"The Fall of Gondolin" Due Out August 30th, 2018

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

While Tolkien's writing clearly evolved and improved over his career, reading The Fall of Gondolin gave me an impression that in some undefinable way his writing lost some of its connection to Faerie. The world of The Lost Tales feels more perilous than Middle-earth as it ultimately developed. To some extent this is possibly due to greater familiarity with the final realization than the early stages of Middle-earth's development. With this in mind I re-read some of the passages and the impression still remains. Perhaps Tolkien himself became too familiar with it and some of the magic of Faerie vanished over time.

I found myself rather unhappy with the early versions of the story, as least as far as Tuor's coming to Gondolin is concerned, and much prefer the 1951 rewrite. Maybe that's due to the fact that that version (as given in Unfinished Tales) has a special resonance for me. The entire story is enthralling, and the depiction of Tuor first seeing the Great Sea, and Ulmo's words to him at Vinyamar, are especially vivid in my imagination.

Originally Posted by Kuruharan

At least his balrog doesn't have wings (even if it is too big, in my opinion).

If Eru had meant for Balrogs to fly, they'd have been Eagles.