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The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Creation
A leading scholar draws on fifty years of reading and studying J.R.R. Tolkien to explain how he created an entire world.
No writer has surpassed the epic achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien, who spent decades refining his Middle-earth—a world that has felt so real to so many readers that it is almost impossible to imagine that any single person could have simply created it, seemingly out of thin air. In The Tower and the Ruin, Michael D. C. Drout takes us deep into Tolkien’s genius, allowing us to glimpse the making of not only The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion but also lesser-known books such as The Fall of Gondolin as well as Tolkien’s poetry and innovative scholarship.
Drout, who has spent decades reading, studying, and teaching Tolkien, allows us to understand the author’s methods and to embrace his works as never before. With great erudition and sparkling prose, Drout shows us how Tolkien invented myths, legends, cultures, languages, histories, and an intricate, multivocal narrative. We come to understand how Tolkien drew upon and modified material he found in Beowulf, the Kalevala, and other medieval literature from northern Europe, using the subtle qualities of those famous works as inspiration for his own. We also see the process by which he created the complex form of sorrow that is the primary emotional effect of his mature works, a sadness “blessed without bitterness,” carefully woven through a tapestry of themes that has resonated with generations of readers.
Sweeping and hugely perceptive—and enhanced throughout by Drout’s personal reflections on how Tolkien has shaped his own life and relationships—The Tower and the Ruin illuminates Tolkien anew and will come to be seen as an essential work for anyone who has journeyed to Middle-earth.
No writer has surpassed the epic achievement of J.R.R. Tolkien, who spent decades refining his Middle-earth—a world that has felt so real to so many readers that it is almost impossible to imagine that any single person could have simply created it, seemingly out of thin air. In The Tower and the Ruin, Michael D. C. Drout takes us deep into Tolkien’s genius, allowing us to glimpse the making of not only The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and The Silmarillion but also lesser-known books such as The Fall of Gondolin as well as Tolkien’s poetry and innovative scholarship.
Drout, who has spent decades reading, studying, and teaching Tolkien, allows us to understand the author’s methods and to embrace his works as never before. With great erudition and sparkling prose, Drout shows us how Tolkien invented myths, legends, cultures, languages, histories, and an intricate, multivocal narrative. We come to understand how Tolkien drew upon and modified material he found in Beowulf, the Kalevala, and other medieval literature from northern Europe, using the subtle qualities of those famous works as inspiration for his own. We also see the process by which he created the complex form of sorrow that is the primary emotional effect of his mature works, a sadness “blessed without bitterness,” carefully woven through a tapestry of themes that has resonated with generations of readers.
Sweeping and hugely perceptive—and enhanced throughout by Drout’s personal reflections on how Tolkien has shaped his own life and relationships—The Tower and the Ruin illuminates Tolkien anew and will come to be seen as an essential work for anyone who has journeyed to Middle-earth.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published December 2, 2025
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3604 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
December 18, 2025
Of course if it's anything related to Professor Tolkien I just simply can't resist. This is the work of one who has studied Tolkien and is an expert into his writing. Excellent read.
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December 6, 2025I preordered this, such is my love of Michael Drout's work on Tolkien. I was a bit taken aback upon receiving it and finding that it was largely directed toward textual analysis and outside influences upon Tolkien's story telling. That's not usually my sort of thing. However, so far, Drout has been straight forward enough that I don't mind it because he's not nitpicking things to death — as Tolkien would have said, he's not tearing the tower apart into a ruin. We're looking at the sea together while admiring the tower that makes it possible.
Also, this is just enough of Drout's own memoir of Tolkien's influence in his own life to draw me along for more. The footnotes are little treasures of their own and sometimes funny.
More as I go along.
Also, this is just enough of Drout's own memoir of Tolkien's influence in his own life to draw me along for more. The footnotes are little treasures of their own and sometimes funny.
More as I go along.
Read
November 18, 2025A deeply personal work of scholarship - I need to take time and approach each chapter as it's own entity to review because this runs a whole gamut of topics (elvish racism, heterotextuality, constructing and interpreting grief, etc - so much!!!).
One thing I do appreciate in *all* the chapters is the footnotes. The footnotes brought humor to the text, and were one of the areas that Drout's passion for teaching had extra time to shine.
The entire book will appeal to Tolkien scholars and to Tolkien readers who love diving into discussions on how the text made you feel. It was more memoir than I anticipated, but it simply added a new dimension to the rigorous scholarship I expect from Drout.
One thing I do appreciate in *all* the chapters is the footnotes. The footnotes brought humor to the text, and were one of the areas that Drout's passion for teaching had extra time to shine.
