interesting as the first eight in the series. Even though I’ve been a big fanboy of these books, this one nearly had me stopped in my tracks.
Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...
Come visit my blog for the full review…
https://itstartedwiththehugos.blogspo...
September 24, 2015
Another volume in the History of Middle-earth, and another invaluable look into Tolkien's creative process. Sauron Defeated is odd in that it includes a variety of sources, nothing odder than his convoluted Notion Club Papers. It's a bit of a slog to those not as obsessed with Tolkien's work, however. As with many of the books in this series, even someone as fascinated as me found bits tedious, in particular those about the Adunaic language. To paraphrase Tolkien, it is sad that that part of Tolkien's work should remain outside the range of my sympathy (though I understand his own inclinations toward it and appreciate how it shaped his created world). This whole series is a must-read for the invested Tolkien fan.
November 3, 2019
Again, this is from the History of Middle Earth series, so you’d have to be a full-on Tolkien geek to want to attempt this.
This volume begins with the final part of the early drafts of the Lord of the Rings. The next section is The Notion Club Papers, an unfinished time-travel novel Tolkien wrote as a way to retell his Numenor story. He wrote it during a pause in writing LotR, and ended up finishing that instead of Notion Club, which I’m happy about. The final third of this book is yet another retelling of the Numenor story where Tolkien is figuring out whether the world was made round at the fall of Numenor or whether it was always round.
This volume begins with the final part of the early drafts of the Lord of the Rings. The next section is The Notion Club Papers, an unfinished time-travel novel Tolkien wrote as a way to retell his Numenor story. He wrote it during a pause in writing LotR, and ended up finishing that instead of Notion Club, which I’m happy about. The final third of this book is yet another retelling of the Numenor story where Tolkien is figuring out whether the world was made round at the fall of Numenor or whether it was always round.
February 11, 2011
It only takes about 130 pages to finish up The Lord of the Rings. After that Tolkien makes another failed attempt at science fiction. Astral projection and time travel all mixed up with Middle Earth history. A main topic of this volume is Tolkien's invented languages. I'm not surprised to see that as the series of books progresses, fewer and fewer people post reviews. I've been tempted to drop out a few times, but there are only three more to go!
November 18, 2024
"The Adûnâim held that men so blessed might look upon other times than those of the body's life; and they longed ever to escape from the shadows of their exile to see in some fashion the light that was of old. Therefore some among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Lonely Isle, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not, and they said, 'All the ways are bent that once were straight.'"
"The Downfall of Númenor, the Second Fall of Man (or Man rehabilitated but still mortal), brings on the catastrophic end, not only of the Second Age, but of the Old World, the primeval world of legend (envisaged as flat and bounded). After which the Third Age began, a Twilight Age, a Medium Aevum, the first of the broken and changed world; the last of the lingering dominion of visible fully incarnate Elves."
"Voyages can end in grubby, vulgar, little harbors, and yet be very much worth while."
The 9th volume of The History of Middle Earth curates Professor Tolkien's drafts and revisions of the concluding nine chapters (Book VI) of The Return of the King, written between 1946-48. Also included are two ancillary works from 1942-46.
1. The End of the Third Age
Within the 12-volume History, Vols. 6-8 and the first third of Vol. 9 constitute a sub-series titled The History of The Lord of the Rings. I have been reading this sub-series in parallel to listening to the entire trilogy on audiobook. For many years, publishers have been selling this sub-series as a boxed set of trade paperbacks. For the box set, only the opening section of Sauron Defeated is included. It is printed as a standalone paperback with the title The End of the Third Age.
One of the most interesting chapters details Tolkien's original conception of "The Scouring of the Shire". In the first draft, he intended for Gandalf to help the hobbits. Thankfully, he realized this was a bad idea, and Gandalf was jettisoned after only a few paragraphs. Another significant difference is Saruman does not lead the ruffian mob in the first two drafts. He is not in the Shire at all. I sort of wish Tolkien had stayed with this decision. While the scouring is very important in terms of culminating the big themes of the book, I have always felt the chapter makes Saruman seem silly and petty.
