The two novels, The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, are among the most memorable and loved reads I've had in my lifetime. They are simply magical. I imagine this is the same experience for many millions of his fans over the decades since he published his amazing tale. There have been a few other of his stories that I have read and tried to read. "Smith of Wootton Major" and "Leaf by Niggle" are a few that come to mind that have that similar magic, but not the epic majesty. The Silmarillion I tried to read years ago, but ultimately grew too weary of.
This book is said to be the last of Christopher Tolkien's efforts to publish his father's unpublished work. Some might say that he simply took advantage of his father's fame. But I got a sense of his real devotion, love, and respect for his father. He seems lost not in establishing his own legacy, but preserving as much of his father's as he could have. So, I have a lot of respect for that. He also gives some insight into the character of his father and his passion for his own work; and even the frustration of getting his work published due to the high cost of paper shortly after the conclusion of WWII.
The Fall of Gondolin is not one of the works that I would call magical. In fact, it is missing much. It is not a complete tale, but rather some fragments. What gave The Lord of the Rings and The Hobit so much magic was the fact that the main characters were so common. They could have been the runts of the classroom or the little guys that no one could take notice of. Yet, they do what the most noble and awesome of warrior and wizard could not: defeat the mightiest villain and avoid corruption.
The Fall of Gondolin is well written. The first fragment reminds me of something that might have come out of Arthurian legend. The second has some magical descriptions in it. But in the end, the main character throughout, Tuor, is an extra ordinary super macho alpha male type character that was so popular with characters like Tarzan and Conan and their like. It's good. But it's just not really what I look for in what I read. There's also a lot of superfluous stuff in the last 1/3 of the book: character lists, for example.
I came very close to putting The Fall of Gondolin down to remain unread a number of times. I probably would not have read it if not for the high ratings I found online for it. There is some serious quality to it. But I will probably not recommend it to anyone.
On the other hand, there is something to be said for some of the plot elements: in some ways, it's the story of what happens to a culture that builds too great of a wall between itself and the world as the world is consumed by an all too powerful force. When Tuor discovers the city, hidden in part by magic, he tells the king to participate in the fight against evil. But the king does not want it, and ignores the problem. Eventually, once the other cities have fallen to the evil Morgoth, Morgoth spares no pain to discover the hidden city.
I'm no longer a huge fan of the type of story where there is this caricature of good vs evil with no real insight as to the motivation that burns in the evil adversary. I wonder if I would be as spell bound by The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit as I once was.
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