The Lost Road and Other Writings (The History of Middle-Earth Volume 5)

Product Description

The Lost Road and Other Writings (The History of Middle-Earth Volume 5)... [Read more]

Top Reviews

Four Stars
by Thomas J. Quinley (4 out of 5 stars)
December 7, 2017

good book
↭ 🍁 ↭
Important Linguistic Text and Map, Numenor Story
by B. Marold (4 out of 5 stars)
January 20, 2007

`The Lost Road' is the fifth volume in Christopher Tolkien's editions of his father, J. R. R. Tolkien's unpublished works, dedicated mostly to the history of the three ages which preceded the events chronicled in `The Hobbit' and `The Lord of the Rings', which marked the end of the Third Age of Middle Earth. In some ways, `The Lost Road' represents a rise in the amount of `interesting' material, after the relatively dry material, especially the poetry in `The Lays of Beleriand' and `The Shaping of Middle Earth'.

This is especially true in that it wraps up the material on what I consider the most interesting events in the Middle Earth `prehistory', the story of Numenor and its fall, plus some excellent notes on the languages of Middle Earth.

We read here that the story of Numenor was, as it is probably obvious to most, a recreation of the Atlantis myth. It always struck me as odd that while Numenor was so obviously an echo of a Greek myth that the Numenorean names and language is so clearly patterned after Arabic. Note the prominence of the `Ar-` prefix, later changed to `Tar-`, so similar to the Arabic article, `Al-` seen in so many Spanish names such as the Alhambra and Alcatraz.

The story of Numenor began in an agreement with Tolkien's Oxford pal, C. S. Lewis for each to write a science fiction story. Lewis' result is his `Out of a Silent Planet' trilogy. Tolkien's effort became subsumed into his history of Middle Earth as the most important event in the First Age.

If you are an avid fan of Tolkien's linguistics, then this volume is a `must have', as it includes Tolkien's own dictionary of his various linguistic constructions. If your love of Tolkien lies more with the mythology, this book is slightly less interesting, as the central `The Lost Road' tale is actually a weak `time travel' story', since Lewis chose space travel as his theme, Tolkien was left with the other great Sci Fi theme.

Of course, if you must have every volume, you can feel satisfied that the next four volumes are probably the most interesting of all, as they represent early drafts of Tolkien's greatest work, `The Lord of the Rings'.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

*If this is not the "The Lost Road and Other Writings (The History of Middle-Earth Volume 5)" product you were looking for, you can check the other results by clicking this link.  Details were last updated on Nov 14, 2024 16:54 +08.