The entire book will appeal to Tolkien scholars and to Tolkien readers who love diving into discussions on how the text made you feel. It was more memoir than I anticipated, but it simply added a new dimension to the rigorous scholarship I expect from Drout.
December 13, 2025
Well Worth The Wait!!!
As with everything Professor Drout has written an incredibly insightful and important work of scholarship. The Tower and the Ruin has given me new insights into works I have read and studied practically my whole life and has made me want to dig back into them. From Drout’s Tower you will see new vistas and perspectives into Tolkien’s legendarium.
As with everything Professor Drout has written an incredibly insightful and important work of scholarship. The Tower and the Ruin has given me new insights into works I have read and studied practically my whole life and has made me want to dig back into them. From Drout’s Tower you will see new vistas and perspectives into Tolkien’s legendarium.
June 16, 2025
Outstanding blend of original and well-crafted analysis and a touch of sentimental bond with author's works
December 18, 2025
3.5 ⭐️
This ended up being different from what I expected. While Drout is clearly knowledgeable about Tolkien and his literature, this book felt a bit chaotic. The author’s goal was to explore why Tolkien’s stories have the universal impact on people that they anecdotally seem to have. Drout explores a bunch of different categories in order to explain why he thinks this is the case.
This method is all well and good, but the execution was lacking a bit. He would abruptly switch gears from reminiscing on how Tolkien impacted his personal life to then getting deeply in the weeds of some analytical literary minutiae all within a couple of pages. There were also times where I just couldn’t understand why he was spending so much time on a particular theme in Tolkien’s work that seemed not worth exploring (e.g. Elvish racism).
Overall, I learned a lot and there were some brilliant moments contained within Drout’s project, but this book feels like one that I will reference specific sections in rather than rereading or recommending the whole.
This ended up being different from what I expected. While Drout is clearly knowledgeable about Tolkien and his literature, this book felt a bit chaotic. The author’s goal was to explore why Tolkien’s stories have the universal impact on people that they anecdotally seem to have. Drout explores a bunch of different categories in order to explain why he thinks this is the case.
This method is all well and good, but the execution was lacking a bit. He would abruptly switch gears from reminiscing on how Tolkien impacted his personal life to then getting deeply in the weeds of some analytical literary minutiae all within a couple of pages. There were also times where I just couldn’t understand why he was spending so much time on a particular theme in Tolkien’s work that seemed not worth exploring (e.g. Elvish racism).
Overall, I learned a lot and there were some brilliant moments contained within Drout’s project, but this book feels like one that I will reference specific sections in rather than rereading or recommending the whole.
December 9, 2025
This guy Tolkeins! That said was hot and cold on different aspects of it: as a kid who grew up on the Rankin/Bass movie and double LP abridged audio version (my first audiobook!) of the Hobbit and the Bakshi movie version of LOTR (it seemed completely awesome at 8 years old) and am among the apparently very wide demographic of your-dad-reading-this-book (albeit made it about 20% into the first volume and promptly gave up), I really enjoyed the aspects where the author discusses these aspects (although I heretically found Jackson's trilogy to be kind of cheesy as an adult). As a work of literary criticism the book was maybe too much for a casual reader such as myself? That said, if you love Tolkien's work then this might give you much more mileage. However, the whole section about racism embedded in the work was just tiresome - it seems that this aspect is a must for a large section of modern non-fiction to trawl these themes and find evidence from thin air; whereas it seems that the whole dwarves-are-jews antisemitism claim was too verboten for the author to comment on.
December 8, 2025
Great scholarship in here and some profound insights. He acknowledges but does shy away from Tolkien’s Christianity as an impact on Tolkien’s creative genius.
December 4, 2025
J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings is cited as a favorite by readers all over the world. It is a book we return to over and over again, with many reading it at least once or twice every year. People read it to their children, and often they end up reading it to their own children in turn. While it's common to reread favorites, few books inspire as much love as The Lord of the Rings. It feels different from other fantasy novels, with many finding it inspires a nostalgia for a place that never existed, and a longing for a world that can never be. Though other fantasy writers have attempted to build worlds as complex as Tolkien's Middle-earth, they have all fallen short of the mark (though some like Susan Cooper and Ursula K. Le Guin come close).
So what is it about Tolkien's work that makes it stand head and shoulders above so many others? Why do we return to it seasonally or in times of personal hardship? In his new book, The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Creation, Dr. Michael D.C. Drout sets out to explore potential answers to these questions. Drawing upon a love of Tolkien that goes back to his childhood and his own experience as a professor of English who specializes in medieval literature, Drout discusses the sources of Tolkien's inspirations and how they influenced his work. Drout also builds on the work of other Tolkien scholars such as Verlyn Flieger and Tom Shippey to help explain his ideas and occasionally refuting some of theirs. The textual analysis is straightforward and presented clearly so, even if the reader isn't familiar with Anglo-Saxon poetry, they'll understand what's going on.