Also included are two epilogues that occur several years after "The Gray Havens". Readers get updates on the lives of the Fellowship members through conversations between Sam and his children. Tolkien always regretted leaving this out. He wrote years later: "One must stop somewhere… I still feel the picture incomplete without something on Samwise and Elanor, but I could not devise anything that would not have destroyed the ending."
I also appreciate the original sketches of Kirith Ungol, which are different than what I pictured in my mind and what is portrayed in the films.
2. The Notion Club Papers
In 1945, while taking an 18-month break from writing LotR, Tolkien began a new work of medium-length fiction. It concerns a club of academics who meet regularly to drink beer, discuss art, and read their stories and poems aloud to each other. It is obviously based on the Inklings, who are referenced throughout. The back-and-forth open-ended discussion format provides a forum for the author to hold court, as it were, on a range of subjects-- fantasy versus science fiction, visions in dreams, invented languages, C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, the origin of myths, ghosts and haunted houses.
It is windy, self-indulgent and unfocused, clearly still an unfinished draft.
The second half of the story does improve somewhat, as ancient myths begin to encroach on the present day. Ideas, scenes, and dialogue from The Lost Road are recycled. Tolkien circles back to his oldest ideas of Ælfwine's voyage and reinterpreting the legend of Atlantis as the Downfall of Númenor. Here for the first time, he also finds a way to sprinkle in some of the adventures of St. Brendan of Ireland.
Tolkien invents a new language for this work called Adunaic. Included is a 17-page essay explaining pronunciation, sentence construction, verb tenses, and grammatical gender. Long passages from "The Fall of Númenor" are translated into Old English, then transcribed phonetically in Númenorean script (Quenyan alphabet).
However, in the final analysis, this story is never quite as successful as The Lost Road.
3. The Drowning of Anadûnê
In 1942, Tolkien wrote a third draft of "The Fall of Númenor" which is narratively close to previous drafts from the mid-1930's, except for additional color and detail. In 1945, he wrote an entirely new version titled The Drowning of Anadûnê. The new version of the myth is told from the point of view of Men, with Adunaic words used in place of Quenyan for all proper nouns. Elves are barely mentioned at all, as a way of illustrating how each race emphasizes its own role in history, especially as time passes.
When Tolkien wrote the final version of the myth, the Akallabêth, he drew upon both "The Fall of Númenor" (Elvish history) and The Drowning of Anadûnê (Dunedain history). Many passages in the published Silmarillion retain the exact wording of these old texts.
3 stars.
"The Downfall of Númenor, the Second Fall of Man (or Man rehabilitated but still mortal), brings on the catastrophic end, not only of the Second Age, but of the Old World, the primeval world of legend (envisaged as flat and bounded). After which the Third Age began, a Twilight Age, a Medium Aevum, the first of the broken and changed world; the last of the lingering dominion of visible fully incarnate Elves."
"Voyages can end in grubby, vulgar, little harbors, and yet be very much worth while."
The 9th volume of The History of Middle Earth curates Professor Tolkien's drafts and revisions of the concluding nine chapters (Book VI) of The Return of the King, written between 1946-48. Also included are two ancillary works from 1942-46.
1. The End of the Third Age
Within the 12-volume History, Vols. 6-8 and the first third of Vol. 9 constitute a sub-series titled The History of The Lord of the Rings. I have been reading this sub-series in parallel to listening to the entire trilogy on audiobook. For many years, publishers have been selling this sub-series as a boxed set of trade paperbacks. For the box set, only the opening section of Sauron Defeated is included. It is printed as a standalone paperback with the title The End of the Third Age.
One of the most interesting chapters details Tolkien's original conception of "The Scouring of the Shire". In the first draft, he intended for Gandalf to help the hobbits. Thankfully, he realized this was a bad idea, and Gandalf was jettisoned after only a few paragraphs. Another significant difference is Saruman does not lead the ruffian mob in the first two drafts. He is not in the Shire at all. I sort of wish Tolkien had stayed with this decision. While the scouring is very important in terms of culminating the big themes of the book, I have always felt the chapter makes Saruman seem silly and petty.
Also included are two epilogues that occur several years after "The Gray Havens". Readers get updates on the lives of the Fellowship members through conversations between Sam and his children. Tolkien always regretted leaving this out. He wrote years later: "One must stop somewhere… I still feel the picture incomplete without something on Samwise and Elanor, but I could not devise anything that would not have destroyed the ending."
