Leanne alshaheen &
The Fall of Gondolin by J.R.R. Tolkien

The final book edited by Tolkien’s son, and the final of the great tales. Again, I’ll express my great respect for all of the scholarly work Christopher did with his father’s work. This one followed the same format as Beren and Lúthien, with there being a preface as well as additional notes from Christopher throughout, as well as the actual content from Tolkien. I again did the audio, which was done very well by Timothy and Samuel West—with one of them reading for Christopher, and the other for Tolkien. Sadly, missed out on the illustrations again though. This one was again a rather short narrative tale that Christopher put together. It was roughly an hour and 45 minutes out of an 8:18 audiobook. For me that just goes to show the historical or textbook style writing that Tolkien had employed with these, not to mention he never finished entirely anyway. That’s not to say they aren’t poetic, or lyrical, it’s just that it was giving the information in a textbook/history way, it gives important events and major characters, without deeper detail. That’s again not to say I did not enjoy, I love the way the stories are told, it was just short! The only thing I dislike about this formatting choice is that it once again takes away from the linear tale itself. Whereas The Children of Húrin was for the most part the entire book, Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin are only a piece of the full book. It is true that Húrin has the most pieces anyway though. The Fall of Gondolin is a pretty dark tale of the might of Melko(r)/Morgoth, with balrogs, dragons, orcs, and men. He orchestrated the deaths of several named characters, as well as the overall downfall of the kingdom. I would love to see something done with this one day. A big thing I’d love to talk about with this book is that the fall of Gondolin features a Legolas Greenleaf! And seemingly not the fellowships Legolas, who was born in the second age?! It has been remarked that if Tolkien continued his work he would more than likely have changed this name entirely, as elf names were not typically reused. Another thing Christopher touched on that I really liked and wanted to highlight was that Tolkien considered TLotR to be one story, but in a referenced letter he had stated that he was fine with ANY of it being published for people to read, even calling it “this stuff.” So I am sorry Tolkien purists (I myself am kind of at least halfway in this camp…), but he was ultimately the approver of the trilogy it seems.