Unfinished Tales

De: J. R. R. Tolkien, Christopher Tolkien - editor

Narrado por: Timothy West, Samuel West

JRR Tolkien’s legacy of short stories which inhabit the realm of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, on audio for the first time.

Unfinished Tales is a collection of narratives ranging in time from the Elder Days of Middle-earth to the end of the War of the Ring, and provides those who have read The Lord of the Rings with a whole collection of background and new stories from the twentieth century’s most acclaimed popular author.

The book concentrates on the realm of Middle-earth and comprises such elements as Gandalf’s lively account of how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End, the emergence of the sea-god Ulmo before the eyes of Tuor on the coast of Beleriand, and an exact description of the military organization of the Riders of Rohan.

Unfinished Tales also contains the only story about the long ages of Numenor before its downfall, and all that is known about such matters as the Five Wizards, the Palantiri and the legend of Amroth. The tales were collated and edited by JRR Tolkien’s son and literary heir, Christopher Tolkien, who provides a short commentary on each story, helping the reader to fill in the gaps and put each story into the context of the rest of his father’s writings.

©1980 The Tolkien Estate Limited and C.R. Tolkien (P)1980 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

Reseñas de la Crítica

"Another monument to the incredible imagination of Tolkien." (Sunday Telegraph)

"Moments of mythic grandeur." (Sunday Times)

PLEASE DO THE HISTORY OF MIDDLE EARTH!!!

Timothy and Samuel West give outstanding performances with this reading. The roles they take in presenting the narrative and the editor's notes make it very easy to follow.

I deeply hope they consider repeating what they have done here with "The History of Middle Earth" volumes. None of these books have an existing audiobook on the market and I believe the Wests would do justice to the text.

I've heard it suggested on the Texas Tolkien Podcast that making a review such as this might garner a demand for having these texts done in audiobook format, so I'm simply here to lend my voice and say that there is definitely an audience for such a project. So please to whomever it may concern, take heed and consider bringing the rest of Tolkien's works to this format.

Voices brought clarity

Alternating voices portraying Christopher and JRR were pleasant and made a clear delineation between the manuscript and it's background.

More Tolkien Genius

A must read or listen for anyone who has already read The Hobbit, LOTR, and the Silmarillion. After going through The Children of Hurin, and The Fall of Gondolin, I’ve grown accustomed to the 2 narrator approach. However, my one critique would be that in this particular book, Christopher Tolkiens narrative interrupts the story too much to the point of being annoying quite often. Perhaps the raspy voice of Timothy West is also too much of a contrast to the smooth sound of Samuel West. I found myself wishing that Timothy Wests parts (Christopher Tolkien) would either wait till the end of a story line or just be read by Samuel. Overall though thoroughly interesting and enjoyable.

Just Amazing

I started reading it a few years ago and forgot about it, when I got this the story became much more enjoyable and easy to take in (obviously). Having two narrators was a great touch.

Lots of good information

There was lots of good information here that if incorporated in the cannon books would’ve changed them dramatically. Even though I only watched one episode of the Amazon show based on Tolkiens books I can see where they came up with some of the ideas. These stories help enchanted the Tolkien Universe.

Excellent Format

Of course the content is great, but I also really, really appreciate the formatting. Having two voices to provide the "core" and "footnote" text in clearly different voices was a really great idea.

What stories!

Christopher Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien’s son and literary executor, has spent years compiling the history of Middle Earth from his father’s pages and pages of manuscripts. With academic precision, Christopher has assembled the stories in this book that complement the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion. And Samuel West as the stories’ narrator is superb, as sensitive a reader as Tolkien pater was a story teller. The producer, to amuse us, has Samuel’s father Timothy reading Christopher’s editorial notes, making this audio production a double father/son affair.

MINDBLOWN!

Huge fan of Tolkien and all his works, I have read the silmarillion and the four main books countless times and thought I knew a lot about middle earth…boy was I wrong! The style is hard to get used to due to the nature of the good professor, but bear through it and you will see all of middle earth fleshed out in all of its color, depth and glory. Great narration, was very easy to distinguish the main narrative from the amendments by Christopher. Highly highly recommend! They didn’t have the option for 10 stars!

