A review by ceallaighsbooks
The Fall of Númenor: and Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth by J.R.R. Tolkien, Brian Sibley

adventurous dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective relaxing sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

“But one command had been laid upon the Númenoreans, the ‘Ban of the Valar’: they were forbidden to sail west out of sight of their own shores or to attempt to set foot on the Undying Lands. For though a long span of life had been granted to them, in the beginning thrice that of lesser Men, they must remain mortal, since the Valar were not permitted to take from them the Gift of Men (or the Doom of Men, as it was afterwards called).”

TITLE—The Fall of Númenor

AUTHOR—JRR Tolkien

EDITOR—Brian Sibley

ILLUSTRATOR—Alan Lee

PUBLISHED—Nov 15, 2022

PUBLISHER—HarperCollins

GENRE—high fantasy

SETTING—Númenor, Middle-earth, & Tol Eressëa

MAIN THEMES/SUBJECTS—mythology of Middle-earth, an Atlantean retelling, thought-provoking “utopian” world-building, Death & the Shadow of the Fear of Death, ethnocentrist cults, false idols, a very interesting philosophical mix of western & indigenous cosmologies/world-views, very subtle but powerful critiques of gender roles, imperialism, industrialism, racially motivated supremacy, divine-right monarchy, institutionalized / cultified religion, & colonialism, sea mythology, also featuring one socratic dialogue & one shakespearean monologue

”As was told at the conclusion of the Quenta Silmarillion, whilst through the intervention of the Valar, Morgoth had been ‘Thrust through the Door of Night beyond the Walls of the World, into the Timeless Void... Yet the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.’”

Summary:

“Now, adhering to the timeline of ‘The Tale of Years’ in the Appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolour and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.” — from the bookjacket

My thoughts:

Tbh I was very nervous to see how Sibley would manage, taking over the mantle from Christopher, in editing a consolidation text of Tolkien’s writings, but I am thrilled with his efforts. He managed to do great justice to both Tolkien & Christopher while still adding his own fresh & original elements into the mix (mostly in terms of language & organization). I really appreciated how it was organized chronologically with each chapter title given the years & a brief summary of what transpires in them.

Reading THE FALL OF NÚMENOR (FON) felt a lot like reading the nonfiction history version of which THE RINGS OF POWER (ROP) is a dramatized, highly-fictionized re-imagining—similar to the way the Windsor dynasty history is re-imagined in Netflix’s THE CROWN.

In this consolidation we get to immerse ourselves in the philosophy surrounding the Doom of Men & the Gift of Númenor as it pertains to the larger themes of divine intention, free will, autonomy & self-determination, the spirituality of the heart vs institutionalized religion, the moral preeminence of the natural world, & the ultimate evil of the Shadow of Fear. The story of Númenor is one of my favorite parts of Tolkien’s legendarium as these themes are all themes that I think are particularly relevant to our modern age. 

I was especially fascinated by the totality of Númenor’s downfall, how nearly everything of the arts & sciences of Númenor, their records & scholarship—all of their “contributions” for whose development & cultivation they had desired their extended lifetimes initially—were totally lost. The lessons here about pride & progress & productivity in ethnocentric isolation without foundation in nature, spiritual intention, & global vision are both thoughtful & significant.

Other elements of the world-building of Númenor that I found very thought-provoking were:

- The paradigmatically “peaceful” relationship established initially between the Men & animals & nature.

- The fact that no gold, silver or gems existed on Númenor by design of the Valar.

- The cisheteronormative conception of a peaceful, blissful society, with strictly defined & expected gender roles.

- The value & sustaining of craft & skill without purpose—such as healing arts, weaponscraft, fighting skills, etc.

All of these elements initially seems either clearly positive or negative & yet the more you think about it in the larger context of the history behind both Númenor’s creation as well as Eru’s conceptualization of & intention for His Second-born… it all starts to take on a different & much more complex relevance.

I was devastated to read again the story of Aldarion & Erendis. Gah!! Although their relationship is a fairly good allegory of the contradictions inherent in the Númenorean experiment, it is still just an absolutely heart-breaking story & you just want to give literally everyone in it a good shake! Meneldur’s monologue however is 🤌🏻—very Shakespearean.

“It is said that Amandil set sail in a small ship at night, and steered first eastward, and then went about and passed into the west. And he took with him three servants, dear to his heart, and never again were they heard of by word or sign in this world, nor is there any tale or guess of their fate. Men could not a second time be saved by any such embassy, and for the treason of Númenor there was no easy absolving.”

I would recommend this book to readers who either liked (or even disliked, honestly) ROP & want to read the “real history” of those tales—this book does a great job of laying it all out & is a really fascinating read. And honestly you might be able to read this without having read anything else in the legendarium before because all of the necessary background information is given at the beginning! On the other hand… this book is probably best read after finishing ROP (like all five or six or however many seasons there will be) if you’re unfamiliar with the story & are worried about spoilers because they’re allll going to be in here. 😆

Final note: It’s so wild how the ROP Season 1 finale was on Oct 14th & FON was published on Nov 15th… I think, even as a big fan of the show, I was more impressed after reading FON of how many things the showrunners included, even as like just easter eggs & quiet nods to the booklore. I almost appreciate that ROP’s differences are so extreme as to emphatically place ROP in more of a re-telling/re-imagining or even big-budget fan fiction category because it makes the similarities to the text exciting without making the changes too disappointing (imo, anyway). Plus I think it will draw more readers to the books! which I also love.

