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A review by nwhyte
Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien
4.0
https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3499182.html
To be honest, I don't think there was much new here - most of the material is in The Book of Lost Tales vol 2 and The Lays of Beleriand, published in 1984 and 1985 and which I read in 2011. The Beren and Lúthien story was of huge personal significance to his father - it's interesting to me that Tolkien, whose name had seven letters ending with -ien, found forbidden love with Edith Bratt, whose name had five letters starting with B. And as presented here, we see Tolkien's story-telling skills mature in the different versions of the tale. In the final version, in fact, Lúthien ends up as rather a kick-ass character who rescues Beren and challenges both Morgoth and her father. (This was largely edited out for The Silmarillion; a big mistake.) I think as presented here it's a bit more digestible than in the 1980s books, but if you already have them you can probably skip this.
To be honest, I don't think there was much new here - most of the material is in The Book of Lost Tales vol 2 and The Lays of Beleriand, published in 1984 and 1985 and which I read in 2011. The Beren and Lúthien story was of huge personal significance to his father - it's interesting to me that Tolkien, whose name had seven letters ending with -ien, found forbidden love with Edith Bratt, whose name had five letters starting with B. And as presented here, we see Tolkien's story-telling skills mature in the different versions of the tale. In the final version, in fact, Lúthien ends up as rather a kick-ass character who rescues Beren and challenges both Morgoth and her father. (This was largely edited out for The Silmarillion; a big mistake.) I think as presented here it's a bit more digestible than in the 1980s books, but if you already have them you can probably skip this.