What, exactly, is going on with all this textual analysis? Quite a lot. Drout explains how Tolkien built his metaphorical tower using stones from the ruins of medieval literature to give Middle-earth its extraordinary depth of history. When you read The Lord of the Rings, you get glimpses of a deeper history: Elrond mentions heroes such as Húrin and Túrin; Aragorn tells a brief story of Beren and Lúthien though he says there is much more to their story that the hobbits aren't told; Gimli speaks of the wonders of Moria in its glory days, while Legolas tells sad tales of Elves who disappeared from the world an age ago. These 'broken references' or 'pseudo-references' help give Middle-earth a weight of internal history. If you then delve into The Silmarillion, you get a greater sense of that world's history– but even then, it feels as though there are even more stories left untold. The reader gets only hints of certain things: what happens to Beren and Lúthien in the end, for example? Much as we want to know, we never find out. But where other authors would dig down to find some sort of answer, Tolkien left a lot of questions unanswered, which reflects the realities of the medieval texts he studied for most of his life. In our real histories, we don't have all the answers. Someone will be mentioned in an ancient story and the writer will say "everyone knows about this man, so I won't explain it here", but in the intervening years that story was lost. Now, we only have hints and vague suggestions. In his grand histories of the three ages of Middle-earth, Tolkien did the same thing, which gave his stories a feeling of depth and history that has gone unmatched ever since.
The Tower and the Ruin isn't entirely about textual analysis, broken references, and other literary devices, however. Drout continuously returns to the beauty of Middle-earth– to Tolkien's landscapes in The Lord of the Rings, the gorgeous lost Elven cities of The Silmarillion, and the starlight through the cloud wrack that reminds Sam, and us, that there is beauty in the world that no darkness can touch. Despite all the heartbreaking los, there is always beauty to be found. There are many themes to find in Tolkien's work, but this is one of the most important ones to remember.
Though he cannot speak for all readers, Drout can certainly speak for himself as a lifelong Tolkien fan. Throughout the book, he tells deeply personal stories of how Tolkien's stories have helped him find a way through the darkest parts of his life, from his parents' divorce when he was a child to the loss of his own son in 2022. While he admits that The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion has never provided a simple answer to the problems of his life, it has reminded him of a simple truth: that no matter how dark the days seem, and no matter how heavy grief can be, there is always hope.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton for the free advance copy for review
So what is it about Tolkien's work that makes it stand head and shoulders above so many others? Why do we return to it seasonally or in times of personal hardship? In his new book, The Tower and the Ruin: J.R.R. Tolkien's Creation, Dr. Michael D.C. Drout sets out to explore potential answers to these questions. Drawing upon a love of Tolkien that goes back to his childhood and his own experience as a professor of English who specializes in medieval literature, Drout discusses the sources of Tolkien's inspirations and how they influenced his work. Drout also builds on the work of other Tolkien scholars such as Verlyn Flieger and Tom Shippey to help explain his ideas and occasionally refuting some of theirs. The textual analysis is straightforward and presented clearly so, even if the reader isn't familiar with Anglo-Saxon poetry, they'll understand what's going on.
What, exactly, is going on with all this textual analysis? Quite a lot. Drout explains how Tolkien built his metaphorical tower using stones from the ruins of medieval literature to give Middle-earth its extraordinary depth of history. When you read The Lord of the Rings, you get glimpses of a deeper history: Elrond mentions heroes such as Húrin and Túrin; Aragorn tells a brief story of Beren and Lúthien though he says there is much more to their story that the hobbits aren't told; Gimli speaks of the wonders of Moria in its glory days, while Legolas tells sad tales of Elves who disappeared from the world an age ago. These 'broken references' or 'pseudo-references' help give Middle-earth a weight of internal history. If you then delve into The Silmarillion, you get a greater sense of that world's history– but even then, it feels as though there are even more stories left untold. The reader gets only hints of certain things: what happens to Beren and Lúthien in the end, for example? Much as we want to know, we never find out. But where other authors would dig down to find some sort of answer, Tolkien left a lot of questions unanswered, which reflects the realities of the medieval texts he studied for most of his life. In our real histories, we don't have all the answers. Someone will be mentioned in an ancient story and the writer will say "everyone knows about this man, so I won't explain it here", but in the intervening years that story was lost. Now, we only have hints and vague suggestions. In his grand histories of the three ages of Middle-earth, Tolkien did the same thing, which gave his stories a feeling of depth and history that has gone unmatched ever since.
