[This story is an excellent example of media distortion.  I doubt that the
author article read either "The Silmarillion" or "The Lord of the Rings".

     The inaccuracies in this article are frightening, especially considering
its wide publication.  I am hoping that a better article will be released soon.

     What the critics do not consider is that "The Silmarillion" is not a
popular novel, as LotR is, nor was it intended to be.  Instead, it is an attempt
of an accurate rendering of the legends of the First and Second Ages of Middle
Earth, including the history of the Valar, the Elves, and Men, and where the
origins of Dwarves, Ents, and Orcs are also for the first time recounted.  It
recounts matters that were ancient history even at the time of the Third Age of
Middle Earth, when the events popularized in "The Hobbit" and LotR occured; yet
everything that happened in the end of the Third Age had its origins in the
First Age.

     In my opinion, because of this "The Silmarillion" is a much better book
than LotR, and again its worse criticism must be that it is too short.  Despite
some points where clearly the book could have been better, the genius of its
author shows through.  "The Silmarillion", because it was never finished,
achieves its greatness.

     What comfort there is from the article arises mostly in that the critics
clearly have no understanding of Tolkien; phrases such as "allegory" (or
"trilogy", although that doesn't occur here) indicate their ignorance.  It is to
the book's credit that such people criticise it.

     In any case, for better or worse, here it is.  When I could not restrain
myself, I have added comments.  -- MRC]

     By ED BLANCHE
     Associated Press Writer

     LONDON (AP) - J. R. R. Tolkien's posthumous epic ''The Silmarillion'' was
published today, and the critics agreed that it's not up to ''The Lord of the
Rings.'' But the publishers are sure it will be a best seller.

     ''We have a first edition print of 800,000 in Britain and the United
States,'' said a spokesman for Allen and Unwin, the British publishers.

     Tolkien, a professor of English at Oxford University for 34 years, started
''The Silmarillion'' in 1916 but left it a jumbled mass of much-rewritten
manuscript when he died in 1973 at the age of 81.  It was assembled and edited
by his son Christopher, a lecturer in English at Oxford and his father's
literary executor.

     [MRC - The covering of Tolkien's personal history is too brief, but would
be excusable for a short article had the next three paragraphs not been
included.]

     The book, planned as Tolkien's final work, is a descriptive pre-history of
the mythical, allegorical world of Middle Earth that Tolkien created in ''The
Lord of the Rings'' and populated with the Hobbits, a race of little people
given to overeating and family trees.

     [MRC - What truth there is in this paragraph is deeply submerged under the
misconceptions.]

     ''The Lord of the Rings'' is a collection of adventure tales describing the
heroic quest of a Hobbit named Frodo to destroy a fatal ring - the source of
evil - and his encounters with monsters, natural dangers and the power of evil.

     [MRC - It is clear that the author merely read a review or synopsis of
LotR.]

     ''The Silmarillion,'' which the publishers call a ''prequel'' to ''The
Rings,'' opens in the land of Numenor, a star-shaped island from which the
characters journey to Middle Earth before the days of the Hobbit.

     [MRC - Totally false.  The author obviously did not read "The
Silmarillion"; otherwise he would not talk about Nu'menor, which was not founded
until the Second Age, in the context of the creation.]

     It explains the creation of Middle Earth, covers its First and Second Ages
and makes clearer the past often referred to in ''The Rings.'' But it only
refers to the Hobbits once.

     [MRC - True, and the whole of the article could be improved with this
paragraph remaining out of the previous four.]

     ''Is it as good as 'The Lord of the Rings'?'' critic John Ezard asked in
his review in The Guardian.  ''No, not by a long chalk. Yet . . . the stories,
even in their undeveloped promise, come close to the best in European legend.''

     Ezard also said the new book was Tolkien's ''Genesis, Exodus, Paradise Lost
and Drowning of Atlantis rolled into one.''

     ''I found it heavy going,'' Terence Ryle reported in the Daily Express.
''The style is so consciously that of the King James version of the Bible that
it grates in a way 'The Rings' never did.''

     Christopher Tolkien is working on the rest of his father's papers and has
said he expects to publish a number of poems and short stories from them.  But
he said ''The Silmarillion'' is probably the last major Tolkien work.
[This article, from the Wall Street Journal, needs no comments. -- MRC]

     A SUPERB ADDITION TO TOLKIEN'S MYTHOLOGICAL REALM

     By EDMUND FULLER

     Few books have been as eagerly awaited by a large audience as "The
Silmarillion," by J.R.R.  Tolkien.  It was rumored as a tantalizing, legendary
work during Prof. Tolkien's lifetime.  After his death, in September 1973, his
devotees were fearful they might never see it.  Now here it is, thanks to the
dedicated editing of his son, Christopher, to whom the task was bequeathed.  It
is worth the long wait.

     It is the background and prior history of those vastly popular works "The
Hobbit" and the trilogy "The Lord of the Rings."  They set forth portentous
events in what Prof. Tolkien called the Third Age of Middle Earth.  "The
Silmarillon" and other units of the volume encompass the Creation and the First
and Second Ages, completing the fabric of his extraordinary personal mythology.

     I first heard of "The Silmarillion" from Prog. Tolkien himself, in two long
conversations with him at his home near Oxford, in 1962, when I was submitting
for his comment one of the first critical appreciations of his work.  He wrote
"The Silmarillion" long before "The Hobbit" and the trilogy.  The true link
between those later, but first-published books and "The Silmarillion" was an
emergent awareness in his own consciousness, and it resulted in some
modifications of all of them.

