Lord of the ruins

J.R.R. Tolkien's son Christopher spent more than 30 years piecing together fragments his father left behind. Now readers can learn what happened 6,000 years before Bilbo Baggins found the One Ring.

By Andrew O'Hehir

Read more: Andrew O'Hehir, Books, The Lord of the Rings, Books Features

April 17, 2007 | A few chapters into the narrative of "The Children of Húrin," the more-or-less new book more or less written by J.R.R. Tolkien, a crippled woodcarver named Sador regards his abandoned handiwork with mixed emotions. Sador is a trusted servant of Húrin, lord of the House of Hador in the land of Dor-lómin, and he has been carving a great chair for his master. But months earlier, Húrin rode off to a battle that ended in terrible defeat. He did not return, and his lands have been conquered and pillaged by outsiders. So Sador has quit work on the chair and it has been "thrust unfinished in a corner."

While debating whether to break up the chair for winter firewood, Sador talks to Túrin, the young son of Húrin who will soon be sent into exile and become the wandering, accursed hero of this gloomy, gory and highly compelling tale. "I wasted my time," Sador says of his long labors, "though the hours seemed pleasant. But all such things are short-lived; and the joy in the making is their only true end, I guess."

It's impossible not to hear John Ronald Reuel Tolkien reproaching or consoling himself with these words. On his death in 1973, Tolkien left behind the unpublishable ruins of a vast body of legendary literature, encompassing an entire imaginary history of the world from its creation nearly until modern times. That history's grand heroic episodes -- the elements he believed were most important -- he wrote only in summary or in fragments, despite numerous attempts to craft them into prose narrative or epic poetry. He had significant academic success as an Oxford linguist and philologist, but most of his literary career was spent frittering away his energies on projects he never completed. He was plagued by writer's block, black moods and numerous changes of direction. He thrust many chairs unfinished into the corner.

Tolkien might still be remembered that way, by some tiny cadre of admirers, if it weren't for the one piece of his history -- in his mind a relatively inconsequential one, drawn from the latter stages of his "legendarium," but one that had a uniquely intimate and personal focus -- that he did expand into a full-scale narrative. He was 62 when he published the first volume of his genre-defining fantasy masterpiece "Lord of the Rings," and well past 70 when its explosive 1960s popularity made him rich and famous. By any accounting the story of Frodo the hobbit and his plucky band of companions, who undertake a dangerous voyage with the One Ring of the Dark Lord Sauron, is among the most beloved books ever published. Inevitably, for most of its readers the enormous body of lore behind it is nothing more than a colorful backdrop, full of incomprehensible genealogies, invented languages and unpronounceable names.

Yet as the universe of hardcore Tolkien fans -- not such a tiny universe, in fact -- is well aware, the author had imagined and examined every detail of his creation, just as closely as had Ilúvatar, the Jehovah-equivalent who made the Earth and brought Elves and Men to life in it. (Tolkien's language, and worldview, is never gender-neutral.) No author in fantasy or any other genre has ever constructed a world of such linguistic and historical density; it almost seems that this immense architectural work exhausted Tolkien, and with the sole exception of the "Lord of the Rings" narrative he had no energy left to tell its stories.

For more than 30 years, Christopher Tolkien, who serves as his father's literary executor, has been bringing forth bits and pieces from the vault, rather like some Dwarvish smith trying to reforge a great Elven sword from discombobulated needles and splinters. Although "The Silmarillion" was a bestseller upon publication in 1977, for instance, only the hardiest of Tolkien fans have waded through its dry, haughty summaries of great deeds of the distant past. Christopher Tolkien has himself written, in characteristic circumlocutory fashion, that "the compendious or epitomizing form and manner of 'The Silmarillion,' with its suggestion of ages of poetry and 'lore' behind it, strongly evokes a sense of 'untold tales,' even in the telling of them; 'distance' is never lost. There is no narrative urgency, the pressure and fear of the immediate and unknown event. We do not actually see the Silmarils as we see the Ring."

Christopher Tolkien is now 81, the same age his father was when he died, and one supposes that "The Children of Húrin" is his last, best shot at telling one of Tolkien's great "untold tales" in something close to a complete form. He has labored long and hard to patch together bits of manuscript that apparently go back as far as 1918, when Tolkien first conceived the tale, and continue to almost the end of his life. The story of Húrin of Dor-lómin, his son Túrin and their doomed struggle against Morgoth (the "Great Enemy" of Elves and Men, Sauron's lord and master) has been told twice before, first in "The Silmarillion" and again in the Christopher-edited volume "Unfinished Tales" (1980). It emerges here for the first time as a full-fledged adventure yarn, complete with narrative urgency, fear of the unknown and recognizably human characters.

"The Children of Húrin" will thrill some readers and dismay others, but will surprise almost everyone. If you're looking for the accessibility, lyrical sweep and above all the optimism of "Lord of the Rings," well, you'd better go back and read it again. There are no hobbits here, no Tom Bombadil, no cozy roadside inns and precious little fireside cheer of any variety found here. This is a tale whose hero is guilty of repeated treachery and murder, a story of rape and pillage and incest and greed and famous battles that ought never to have been fought. If "Lord of the Rings" is a story where good conquers evil, this one moves inexorably in the other direction.

Next page: Immortal Elves and mortal Men do not mix easily