The Tower and the Ruin isn't entirely about textual analysis, broken references, and other literary devices, however. Drout continuously returns to the beauty of Middle-earth– to Tolkien's landscapes in The Lord of the Rings, the gorgeous lost Elven cities of The Silmarillion, and the starlight through the cloud wrack that reminds Sam, and us, that there is beauty in the world that no darkness can touch. Despite all the heartbreaking los, there is always beauty to be found. There are many themes to find in Tolkien's work, but this is one of the most important ones to remember.
Though he cannot speak for all readers, Drout can certainly speak for himself as a lifelong Tolkien fan. Throughout the book, he tells deeply personal stories of how Tolkien's stories have helped him find a way through the darkest parts of his life, from his parents' divorce when he was a child to the loss of his own son in 2022. While he admits that The Lord of the Rings or The Silmarillion has never provided a simple answer to the problems of his life, it has reminded him of a simple truth: that no matter how dark the days seem, and no matter how heavy grief can be, there is always hope.
Thank you to NetGalley and W.W. Norton for the free advance copy for review
December 20, 2025
Compelling and deep analysis of Tolkien’s works. The main concept of the title, asserting that Tolkien creates “textual ruins” is extremely well presented. I had never really thought about it before, but that’s certainly something that plays a major role in my reading the books every year. Aside from Tolkien, my other passion is Homer, whose works I’ve read around 30-40 times in various translations by this point. And Drout’s “tower and ruin” idea certainly draws a new parallel between what I find so fascinating about the provenance of orally transmitted poems. The difference is that Tolkien did this all himself!
Aside from the brilliant main concept, other favorite subjects were the exploration of “Elvish racism” in THE SILMARILLION, the clashing of bourgeois and epic worlds in THE HOBBIT, and the analysis of Gollum’s psychology and speech patterns in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But there wasn’t a dull chapter - everything in the book was fascinating.
Drout also provides an excellent narration of the material, and it’s a pleasure to hear an expert pronounce Old English passages! The conclusion chapter is heart-rending, and I can’t imagine the anguish it must have taken to not only write, but then have to narrate that chapter.
Overall this is an incredible book, and a very valuable key to understanding Tolkien’s works. It’s also entertainingly written, and is one of the only audiobooks I’ve read that finds a good way to incorporate footnotes! Now I have to go read the remaining 11 HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH volumes, as well as LOTR, THE HOBBIT, THE SILMARILLION and all the other published Tolkien collections! [AUDIBLE]
素晴らしく深いトールキンの分析。「タワーとルイン」って言うのコンセプトが思ったより深いな考え。気づかなかったがそれは本当にトールキンの本の世界と本の大きな魅力。僕はトールキンの隣にホメロスがいつも読んでる、今まで30〜40回ぐらい。ドラウト作家の「文学的なルイン」のコンセプトは絶対同じ、トールキンは僕にとってホメロスの同じ経験。イリアスのような言語とかスタイルとかたまにある(トールキンはギリシャの話そんなに好きじゃなかったのに)だけどその「これは壊れて散ってる、けどできるだけ直したパズル」のことはトールキン1人で作れた。それは本当にすごい。
その後特によかったな話題は、「シルマリルの物語のエルフのレイシズム」、「ホビットの大冒険の普通世界対エピックな世界」、後「ゴクリの心理学と言語の分析」。けど本の全てはすごくよかった！後，作家の自分のナレーションも良かった。本当のプロの自分の古英語の発音聞こえるのが光栄だった。最後の章は感動した、世界一のひどいことについて自分の声で伝えるのが何より難しかったでしょ。
この本は貴重なトールキンの理解の一部。後めっちゃ楽しく書きされた。今まで「中つ国の歴史」の１巻目読んだことあるだけどもっと読みたい、後指輪の物語とホビットの冒険また読もう！
Aside from the brilliant main concept, other favorite subjects were the exploration of “Elvish racism” in THE SILMARILLION, the clashing of bourgeois and epic worlds in THE HOBBIT, and the analysis of Gollum’s psychology and speech patterns in THE LORD OF THE RINGS. But there wasn’t a dull chapter - everything in the book was fascinating.
Drout also provides an excellent narration of the material, and it’s a pleasure to hear an expert pronounce Old English passages! The conclusion chapter is heart-rending, and I can’t imagine the anguish it must have taken to not only write, but then have to narrate that chapter.
