For Sale: Tolkien reviews and ephemera

Just for those that might be interested in GGK's review, "Dug out of the dust of Middle-earth", of Unfinished Tales, it's apparently available online for a subscription fee to the magazine's archive: https://archive.macleans.ca/article/19 ... -the-dust-of-middle-earth (thanks to a reference in an essay in the book Obras Póstumas de J.R.R. Tolkien: Uma homenagem a Christopher for supplying this link!)

Here's a quote from Kay's review, copied from that essay:

For someone innocently seeking a good read, Unfinished Tales emerges as inaccessible, pedantic
and perhaps ultimately saddening. Where has the magic gone? One feels at times like an
archeologist, digging amongst the dusty rubble of a once-glorious civilization. […] Lower slopes,
these Unfinished Tales, the dry dust of scholarly footnotes replacing the gleam of enchanted swords.
Lower slopes and little light indeed, but there is enough to help us remember how high the
mountain once was. And how bright.

“Those who would not have forgone the images of Melkor with Ungoliant looking down from the summit of Hyarmentir upon ‘the fields and pastures of Yavanna, gold beneath the tall wheat of the gods’; of the shadows of Fingolfin’s host cast by the first moonrise in the West; of Beren lurking in wolf’s shape beneath the throne of Morgoth; or of the light of the Silmaril suddenly revealed in the darkness of the Forest of Neldoreth – they will find, I believe, that imperfections of form in these tales are much outweighed by the voice (heard now for the last time) of Gandalf, teasing the lordly Saruman at the meeting of the White Council in the year 2851, or describing in Minas Tirith after the end of the War of the Ring how it was that he came to send the Dwarves to the celebrated party at Bag-End; by the arising of Ulmo Lord of Waters out of the sea at Vinyamar; by Mablung of Doriath hiding ‘like a vole’ beneath the ruins of the bridge at Nargothrond; or by the death of Isildur as he floundered up out of the mud of Anduin.”

— From Christopher Tolkien’s introduction to Unfinshed Tales

Sour grapes much, GGK?

For me the magic never left for there is much glorious writing to behold within Unfinished Tales which augured well for the resplendent HOME series. Don't we all at some times during our re-reads of LOTRs feel like "archeologists, digging" the historicity whilst concurrently we are vividly within the world of Middle-earth. This still applies for me with the posthumous works.