     For the history of this unique body of work, and comprehension of its
"sub-creator" (his own word; he insisted always that there is only one Creator),
read the first full-scale, authorized biography, "Tolkien," by Humphrey
Carpenter (Houghton Mifflin, 287 pages, $10), which is splendidly done and
invaluable.  I recommend also an unusual little book, "Tolkien and `The
Silmarillion,'" by Clyde S. Kilby (Harold Shaw Publishers, Box 567, 340
Gunderson Drive, Wheaton, Ill., 60187, 89 ppages, $3.95).  Prof.  Kilby spent
the summer of 1966 as a voluntary assistant to Tolkien.

     "The Silmarillion" was an accretion, so diffuse a collection of of
elements, with so many variants, that Prof.  Tolkien, always a perfectionist,
always tempted to start all over again when he undertook to revise anything,
simply never could focus it into final form.  He came to understand that
Christopher would have to do it for him and did what he could to pave the way.

     Christopher Tolkien has carried out that charge superbly.  I had expected
an import addition to a body of work but thought its interest might be secondary
or historical.  Instead, it is a work of power, eloquence, and noble vision that
would be notable even if "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" had never
been.  Yet I would still recommend that a person first approaching Tolkien being
with "The Hobbit," for the deceptively simply, "childlike" (a fine word) flow of
its narrative, becoming increasingly complex in the development of the trilogy,
prepares the way for the high vein of "The Silmarillion."

     This volume begins with "Ainulindale:  Te Music of the Ainur," a brief
account of the Creation.  Equally brief, "Valaquenta" pursues that great
conflict among what would elsewhere be called angels, in which Melkor, later
known as Morgoth, is the equivalent of Milton's Lucifer.  Then come the 24 long
chapters of the "Quenta Silmarillion:  The History of the Silmarils."  These are
three jewels of extraordinary brilliancy and other properties, made by the Elf
Feanor.  (Tolkien's Elves are of human scale but of greater powers.)  There is a
struggle for their possession, use, and misuse, among Morgoth, Elves, Dwarves,
and Men.  "...the inner fire of the Silmarils Feanor made of the blended light
of the Trees of Valinor," long perished, which illumined Middle Earth before the
Sun and the Moon were created or men came.

     There follow two other short sections which are the bridge to the Third
Age.  "Akallabeth" shows the downfall of Numenor, noble realm of the West, and
the growing powr of Sauron, the adversary in the later stories, though lesser
than Morgoth.  "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" completes the linkage.
There are maps, genealogies, notes on pronunciation, an index of names, and
other appendices.

     In his brief Foreword, Christopher Tolkien explains the premises of the
work.  While the outline of the history of Middle Earth is now complete, there
is a promise of more particulars in "a wealth of unpublished writing by my
father concerning the Three Ages, narrative, linguistic, historical, and
philsophical, and I hope that it will prove possible to puish some of this at a
later date."

     Like his friends C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams, like Milton, like
Spenser, like Malory, Tolkien's mythology is a variation on the fundamental
images of the Judeo-Christian tradition of the Creator and the Creation, of God
and the Adversary, of men and their relations with other creatures, and of the
ultimate choices which men must make.  Thus they are great teaching stories
wrapped in the fabric of high adventure.  They are not escapist because they
confront us, in symbolic tales, with kinds of commitments which we would like to
escape but cannot.  Judgement is here as well as inspiration.

     To single out just one unit from this heart-lifting work, the tale of Beren
and Luthien, with the noble dog Huan, soars above all.  Mr.  Caprenter tells us
that it was the most loved by Tolkien of all his stories; the names "Beren" and
"Luthien" are on the gravestones of Tolkien and his wife.

     Tolkien is not for every taste, but for the millions, in many languages,
who vibrate to him, he is a lasting joy.  "The Silmarillion" is the last
structural block  of  his edifice,  among  the noblest  of  its  elements.
Beware those hailed  as his imitators,  who try to  conjure up the  exotic
with sound and fury  but lack the deep  underpinnings of J.R.R.  Tolkien's
theology, philosophy, scholarship and life commitment.
[Royalty, yet!]
a318  2058  04 Oct 77
AM-Queen-Tolkien,280

     COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - A deluxe edition of J. R. R. Tolkien's trilogy
''Lord of the Rings,'' with illustrations by the Queen of Denmark, has sold out,
the book's publisher said Tuesday.

     The 37-year-old queen, Margrethe Alexandrine Thorhildur Ingrid, belongs to
the worldwide following of Tolkien, the late Oxford professor who created a cult
with his tales of medieval myths and legends. He is best known as the creator of
''The Hobbit.''

     The queen, using the pseudonym Ingahild Grathmer, drew 80 black and white
ilustrations for the 1,500 numbered copies of the special edition that sells for
$165, the Forum Publishing House said.

     A spokesman insisted that the true identity of the artist was leaked
accidentally but he did not deny that the queen's link to the book helped boost
prepublication sales.

     Sources said the queen did the drawings ''just for the fun of it'' before
ascending to the throne in 1972.  She mailed them privately to Tolkien, with
whom she corresponded until his death in 1973, they said.

     A Forum Publishing House representative came across the drawings in the
archives of London's Folio Society and secured them for the limited edition, a
company spokesman said. The books are to go on sale here Friday.

     Bold and simple, the queen's drawings were praised by professional
illustrators, who said in Danish newspapers they were ''surprisingly well
composed.''

     The publishing house spokesman said the queen was paid ''just like any
other illustrator,'' but the fee was being donated to charity. He did not say
how much the fee was.