The Lay of Aotrou & Itroun, J.R.R. Tolkien

I still have a whole rant about the way the Tolkien estate is putting out these books, padded out with excerpts from Tolkien’s drafts, and yet marketing them to a general rather than scholarly audience. If you’re here for Gollums and hobbitses, you’ll be disappointed, though you can see some seeds for and parallels with Tolkien’s later, greater work.

Personally, I was glad to get to read this and the extra material, because Tolkien’s work and scholarship fascinates me. Where he edited his own work, which he did obsessively and meticulously, he rarely puts a foot wrong; in his drafts and rough copies there’s still a lot of beauty and interest. But I’m also interested because this was inspired by a Breton lai, and attempts to keep some of the same atmosphere while dealing with the Breton folklore — though also creating something distinctly Tolkien’s own.

I think it’s a fine piece of work — if you know what you’re going into. Not Mordor, nor Lothlorien (though you might glimpse Galadriel), but perhaps a little bit of Mirkwood.

Rating: 4/5