The Fall of Arthur

The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien/Chris Tolkien

Naturally I’d start this series with my hardest evaluation of the year. I snagged this copy from Shakespeare & Co in Paris to appropriately cap off a trip that included seeing the Bayeux Tapestry (a lecture series for a different time, but it’s so important to the fantasy genre).

This book contains the only extant piece of Tolkien’s attempt at an Arthurian legend, written in Alliterative verse in a very strict homage to epic Anglo-Saxon and nordic poetry while utilizing modern English. Unfortunately, Tolkien only completed the first five cantos, and those compromise the first 57 pages of this book–the rest was never finished or if it was, it is lost to history. This means you’re only treated to the setup of what was surely to be an epic tale. The remaining 180 pages are dedicated to rather academic breakdowns of Alliterative Verse, Arthurian Legends, Epic Poetry, and The Fall of Arthur’s relation to Middle Earth.

I found the actual poem of The Fall of Arthur to be nothing short of spectacular. It’s the type of example I wish I had access to in high school because it’s so, well, accessible. It has all of the form and lore of medieval epic poetry without the tedious side by side evaluation and translation of old English. Had it been a complete piece, The Fall of Arthur would be as remembered as The Lord of The Rings. Alas, history is not so kind.

The rest of the breakdowns are…fine. I surprisingly enjoyed the study of Alliterative Verse as a form. The dive into the wealth of sources feeding the Arthurian Legends was well researched and comprehensive, but often it strays into extrapolation and assumption by Chris of JRR’s intentions. This makes it feel rather drawn out by the end. The essay relating The Fall of Arthur to The Lord of The Rings I found rather boring and contained little substance beyond speculation, and I say that as an LOTR addict.

Overall, the actual poem is well worth the price of admission–enough to buoy this into my top ten. After that, if you care to put it down, you’d be forgiven.

Final Grade (all out of ten):

Plot: 7

Characters: 7

Conflict: 7

Theme: 7

Setting: 7

Prose: 9

Tone: 9

Quality: 8

Impact: 8

Enjoyment: 8

Overall: 77/100

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A/N:

Over the next ten days I’ll be releasing full reviews of my top ten books of 2025. From there, I plan on publishing a weekly book review. I’m hoping this is a way to keep me reading regularly and academically.

A quick note on my grading philosophy which I formed listening to a few movie critics. I believe that a 7 in any of the categories above constitutes “Good”. Anything above that is something that is above and beyond in any one particular category. I believe this creates a more nuanced evaluation of any Story. Very, very rarely do I give scores above 90 (8 since I started grading books back in 2022). Consider anything a 70 or above the equivalent of 5 stars.

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