Review : The Nature of Middle Earth / Beren and Lúthien

Continuing my book-reading holiday splurge. After completing The Habsburgs, which had languished on my side-table for some weeks because its density doesn't make for good bedtime reading, I moved on to a miniature Tolkien binge.

First up was The Nature of Middle Earth. Having recently completed a five-part blog post addressing the philosophy of Middle Earth through the lens of cosmology, this has been on my wish-list for some time. Then it appeared in my local bookshop's Tolkien section, and though for some reason I hesitated to buy it, wondering if this might not be too haphazard a selection of short notes scribbled by Tolkien in the margins, I decided to buy it anyway.

This was a sensible decision as it's a wonderful book. There's little enough fiction here, but it's exactly what I was after : an analysis of both the morality and natural philosophy implicit in Middle Earth, presented by Tolkien's own papers in which he attempted to seek consistency between the worlds of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. I made so many notes on this that I'm going to have to release an appendix to the blog series, so that will cover the deeper stuff eventually. Suffice to say that I think my basic conclusions were spot on. Here, just a short review rather than a summary proper.

NOME is not for those looking for more stories, but anyone interested in Tolkien's world-building should definitely give it a go. For the dedicated nerds, it includes many pages of detailed calculations about Elven life-cycles and a robust solution explaining why the world isn't overrun with Elves. It even includes some description of atomic theory as applied to Middle Earth, and these kinds of numeric, scientific details aren't something I was expecting at all. For the philosophers, the second section of the book is pure gold, with whole swathes being exactly the kind of thing you'd find in Locke or Berkeley. For the theologians the appendix relates some of these issues to Catholic doctrine, while those who like Tolkien's occasional lapses into silliness will find discussions of why it's evil to chop the legs off squirrels and a fascinating, bizarre section of the friendliness of Númenórean bears and their adorable dances. 

Personally I think this book is outstanding. If you're trying to do a full-on scholarly analysis of the self-consistency (or lack thereof) of Tolkien's world, you'll find enough numerical details here to do the job. If you're just interested in Tolkien's changing ideas over time you'll have more than enough to go on. The only downside is that perhaps some of this gets a bit repetitive, especially as Tolkien tended to doggedly persist with ideas with minor modifications only to then make sweeping revisions that undid everything, making all the previous work null and void - it's probably worth keeping that in mind throughout. And the third section of the book is perhaps rather dry for the most part, though not entirely so. 

But overall, I have to give it a 9/10. The material is presented and edited with commendable common-sense. It reveals an interplay between Tolkien's desire for a specific story shaping the nature of the world he was creating, which created a feedback loop : any inconsistency needed changes to the story, which changed the nature of the world, and so on. After reading this, it becomes very much more understandable why he never finished it : the task of creating a ruthlessly self-consistent world, recognisable to our own but operating on fundamentally different principles, whilst making it believable to the common reader and mythologising our own history, was a truly monumental one. All the more remarkable that many of the texts presented were written on the backs of examination papers and calendars.

Next up, Beren and Lúthien. This is my favourite story from The Silmarillion, so I was curious to see how the tale had developed. And I was not disappointed. The earliest version presented dates from 1917, when the 25 year-old Tolkien had just got married, fought in the Battle of the Somme, and was convalescing in the less terrifying region of Yorkshire.

This first version was the most interesting to me. It's written far more in the style of a conventional fairy tale than the final version published in The Silmarillion (sadly, and I think this is a major oversight, that version is not included here as it's by far the best and most epic of all the iterations). Lúthien, at this point known by her later-nickname Tinúviel, begins as a Rapunzel-like figure. While Melkor (Melko in this case) is present as the supreme evil, instead of facing Sauron, our heroes have to contend with... Tevildo, Prince of Cats.

Yes, really. He's a giant cat, ruling a castle of giant cats, which is specially designed so that the cats have secure access thanks to their powerful leaps, which Elves and Men cannot match.

This sounds bizarre, and it is. Not only that, but Tevildo sets Beren the challenge of catching three giant evil mice that he's kept around for sport. What's really interesting here is that Beren, unlike most fairytale heroes, simply fails. He has to be rescued by Lúthien (and also Huan, here given the title Captain of Dogs), who though not the stunningly powerful sorceress of the final version, nevertheless has powerful magic. Instead of throwing down Sauron's fortress, she... shrinks the cats.

There are lots of echoes (if you will) for the final version here, both in the language (hinting here and there of the greater things to come) and the themes, mentioning in particular how both Melko and Tevildo, as themselves untrustworthy liars, are themselves untrusting yet easily deceived. Though undeniably strange compared to the straightforward epic of much later years, it's also genuinely charming, like a fairytale aimed at grown-ups without being the least bit cynical or base. It forms a curious, highly entertaining (and very very silly) myth to explain the origin of the enduring enmity between dogs and cats. Actually, this is one point on which Tolkien and I could never see eye to eye :

"... nor have they since that day had lord or master or any friend, and their voices wail and screech for their hearts are very lonely and bitter and full of loss, yet there is only darkness within and no kindliness."

OUCH !

The other versions presented are mainly the incomplete poetic versions. I'm not at all fussed on most of Tolkien's poems but these are more readable, albeit in the main part very simple... they remind me at times almost of Data's poetry. They do become somewhat repetitive, however, and I think perhaps removing one and replacing it with the final version would have been more useful. Still, it's fascinating to see the tale gradually morph from something charming but quite ridiculous into one of the most epic parts of all of Tolkien's canon.

There's also a good introduction and commentary by Christopher Tolkien, explaining why Tolkien initially called some of the Elves "gnomes", meaning "gnomic", "knowledgeable", which he changed on realising that hardly anyone would read it that way. There was also an early intention to have the Elves become more and more fairylike (in the modern sense) over time, but that I leave for the planned future post. Overall, a great read, with some wonderful illustrations (probably it's worth getting the hardback version if you can). I give it a solid 8/10.

Two final points. Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Unfinished Tales and now these, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and this morning bought myself Christopher Tolkien's 12 volume, 5000+pages, hardback version of The Complete History of Middle Earth.

BOOKY. GOODNESS !

And secondly... Tolkien purists are hypocritical nutters. To say you prefer the original version over some adaptation or other because of the changes is just what are you even talking about. Do you want Tevildo and Tom Bombadil back ? DO YOU ? Well, go on then, go ask a chatbot to write you a revised version. Yes, if you must, object to revisions, that's fine (actually there are some changes Tolkien planned that I don't like), but don't go complaining just because adaptations don't follow the "original" text. Where Tolkien is concerned, hardly any such thing even exists.