I also appreciate the original sketches of Kirith Ungol, which are different than what I pictured in my mind and what is portrayed in the films.
2. The Notion Club Papers
In 1945, while taking an 18-month break from writing LotR, Tolkien began a new work of medium-length fiction. It concerns a club of academics who meet regularly to drink beer, discuss art, and read their stories and poems aloud to each other. It is obviously based on the Inklings, who are referenced throughout. The back-and-forth open-ended discussion format provides a forum for the author to hold court, as it were, on a range of subjects-- fantasy versus science fiction, visions in dreams, invented languages, C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, the origin of myths, ghosts and haunted houses.
It is windy, self-indulgent and unfocused, clearly still an unfinished draft.
The second half of the story does improve somewhat, as ancient myths begin to encroach on the present day. Ideas, scenes, and dialogue from The Lost Road are recycled. Tolkien circles back to his oldest ideas of Ælfwine's voyage and reinterpreting the legend of Atlantis as the Downfall of Númenor. Here for the first time, he also finds a way to sprinkle in some of the adventures of St. Brendan of Ireland.
Tolkien invents a new language for this work called Adunaic. Included is a 17-page essay explaining pronunciation, sentence construction, verb tenses, and grammatical gender. Long passages from "The Fall of Númenor" are translated into Old English, then transcribed phonetically in Númenorean script (Quenyan alphabet).
However, in the final analysis, this story is never quite as successful as The Lost Road.
3. The Drowning of Anadûnê
In 1942, Tolkien wrote a third draft of "The Fall of Númenor" which is narratively close to previous drafts from the mid-1930's, except for additional color and detail. In 1945, he wrote an entirely new version titled The Drowning of Anadûnê. The new version of the myth is told from the point of view of Men, with Adunaic words used in place of Quenyan for all proper nouns. Elves are barely mentioned at all, as a way of illustrating how each race emphasizes its own role in history, especially as time passes.
When Tolkien wrote the final version of the myth, the Akallabêth, he drew upon both "The Fall of Númenor" (Elvish history) and The Drowning of Anadûnê (Dunedain history). Many passages in the published Silmarillion retain the exact wording of these old texts.
3 stars.
March 4, 2024
This tome is quite valuable for three versions of “The Drowning of Anadûnê” among which the 2nd version is my favourite and is the closest to Tolkien’s inspirations by Babylonian mythology. These texts are certain appendices to “Notion Club Papers” the singular Tolkien’s (abortive) attempt to write sci-fi novel.
“[C. S.] Lewis said to me one day: ‘Tollers, there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.’ We agreed that he should try ‘space-travel’, and I should try ‘time-travel’. His result is well known. My effort, after a few promising chapters, ran dry: it was too long a way round to what I really wanted to make, a new version of the Atlantis legend. The ‘space-travel’ trilogy ascribed to the influence of [Charles] Williams was basically foreign to Williams’ kind of imagination. It was planned years before, when we decided to divide: he was to do space-travel and I time-travel. My book was never finished, but some of it (the Númenórean-Atlantis theme) got into my trilogy eventually as The Downfall of Númenor.” Thus spoke Tolkien in one of his Letters from 1967.
Now, it happened that this abortive manuscript was developing during 1945 and was not published until 1992 within tome XIX of The History of Middle-Earth Sauron Defeated.
Frankly, I am not impressed – rather perplexed. The entire narrative I was expecting for the story to unravel in front of my eyes, but instead, most of the manuscript was filled with laborious soliloquies and dialogues in-between the members of the Notion Club (which is mere reflection on Inklings and its members are somewhat of genuine Inklings as well) discussing with many real-time allusions about various scientific and science-fiction matter which Tolkien, to my senses, did not bring in a persuasive way as his secondary mythological word was. Thus, central Notion Club member of the narrative - Alwin Arundel Lowdham, philologist and expert for Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic language(s), in one of the meetings retold his dreary dream about some distant land, prosperous and beautiful, above which some dark cloud was looming over and all of the sudden a catastrophe emerged and drowned the entire kingdom and all its inhabitants. Thus begun one of the versions of Númenor legend. The boo thing is that this dream retelling is in a quite tedious manner brought to the reader that I am impressed of Tolkien’s lack of inspiration and zest to reanimate the dream and develop it in much larger portion.
