Unfinshed Tales - Part III

As I've posted previously, I am reading Tolkien's Unfinished Tales. I realize now that I have named the titles of my posts poorly as they do not correlate to the "Parts" of the actual book. For this post, I am going to combine three of the "tales" from the official "Part Two" which deals with the Second Age of Middle Earth. Without further ado, let us consider "A Description of the Island of Numenor", "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife", and "The Line of Elros: The Kings of Numenor".

I put tales in quotes because the first and third of these are hardly what you would consider tales in the since that they contain a plot. "A Description of the Island of Numenor" is exactly that. It was six of the hardest to get through pages of reading that I have recently taken on, and there was very little payoff. At best I have taken one for the team, and I can at best tell you that you can safely skip this.

Then there is "The Line of Elros: The Kings of Numenor". Again, there is nothing that is terribly insightful or memorable about anything contained in the pages of this "tale". Unless you are taking a college course on Tolkien, skip this one too.

That leaves us with "Aldarion and Erendis: The Mariner's Wife". While this actually qualifies as a tale, it falls considerably short of being compelling. Here's the story: mariners love the sea, and it is hard to be a Mariner's wife as a result. The only thing mildly interesting about this tale is that the first rise of Sauron is hinted at in a few places, but it is not at all developed. While Aldarion is an ancestor of Aragorn, reading this story will not really give you a deeper understanding of the great hero from The Lord of the Rings.

So far, that makes the Unfinished Tales of Part Two a bust. "The History of Galadriel and Celeborn" is the only one left so will see if it's a case of having saved the best for last.

Until next time...
PH