Some of Tolkien’s best writing, and a superb audio version

To fully appreciate the material presented in this book, you should probably be familiar not just with The Lord of the Rings but also with The Silmarillion. It should also be noted that the two extensive (but incomplete) narratives that make up Part I of this book have since been incorporated into the book-length presentations of The Fall of Gondolin and The Children of Hurin — re-edited to some degree and combined with other sources bearing on those two “great tales of Middle-Earth”.

This is some of Tolkien’s very finest writing, particularly the two long fragments in Part I, covering (parts of) the tales of Tuor and Turin Túrambar. The former is stunningly beautiful, with the encounter between Tuor and Ulmo surely ranking among the most magical and stunningly realized scenes in all of Tolkien’s work. As for Turin, I have to admit that I found his tale in The Silmarillion to be somewhat hard going, though the end is very powerful. But this is brilliant — very moving, and delving into psychological areas far removed from The Hobbit or even The Lord of the Rings. I found the main chapter of Part II (Aldarion and Erendis) to be rather slow at first, though again beautifully written. It ends pretty powerfully, however — but just when things were finally starting to get moving, the fragment ends! The notes and commentary give ample evidence of how the tale might have been concluded (the broad outlines, at least, being known from other writings).

Parts III and IV move us into the Third Age, and I think a reader who hasn’t tackled The Silmarillion might begin here and find much to enjoy. These pieces are all fascinating and provide some wonderful glimpses of familiar characters (such as Saruman’s ghoulish appearance in the chapter on the disaster of the Gladden Fields).

A mere glance at the table of contents cannot begin to convey the many wonders and delights this book contains. Tolkien’s son and literary heir, Christopher Tolkien, provides extensive and wide-ranging notes and presents content from a variety of sources in addition to the items presented as the main texts. Tolkien senior strove to present his legendarium through the filter of imagined “sources” (such as the Red Book of Westmarch) that give the feel of a discovered mythology, in much the same way that our understanding of the legends of King Arthur is built up on the basis of various medieval sources. Not all of these real-world sources are complete, of course, and in a way the fragmentary nature of the pieces in this book helps to reinforce the illusion that JRR Tolkien was the compiler and editor of much older legends, not all of which are complete or consistent with one another. Where did Galadriel and Celeborn meet, for instance? Different “sources” give different accounts, and on one level this reflects the (real-world) author’s own shifting conceptions of these characters and their stories — a progression admirably elucidated by Christopher Tolkien in his notes and commentary. But on another level, Tolkien senior often explicitly says in his narratives that multiple traditions exist and it is not now possible to judge between them. To me, this gives a particular richness to these fragments, which are beautiful and interesting in their own right but also give tantalizing glimpses beyond the writings that we actually possess — again in very much the same way that an incomplete medieval manuscript can be fascinating and even thrilling for the (partial) light that it sheds on legends and tales we already know from other sources.

The audiobook edition is superbly rendered, with Samuel West reading JRR Tolkien’s writing and Timothy West reading Christopher Tolkien’s notes and commentary. There appear to be some slight adjustments to the notes and commentary for the sake of added clarity in the audio format (these are generally on the order of omitting page numbers and the like), and the notes (given as end notes in the printed book) are interpolated into the main text, so that Timothy cuts in periodically to comment on what Samuel has read. It all works wonderfully well, and both readers are outstanding. One relatively minor quibble is that when there is an actual author’s note (i.e. one written by JRR Tolkien and not by Christopher), these are quite rightly read by Samuel West, but they are not called out as author’s notes, so that the voice of Tolkien as author cuts in unannounced on the voice of Tolkien as narrator. This is very slightly confusing but didn’t in any way affect my enjoyment of the performance. With that very minor exception, I think this audiobook could not be bettered. Truly superb. Well done to all involved!

A must listen for enthusiastic Tolkien fans

The narration was well done and made the mix of technical description and dialog very easy and enjoyable to listen to. The content of Tolkien's writings bring even more of the Silmarillion, Hobbit and LOTR to life and enriches the view of Tolkiens middle earth beyond what I thought possible.