Alwin’s father Edwin was mariner and once he set his sails on his Éarendel boat into Atlantic Ocean and never returned. Both Alwin and Edwin were descendants from Elendil and Alwin’s name means Elf-Friend as well as Eriol’s (Ælfwine).
Manuscript of the Notion Club is about to be found in (from the point when Tolkien was writing this story) in distant future (2012) among sacks of waste paper at Oxford by a certain Mr. Green who will redact and publish the Papers.
The utmost brilliant part of this quite laborious and unfinished story is the poem “Imram” about St. Brendan’s death, which Tolkien incorporated within the Alwin’s elaboration of his dream. The poem is real gem and was inspired by Celtic mythology i.e. ancient Irish poems. Hence such high grade for this Tolkien’s mess.
As well, “Epilogue” to “The Lord of the Rings” is present in this tome, and it is an interesting insight in Sam Gamgee’s family life after Shire was scoured and the tidings about Aragorn’s visit.
“[C. S.] Lewis said to me one day: ‘Tollers, there is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.’ We agreed that he should try ‘space-travel’, and I should try ‘time-travel’. His result is well known. My effort, after a few promising chapters, ran dry: it was too long a way round to what I really wanted to make, a new version of the Atlantis legend. The ‘space-travel’ trilogy ascribed to the influence of [Charles] Williams was basically foreign to Williams’ kind of imagination. It was planned years before, when we decided to divide: he was to do space-travel and I time-travel. My book was never finished, but some of it (the Númenórean-Atlantis theme) got into my trilogy eventually as The Downfall of Númenor.” Thus spoke Tolkien in one of his Letters from 1967.
Now, it happened that this abortive manuscript was developing during 1945 and was not published until 1992 within tome XIX of The History of Middle-Earth Sauron Defeated.
Frankly, I am not impressed – rather perplexed. The entire narrative I was expecting for the story to unravel in front of my eyes, but instead, most of the manuscript was filled with laborious soliloquies and dialogues in-between the members of the Notion Club (which is mere reflection on Inklings and its members are somewhat of genuine Inklings as well) discussing with many real-time allusions about various scientific and science-fiction matter which Tolkien, to my senses, did not bring in a persuasive way as his secondary mythological word was. Thus, central Notion Club member of the narrative - Alwin Arundel Lowdham, philologist and expert for Anglo-Saxon and Icelandic language(s), in one of the meetings retold his dreary dream about some distant land, prosperous and beautiful, above which some dark cloud was looming over and all of the sudden a catastrophe emerged and drowned the entire kingdom and all its inhabitants. Thus begun one of the versions of Númenor legend. The boo thing is that this dream retelling is in a quite tedious manner brought to the reader that I am impressed of Tolkien’s lack of inspiration and zest to reanimate the dream and develop it in much larger portion.
Alwin’s father Edwin was mariner and once he set his sails on his Éarendel boat into Atlantic Ocean and never returned. Both Alwin and Edwin were descendants from Elendil and Alwin’s name means Elf-Friend as well as Eriol’s (Ælfwine).
Manuscript of the Notion Club is about to be found in (from the point when Tolkien was writing this story) in distant future (2012) among sacks of waste paper at Oxford by a certain Mr. Green who will redact and publish the Papers.
The utmost brilliant part of this quite laborious and unfinished story is the poem “Imram” about St. Brendan’s death, which Tolkien incorporated within the Alwin’s elaboration of his dream. The poem is real gem and was inspired by Celtic mythology i.e. ancient Irish poems. Hence such high grade for this Tolkien’s mess.
As well, “Epilogue” to “The Lord of the Rings” is present in this tome, and it is an interesting insight in Sam Gamgee’s family life after Shire was scoured and the tidings about Aragorn’s visit.
