Beren and Lúthien by J.R.R. Tolkien

Painstakingly restored from Tolkien's manuscripts and presented for the first time as a continuous and standalone story, the epic tale of Beren and L�thien will reunite fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, Dwarves and Orcs and the rich landscape and creatures unique to Tolkien's Middle-earth. The tale of Beren and L�thien was, or became, an essential element in the evolution of The Silmarillion, the myths and legends of the First Age of the World conceived by J.R.R. Tolkien. Returning from France and the battle of the Somme at the end of 1916, he wrote the tale in the following year. Essential to the story, and never changed, is the fate that shadowed the love of Beren and L�thien: for Beren was a mortal man, but L�thien was an immortal Elf. Her father, a great Elvish lord, in deep opposition to Beren, imposed on him an impossible task that he must perform before he might wed L�thien. This is the kernel of the legend; and it leads to the supremely heroic attempt of Beren and L�thien together to rob the greatest of all evil beings, Melkor, called Morgoth, the Black Enemy, of a Silmaril. In this book Christopher Tolkien has attempted to extract the story of Beren and L�thien from the comprehensive work in which it was embedded; but that story was itself changing as it developed new associations within the larger history. To show something of the process whereby this legend of Middle-earth evolved over the years, he has told the story in his father's own words by giving, first, its original form, and then passages in prose and verse from later texts that illustrate the narrative as it changed. Presented together for the first time, they reveal aspects of the story, both in event and in narrative immediacy, that were afterwards lost.

Listened to this one solely because I enjoyed The Fall of Gondolin so much. But I was reminded why this is my least favourite First Age story... poetry. Scads and scads of poetry. It was gorgeously read by the brilliant Samuel West, but my god it just seemed to go on forever...

3.5 stars
This book is all about our well-beloved characters Luthien and Beren and we may see how they developed and changed throughout the different versions of their legend. It was lovely to have more information about Tolkien himself and to explore his world again. However, I would suggest this book only to big fans of the author and Middle-earth, because new readers may find it confusing and repetitive.

A true treat to see Tolkien's writing process for this story and its many incarnations as he revised it over the years. Any Tolkien fan will love it and I suspect those who enjoy lyrical stories, poetry and the evolution of writing a story will also appreciate it! Alan Lee's artwork is also a beautiful addition to the writing.

(03-10-22 reread) If you visit the grave of J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife, Edith, in Oxford you will notice that beneath their names are “Beren” and “Lúthien” respectively.

Beren and Lúthien is by far the most grandiose love story Tolkien ever wrote, telling the story of an elven woman who fell in love with a mortal man so much so that she managed to bring him back from death, and gave up her own immortality to be with him. To be together, the two embark on a quest to claim a Silmaril from the crown of the Dark Lord Morgoth. The echoes of this story can be felt thousands of years later in The Lord of the Rings' Aragorn and Arwen, as well as the fact that Beren and Lúthien are the great-grandparents of Elrond Half-elven (and great-great-grandparents of Arwen herself!). As such it's a story worth reading if you have any kind of Tolkien appreciation at all, even if it's just The Silmarillion chapter.

This book is not like The Children of Húrin, in that it is not simply a full novel format of Beren and Lúthien. Charting the tale from its beginnings in 1917 to subsequent iterations, changing formats from prose to poetry to prose again, Christopher Tolkien notes similarities and differences and allows the reader to get a look into Tolkien's process of myth-making. This book is ultimately a really interesting look at the development of one of the best known but least read of Tolkien's stories.

If this sounds good to you, but you are unfamiliar with Beren and Lúthien, I would recommend at the very least reading The Silmarillion chapter on them as well as the poem about them found in The Lord of the Ring before tackling this. If you do, it's a supremely rewarding read, and is a fun insight into how such ideas and concepts change in ways large and small over time.

“Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that come down to us from the darkest of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien.” - The Silmarillion.