'What David Macaulay can draw - churches, cities, pyramids - he does better than any pen-and-ink illustrator in the world. What could be more perfect for an author/illustrator who has continually stripped away the mystique of architectural structures that have long fascinated modern man? With typical zest and wry sense of humor punctuating his drawings, David Macaulay traces the step-by-step planning and construction of both castle and town. The word 'castle' itself conjures up mystery, romance, intrigue, and grandeur. Public domain status for Tolkien's work can't come soon enough.With wonderful detailed drawings and an interesting and informative text, this is a first rate history story for children and parents alike. In addition, CT's analysis has glaring faults, such as missing a nearly direct Beowulf quote and a character clearly based on the historical Radbod, complete with condemnation of his unbaptized heathen soul. 172 pages of notes, analysis, and presentation of revisions is surely excessive and clearly meant to pad this to a book-length work. It really makes no sense with a scrap like the Arthur fragment, clearly discarded as unfinished and abandoned by Tolkien long before his death.

Maybe it makes sense when tracing the evolution of a finished work like The Hobbit, but it can grow increasingly bizarre in recent publications like The Fall of Gondolin, where we get the same tale over and over in multiple variations, each reverently discussed by CT like Dead Sea Scrolls.

It's strange how he treats his own father like an ancient philosopher whose every revision of word or punctuation must be lovingly preserved. It's strange for several reasons.Ĭhristopher's annotations of his father's work are somewhere between academic work and family tribute but not satisfying as either.

Shame that Gandalf's creator didn't leave us his take on Arthur's wizard!Įven with wide margins on all sides, Tolkien's fragment is barely 40 pages long and, like so much that the Tolkien estate has published since his death, the rest of the volume is filled with his son Christopher's strange analysis. My Merlin research comes to a crashing end with a slim unfinished poem fragment that doesn't really deserve its own book and definitely has no Merlin in.

David macaulay's castle