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A Sense of Tales Untold: Exploring the Edges of Tolkien’s Literary Canvas by Peter Grybauskas by Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey by John Rosegrant (review)

2023; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 72; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/chy.2023.a917896

2056-5666

Blake I. Campbell,

Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies

Reviewed by: A Sense of Tales Untold: Exploring the Edges of Tolkien’s Literary Canvas by Peter Grybauskas by Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey by John Rosegrant Blake I. Campbell A Sense of Tales Untold: Exploring the Edges of Tolkien’s Literary Canvas. By Peter Grybauskas. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2021. IBSN 978-1-60635-430-8. P. xii + 154. $55.00. Tolkien, Enchantment, and Loss: Steps on the Developmental Journey. By John Rosegrant. Kent, OH: The Kent State University Press, 2022. ISBN 978-1-60635-435-3. Pp. xii + 208. $55.00. J.R.R. Tolkien’s contribution to the literary world has endured, entertaining readers for generations, and inspiring numerous adaptations set to reimagine and expand the literary world of Middle-earth. Tolkien’s renowned literary success is credited largely to the complex history and mythic narrative he created in his legendarium. Peter Grybauskas’ latest book, A Sense of Tales Untold: Exploring the Edges of Tolkien’s Literary Canvas, aims to explore these very margins of Tolkien’s literary works and world. Grybauskas takes the reader on an exploration, as his book’s title implies, adventuring into the borders between story and “un-story,” the missing gaps, and empty spaces on the edges Tolkien’s literary canvas. The somewhat peculiar title is taken from one of Tolkien’s unpublished essays, in which he likens the beginning and ending of stories to the edges of a canvas, in which there are no real boundaries. This literary metaphor is consistent with Tolkien’s firm belief in the importance of a story’s complexity and depth, which he successfully weaves into his legendarium. Inherent in Tolkienian mythos is a sense of stories left untold, woven into the peripheries of this frameless, endlessly imaginative world he created where there are stories both told and untold. Grybauskas takes the reader into the loose ends of Tolkien’s legendarium and to the very edges of what we know about his literary world through extrapolation of some of his opaquer tales from the history of Middle-earth, namely, the Last Alliance of Elves and Men (chapter 2), the Turin saga (chapter 3), and the Homecoming of Beorhtnoth (chapter 4). Citing just one of these untold stories as an example, although the story of the Last Alliance is referred to in the Lord of the Rings, it is never directly or fully told. Rather, this story is untold in shadowy narratives delivered through multiple characters, at various points in the trilogy. According to Grybauskas, these are the most significant untold stories that arise from within the literary world of Middle-earth. In the fifth and final chapter of the book, Grybauskas considers the place of the untold tales of Tolkien’s literary legacy in what he refers to as “afterlives,” contemplating the development of the modern fantasy literature, film, and ultimately focusing on the development of fantasy video [End Page 653] games. This chapter explores and evaluates Tolkien’s legacy and influence upon such fantasy writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, Patricia K. McKillip, and Stephen King, as well as movies, and role-playing games (RPGs) such as Dungeons and Dragons, Warcraft, Diablo, and others. It is primarily these unexplored borders and untold stories in Tolkien’s legend-arium that allowed for imaginative inspiration and adaptation into these other narratives. It is here in the realm of new media where perhaps the most exploration and expansion of Tolkien’s literary canvas has occurred. A Sense of Tales Untold is not a thesis-driven book, with Grybauskas simply presenting some of Middle-earth’s most prolific untold tales which are a defining feature of Tolkienian subcreation and contribute to his “impression of depth.” This perception of narrative depth, Grybauskas contends, is primarily achieved through the inclusion of unfinished and untold stories, allusions, and even purposeful story omissions. Not only the Lord of the Rings, but the Silmarillion—itself a book of unfinished stories— remained unfinished in the author’s lifetime, and in some sense remains so today. The inclusion of these untold, unfinished stories alludes to the fact that while Middle-earth is a highly developed...