Bilbo's
Last Song
by J.R.R.
Tolkien
reviewed
by
Kenny Brechner
One needn’t labor long to find proofs of the truism that "too much of a good thing is bad for you." Eating, drinking, movie watching, and many other necessary and pleasurable pursuits are all plainly subject to being enjoyed to excess. There are, however, activities whose natures are so wholesome as to be immune from the possibility of overindulgence, contemplating J.R.R. Tolkien’s world of Middle Earth, for example.
No danger of overindulgence that is, as long as Tolkien is contemplated properly. Tolkien was universally acknowledged as a perfectionist who labored over his manuscripts with infinite care. The fact that The Silmarillion was never published in Tolkien’s lifetime can be attributed entirely to the fact that its author could never satisfy himself as to its readiness for publication.
After the author’s death it came to light that he had left behind an enormous amount of unpublished writing ranging from the very refined to the very preliminary in terms of composition. Tolkien’s literary executor, his son Christopher, began by publishing, with good reason, the most highly finished pieces of his father’s work. He has carried on however, with increasingly poor justification, in publishing partially written drafts and notes whose publication would have caused his father exquisite agony.
Defiling an author’s legacy by reading everything he left behind in his desk is not the way to go about our business. It is rather the reading, rereading, and contemplation of Tolkien’s masterwork, The Lord of the Rings (TLOR), along with suitable examination of The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, in which the sensible reader may partake without fear of ill effect.
Given the somewhat dubious history of "new" books by dead authors generally and by Tolkien in particular one greeted news of Bilbo’s Last Song, "Tolkien’s epilogue to his classic work The Lord of the Rings, with an emotion closely resembling dread. Needlessly, as it turned out, for Bilbo’s Last Song is a beautifully rendered illustration of a poem written in Bilbo’s voice, covering Bilbo’s final voyage towards the Grey Havens and beyond with the other Ringbearers.
The illustrations by Pauline Baynes are modeled on those of traditional illuminated manuscripts, complete with a wonderful section of notes giving a full exegesis for each illustration. The poem itself is entirely consistent with Bilbo’s accustomed voice, and a delight to read.
It does not really serve as
an epilogue to TLOR however, in that the narrative does not reach beyond
events narrated in the TLOR, but rather fills in Bilbo’s journey to the
Grey Havens and his expectations for the ship’s voyage. In terms of chronology
Frodo really has the last word in that it is told of him in TLOR that he
"passed on into the west, until at last on a night of rain... the sound of
singing...came over the water...the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass
and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green
country under a swift sunrise."
