Mini Review: Beowulf (Tolkien)

An entire English class in a book...

I'd been curious about Tolkien's rendition of the classic tale of Beowulf for quite some time now. The combination of an opportunity to buddy read it with someone and the timing of a readathon made this March the perfect time for me to finally check it out.  

HOW I RATED IT 

4/5 Make no mistake, this one is for the English nerds and die hard Tolkien fans only, but if you fall into one or both of those categories, then this might just be a real treasure to add to your collection. 

CONTENT

First and foremost, this is quite different from any version of Beowulf that you may have had to read in school. The most popular rendition is much more of an approximation or retelling of the story whereas Tolkien's version is closer to a word for word translation. The end result is a story/poem that is rather difficult to follow, at least initially. I think it's probably helpful to already be familiar with the tale in some form before diving into this, but that's not a hard requirement. With enough patience and some careful reading, it won't be too difficult to follow since this is a fairly straightforward story at face value. In defense of this version, Tolkien himself never deemed it appropriate for "the general reader." It has been compiled and published posthumously by his family as what I feel is more a show of Tolkien's scholarship and a sort of artifact documenting his passion for Middle English translation. Another important note is that the translated poem itself only accounts for a little more than one hundred of the book's four hundred and twenty five pages (not counting some of the front matter content). The bulk of the rest is a section providing a deep dive on the finer points of Tolkien's translation as well as a commentary on the poem. The latter is handled primarily through a compilation of curated points from Tolkien's lectures on the material with some color commentary by Christopher Tolkien interspersed throughout. 

Objectively, the Commentary section is not going to be of interest to everyone, but I personally found it mostly fascinating. I do think it could have been chopped down further even though it is mentioned that only a small selection of Tolkien's notes are included here. There were just some points included which felt pedantic and practically irrelevant to only the most devout of scholars on the subject matter. Other parts were actually extremely engaging, particularly those that delved into the historical significance of the narrative and sought to feel out the original poets intentions. I don't think I ever realized that the poem had so much actual history mixed into the more fairy tale elements, so it was really cool to have this story presented in that new context. The bits pertaining to the translation itself were also interesting for the most part, but could sometimes be tedious to read through (there were a lot of notes that almost felt like there were there purely to offer justification for certain decisions made in regard to translating the text for those that would be learned enough in Middle English to have an opinion of their own). Things end on quite a strong note though as this book contains some bonus material written by Tolkien. The first of which is a story named "Sellic Spell" which essentially takes the basic story of Beowulf's slaying of Grendel and Grendel's Mother and transforms it into a tale that is made purely of legend (meaning all of the historical elements were stripped out and character names were changed around). It's a fascinating retelling of the original story and I loved that it read quite similarly to Tolkien's original works, with THE HOBBIT coming to mind in particular. This was an absolute treat to read and while I appreciate the commentary provided on it afterwards, I'll admit that I mostly skipped through the excerpts from the original draft and just read Christopher's notes on the changes that were made to it (I also skipped the Old English version of it since I can't read that language). Things finish off with a pair of poems inspired by the story which are written in a more modern form (not at all dissimilar from the format that many of the songs take in THE LORD OF THE RINGS).

PAPERBACK

This paperback edition has a nice color scheme to it's cover and a fun little design on the front with title fonts clearly marking it as part of the Tolkien collection. There is also a nice little illustration on the title page that is clearly one of Tolkien's original drawings. The rest of the interior is formatted nicely enough, though there's nothing particularly elaborate going on as the presentation is fairly minimalist in terms of fonts/formatting and iconography. Even though the book is of a nice size and the paper quality is decent, the book itself kind of deformed over time for me. It formed a crease on the back side of the spine which also resulted in the cover itself splitting slightly along the edge. While it endured some light travel within a protective book sleeve inside my work backpack, there was nothing I'd put it through which should have resulted in that kind of wear. It doesn't ruin the book or anything, but it is continually disappointing to see publishers skimp on quality when paperbacks have gotten increasingly expensive to purchase. It may be best to pick this one up as an eBook unless you're keen to have a physical copy for your shelves. 

CONCLUSION

While casual readers may find this one quite perplexing, those looking to delve deeper into Tolkien's scholarship and get more insight into his influences as a writer will likely find tons of delightful content within the pages of this book. I, for one, am very pleased that I got around to it and I definitely learned quite a bit along the way. This book is sort of like having a whole English class contained within a single book, so if that sounds at all appealing to you, then this might be up your alley. If not, I think that's perfectly fine too. 

(+) It was super interesting to read a version of this epic poem which acted as a more faithful word for word translation to the original text, even if that made it trickier to read. 

(+) A lot of the commentary was fascinating, especially anything pertaining to the poem's historical relevance or the general structure and meaning of it all.

(+) "Sellic Spell" was a treat to read and the "Lays of Beowulf" were also quite a nice note to end on.

(+) As a Tolkien fan, it was super cool to get a little bit of insight into his more scholarly writing and also see how his work as a professor likely influenced the stories he'd write within Middle Earth. 

(-) The paperback edition really could have used a stronger construction and a little more love on the interior design. 

(-) This is not going to be for everyone and there were some portions where I wasn't fully into it either.