“Thus it was that great mariners among them would still search the empty seas, hoping to come upon the Isle of Meneltarma, and there to see a vision of things that were. But they found it not. And those that sailed far came only to the new lands, and found them like to the old lands, and subject to death. And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said: ‘All roads are now bent.’”

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Postscript—I *refuse* to believe that there is no manuscript of “The Notion Club Papers” in existence anywhere. Check the Bod! check Lewis’s stuff! check the floorboards! for chrissakes but somebody find it bc I needdd it asap!

CW // (non-violent) marital conflict, colonization/imperialism, drowning (Please feel free to DM me for more specifics!)

Season: Late summer, sea-side

Music pairing: “Númenor,” “Elendil and Isildur,” “Scherzo for Violin and Swords,” “Halbrand,” “White Leaves,” & “Sailing into the Dawn,” from Bear McCreary’s score for THE RINGS OF POWER

Further Reading—

My recommended reading order of the entire legendarium:

• THE HOBBIT
• THE LORD OF THE RINGS
• THE ADVENTURES OF TOM BOMBADIL
• THE SILMARILLION 
• UNFINISHED TALES
• BEREN AND LÚTHIEN
• THE CHILDREN OF HÚRIN
• THE FALL OF GONDOLIN
• THE FALL OF NÚMENOR
• THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH: VOLUMES I-XII

Favorite Quotes—

from the Introduction:

“This approach to creative writing stemmed from Tolkien being both an acknowledged scholar and, at the same time, an admitted amateur practitioner of the novelist's craft. Although professionally and passionately rooted in research and trained in the comprehension and use of words, he was constantly—and to his genuine surprise and delight—buffeted and redirected by the freewheeling, liberating inspiration of the creative imagination.”

“Tolkien later recalled: ‘L[ewis] 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.”’”

“…his mode of pursuit was that of a wandering traveller: picking up languages, making maps and ever ready to leave the highway of his central narrative in order to explore picturesque or dangerous byways, before returning to the road ahead—which explains, no doubt, why the idea of the ‘Road’ is one that runs, twisting and turning, through so much of his writing.”

“‘The mere stories,’ he wrote, ‘were the thing. They arose in my mind as “given” things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew. An absorbing, though continually interrupted labour (especially since, even apart from the necessities of life, the mind would wing to the other pole and spend itself on the linguistics); yet always I had the sense of recording what was already “there”, somewhere: not of “inventing”.’”

[On Tolkien’s philosophy]: “Here we meet, among other things, the first example of the motive (to become dominant in Hobbits) that the great policies of world history, ‘the wheels of the world’, are often turned not by the Lords and Governors, even gods, but by the seemingly unknown and weak—owing to the secret life in creation, and the part unknowable to all wisdom but One, that resides in the intrusions of the Children of God into the Drama.”

from the text:

“Death untimely, whether by sickness or mischance, seldom occurred in the early centuries. This the Númenóreans recognized as due to the ‘grace of the Valar’ (which might be withheld in general or in particular cases, if it ceased to be merited): the land was blessed, and all things, including the Sea, were friendly to them.”

“Long life and Peace were the two things that the Edain asked for when the Valar offered them reward at the fall of Thangorodrim. The long life of the Númenóreans was in answer to the actual prayers of the Edain (and Elros). Manwe warned them of its perils. They asked to have more or less the ‘life-span of old’, because they wanted to learn more.”

“There he lived so long that he was known far and wide as Durin the Deathless. Yet in the end he died before the Elder Days had passed, and his tomb was in Khazad-dûm; but his line never failed, and five times an heir was born in his House so like to his Forefather that he received the name of Durin. He was indeed held by the Dwarves to be the Deathless that returned; for they have many strange tales and beliefs concerning themselves and their fate in the world.”

“Galadriel was more far-sighted in this than Celeborn; and she perceived from the beginning that Middle-earth could not be saved from ‘the residue of evil’ that Morgoth had left behind him save by a union of all the peoples who were in their way and in their measure opposed to him. She looked upon the Dwarves also with the eye of a commander, seeing in them the finest warriors to pit against the Orcs. Moreover Galadriel was a Noldo, and she had a natural sympathy with their minds and their passionate love of crafts of hand, a sympathy much greater than that found among many of the Eldar; the Dwarves were ‘the Children of Aulë’, and Galadriel, like others of the Noldor, had been a pupil of Aulë and Yavanna in Valinor.”

“‘And you do not “deal with the sea”, Aldarion, my son. Do you forget that the Edain dwell here under the grace of the Lords of the West, that Uinen is kind to us, and Ossë is restrained? Our ships are guarded, and other hands guide them than ours. So be not overproud, or the grace may wane; and do not presume that it will extend to those who risk themselves without need upon the rocks of strange shores or in the lands of men of darkness.’”