November 24, 2019
If previous volumes of this series that I have read have been odd metafictional experiences by which one sees some of the manuscript editing that takes one away from the stories themselves and examines how it was that Tolkien gradually conceived of his story and put it together piece by piece, this one ups the ante considerably. And if you are a fan of Tolkien's writing, this is something that makes sense to enjoy, because Tolkien was so detailed about linguistics and geography and the larger world in which the story is a part that it makes sense that many of those who would find his stories compelling are going to find this book compelling as well, even if it includes a metafictional experience that gives a big of mixed prophecy on the literary world in which Tolkien was a part. Rather than simplifying the experience of Lord of the Rings, this book complicates it even beyond the levels that it had previously been complicated with thanks to the previous writings of the series. If you like very complicated inside jokes that point to the Lord of the Rings in Tolkien's other writings, this book will be a special pleasure, if an unusual one.
This particular book, like its predecessors, is more than 400 pages in length. That said, only about the first third of the book or so is made up of material from the Lord of the Rings directly. This is the first part of the book, which discusses the end of the third age, showing the story of Sam and Frodo in Mordor (1), the tower of Kirith Ungol (2), the land of shadow (3), Mount Doom (4), the field of Kormallen (5), the steward and the king (6), many partings (7), the homeward trip of the hobbits (8), an interesting variant on the scouring of the shire (9), the Gray Havens (10), and an epilogue that had Sam talking to one of his daughters that was unfortunately removed from the final book (XI), as well as some drawings. The second part of the book, which makes up a majority of the contents, are the two parts of the Notion Club papers as well as some major divergences between the earlier versions of the second part of the story, which have their own interesting textual history. Finally, the book ends with the third version of the Fall of Numenor as well as three forms of the Drowning of Anadune as well as a theory of the work and a humorous metafictional report on the work.
What is perhaps most enjoyable about this particular book is the way that it provides the reader with the chance to see Tolkien's Notion Club Papers, which are among the most intriguing metafictional works that can be imagined. Tolkien not only wrote stories that are connected to deeper myths, and not only does this work provide a manuscript history of how The Lord of the Rings came to be, which is all very interesting itself, but this book also manages to show that Tolkien could imagine his work and the work of his friends like C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams being only of interest to fans of obscure fantasy literature in the same way that he and his friends were similarly passionately interested in obscure fantasy literature from the past themselves and inspired by it. This allows Tolkien to jokingly write about a future where people sat around and talked about his own linguistic games in the Lord of the Rings, something that people actually do and something that this book is a sign of, which ought to remind us that Tolkien would likely have been amused or gratified at the way his work and that of C.S. Lewis has lasted far longer than he might ever have expected it to.
This particular book, like its predecessors, is more than 400 pages in length. That said, only about the first third of the book or so is made up of material from the Lord of the Rings directly. This is the first part of the book, which discusses the end of the third age, showing the story of Sam and Frodo in Mordor (1), the tower of Kirith Ungol (2), the land of shadow (3), Mount Doom (4), the field of Kormallen (5), the steward and the king (6), many partings (7), the homeward trip of the hobbits (8), an interesting variant on the scouring of the shire (9), the Gray Havens (10), and an epilogue that had Sam talking to one of his daughters that was unfortunately removed from the final book (XI), as well as some drawings. The second part of the book, which makes up a majority of the contents, are the two parts of the Notion Club papers as well as some major divergences between the earlier versions of the second part of the story, which have their own interesting textual history. Finally, the book ends with the third version of the Fall of Numenor as well as three forms of the Drowning of Anadune as well as a theory of the work and a humorous metafictional report on the work.
What is perhaps most enjoyable about this particular book is the way that it provides the reader with the chance to see Tolkien's Notion Club Papers, which are among the most intriguing metafictional works that can be imagined. Tolkien not only wrote stories that are connected to deeper myths, and not only does this work provide a manuscript history of how The Lord of the Rings came to be, which is all very interesting itself, but this book also manages to show that Tolkien could imagine his work and the work of his friends like C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams being only of interest to fans of obscure fantasy literature in the same way that he and his friends were similarly passionately interested in obscure fantasy literature from the past themselves and inspired by it. This allows Tolkien to jokingly write about a future where people sat around and talked about his own linguistic games in the Lord of the Rings, something that people actually do and something that this book is a sign of, which ought to remind us that Tolkien would likely have been amused or gratified at the way his work and that of C.S. Lewis has lasted far longer than he might ever have expected it to.
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