Overall this is an incredible book, and a very valuable key to understanding Tolkien’s works. It’s also entertainingly written, and is one of the only audiobooks I’ve read that finds a good way to incorporate footnotes! Now I have to go read the remaining 11 HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH volumes, as well as LOTR, THE HOBBIT, THE SILMARILLION and all the other published Tolkien collections! [AUDIBLE]
素晴らしく深いトールキンの分析。「タワーとルイン」って言うのコンセプトが思ったより深いな考え。気づかなかったがそれは本当にトールキンの本の世界と本の大きな魅力。僕はトールキンの隣にホメロスがいつも読んでる、今まで30〜40回ぐらい。ドラウト作家の「文学的なルイン」のコンセプトは絶対同じ、トールキンは僕にとってホメロスの同じ経験。イリアスのような言語とかスタイルとかたまにある(トールキンはギリシャの話そんなに好きじゃなかったのに)だけどその「これは壊れて散ってる、けどできるだけ直したパズル」のことはトールキン1人で作れた。それは本当にすごい。
その後特によかったな話題は、「シルマリルの物語のエルフのレイシズム」、「ホビットの大冒険の普通世界対エピックな世界」、後「ゴクリの心理学と言語の分析」。けど本の全てはすごくよかった！後，作家の自分のナレーションも良かった。本当のプロの自分の古英語の発音聞こえるのが光栄だった。最後の章は感動した、世界一のひどいことについて自分の声で伝えるのが何より難しかったでしょ。
この本は貴重なトールキンの理解の一部。後めっちゃ楽しく書きされた。今まで「中つ国の歴史」の１巻目読んだことあるだけどもっと読みたい、後指輪の物語とホビットの冒険また読もう！
December 19, 2025
4.5 stars bumped up to 5 stars. As a longtime devotee of all things J.R.R. Tolkien, as soon as I heard about The Tower and Ruin I was intrigued. What Michael D.C. Drout is able to accomplish is something that longtime Tolkien fans are keenly aware of—the worthiness of Tolkien and his Legendarium for scholarly insight and assessment. Here Drout touches on how Tolkien crafted his world and what inspired him to do so, but beyond that, Drout discusses how Tolkien’s work compared to so many others is able to touch on individual’s lives. What makes Tolkien wholly unique? For such a Tolkien nerd as myself, a great deal of the factual knowledge I was already aware of—Tolkien’s influences from Beowulf and Chaucer to the Finnish language—but I was engrossed with the deeper analysis on the themes across Tolkien’s work, the use of meter and rhyme, Tolkien’s own editing process, and Drout’s personal relationship with Tolkien’s work. While I’m generally not the biggest fan of an author intentionally including too much of themselves in a book (it’s part of why I tend to avoid memoirs), Drout managed to thread this needle pretty well throughout, and made the personal inclusions all the more impactful and honest at the end. The Tower and the Ruin offers some of the finest scholarly assessment of Tolkien’s world building to date.
November 26, 2025
The Tower and the Ruin offers a thoughtful, compact exploration of J.R.R. Tolkien’s creative philosophy, blending literary analysis with reflections on mythology, language, and world-building. Though brief, the book presents an illuminating look into how Tolkien viewed the act of creation—its beauty, its limitations, and its moral weight.
The “tower” symbolizes the imaginative structures writers build, while the “ruin” reflects the inevitable imperfections that accompany human creativity. Drawing on Tolkien’s essays, letters, and sub-creation theory, the text highlights his belief that storytelling is both an act of art and an act of faith. Readers get a deeper understanding of how Middle-earth emerged from meticulous linguistic invention, moral vision, and Tolkien’s conviction that fantasy reveals truth rather than obscuring it.
This graphic-essay-style work is accessible, insightful, and perfect for Tolkien fans who enjoy exploring the intellectual foundations beneath his fiction. It doesn’t require deep scholarly background, making it a welcoming entry point into Tolkien’s creative mind.
The “tower” symbolizes the imaginative structures writers build, while the “ruin” reflects the inevitable imperfections that accompany human creativity. Drawing on Tolkien’s essays, letters, and sub-creation theory, the text highlights his belief that storytelling is both an act of art and an act of faith. Readers get a deeper understanding of how Middle-earth emerged from meticulous linguistic invention, moral vision, and Tolkien’s conviction that fantasy reveals truth rather than obscuring it.
This graphic-essay-style work is accessible, insightful, and perfect for Tolkien fans who enjoy exploring the intellectual foundations beneath his fiction. It doesn’t require deep scholarly background, making it a welcoming entry point into Tolkien’s creative mind.
December 3, 2025
A beautiful and personal study on why Tolkien’s works have proved so potent and beloved.
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