“‘Such gifts as come from the Valar, and through them from the One, are to be loved for themselves now, and in all nows. They are not given for barter, for more or for better. The Edain remain mortal Men, Aldarion, great though they be: and we cannot dwell in the time that is to come, lest we lose our now for a phantom of our own design.’”

“Many gifts the Eldar brought also. To Aldarion they gave a sapling tree, whose bark was snow-white, and its stem straight, strong and pliant as it were of steel; but it was not yet in leaf. ‘I thank you,’ said Aldarion to the Elves. ‘The wood of such a tree must be precious indeed.’

‘Maybe; we know not,’ said they. ‘None has ever been hewn. It bears cool leaves in summer, and flowers in winter. It is for this that we prize it.’”

“‘If we love Númenor also, let us enjoy it before they ruin it. We also are daughters of the great, and we have wills and courage of our own. Therefore do not bend, Ancalimë. Once bend a little, and they will bend you further until you are bowed down. Sink your roots into the rock, and face the wind, though it blow away all your leaves.’”

“Of the life-span granted the Númenóreans, Erendis had once said that the women ‘became a kind of Imitation Elves; and their Men had so much in their heads and desire of doing that they ever felt the pressure of time, and so seldom rested or rejoiced in the present. Fortunately their wives were cool and busy—but Númenor was no place for great love.’”

“And the Doom of Men, that they should depart, was at first a gift of Ilúvatar. It became a grief to them only because coming under the shadow of Morgoth it seemed to them that they were surrounded by a great darkness, of which they were afraid; and some grew wilful and proud and would not yield, until life was reft from them. We who bear the ever-mounting burden of the years do not clearly understand this; but if that grief has returned to trouble you, as you say, then we fear that the Shadow arises once more and grows again in your hearts.”

“In the second stage, the days of Pride and Glory and grudging of the Ban, they begin to seek wealth rather than bliss. The desire to escape death produced a cult of the dead, and they lavished wealth and an on tombs and memorials. They now made settlements on the west-shores, but these became rather strongholds and 'factories' of lords seeking wealth, and the Númenóreans became tax-gatherers carrying off over the sea evermore and more goods in their great ships. The Númenóreans began the forging of arms and engines.

“This phase ended and the last began with the ascent of the throne by the [twenty-fifth] king of the line of Elros, Tar-Calion the Golden [Ar-Pharazôn], the most powerful and proud of all kings… And men took weapons in those days and slew one another for little cause; for they were become quick to anger, and Sauron, or those whom he had bound to himself, went about the land setting man against man, so that the people murmured against the King and the lords, or against any that had aught that they had not; and the men of power took cruel revenge.

“Nonetheless for long it seemed to the Númenóreans that they prospered, and if they were not increased in happiness, yet they grew more strong, and their rich men ever richer. For with the aid and counsel of Sauron they multiplied their possessions, and they devised engines, and they built ever greater ships. And they sailed now with power and armoury to Middle-earth, and they came no longer as bringers of gifts, nor even as rulers, but as fierce men of war. And they hunted the men of Middle-earth and took their goods and enslaved them, and many they slew cruelly upon their altars. For they built in their fortresses temples and great tombs in those days; and men feared them, and the memory of the kindly kings of the ancient days faded from the world and was darkened by many a tale of dread. Thus Ar-Pharazôn, King of the Land of the Star, grew to the mightiest tyrant that had yet been in the world since the reign of Morgoth…”

“And Andor, the Land of Gift, Númenor of the Kings, Elenna of the Star of Eärendil, was utterly destroyed. For it was nigh to the east of the great rift, and its foundations were overturned, and it fell and went down into darkness, and is no more. And there is not now upon Earth any place abiding where the memory of a time without evil is preserved. For Ilúvatar cast back the Great Seas west of Middle-earth, and the Empty Lands east of it, and new lands and new seas were made; and the world was diminished, for Valinor and Eressëa were taken from it into the realm of hidden things.”

“And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Miriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory of pearls. Too late she strove to ascend the steep ways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for the waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in the roaring of the wind.”

“Men may sail now West, if they will, as far as they may, and come no nearer to Valinor or the Blessed Realm, but return only into the east and so back again; for the world is round, and finite, and a circle inescapable—save by death. Only the “immortals”, the lingering Elves, may still if they will, wearying of the circle of the world, take ship and find the “straight way”, and come to the ancient or True West, and be at peace.”

“‘Tall ships and tall kings

Three times three,

What brought they from the foundered land

Over the flowing sea?

Seven stars and seven stones

And one white tree.’”

“'It reminds me of Númenor,' said Faramir, and wondered to hear himself speak.

‘Of Númenor?’ said Eowyn.

‘Yes,’ said Faramir, ‘of the land of Westernesse that foundered, and of the great dark wave climbing over the green lands and above the hills, and coming on, darkness unescapable. I often dream of it.’” — from THE RETURN OF THE KING