This book helps answer a question that many Tolkien scholars and enthusiasts have doubtless asked since the publication of Christopher Tolkien's "History of Middle-earth" was completed over a decade ago: "How does the mass of manuscripts described in these twelve volumes relate to the published Silmarillion?" Douglas Kane's substantial research has identified the sources of each section of The Silmarillion, paragraph by paragraph, demonstrating how Christopher Tolkien (hereinafter referred to as CT), assisted by Guy Kay, combined the various incomplete larger works into a single coherent epitomizing text. This general study of the composition of the published Silmarillion is valuable work, and I'm grateful that Kane has done it. Unfortunately, Kane also attempts a criticism of the composition of the text, and this is less successful.
I'm not opposed to criticism of CT's decisions in handling his father's literary estate; it would be a poor sort of scholarship that treated his involvement in the texts as off limits. But Kane's specific approach is unrewarding on a couple levels. First, he assumes that all variations between the manuscripts as presented in The History of Middle-earth and the finished book are the result of editorial changes introduced by CT without authority from his father, ignoring the possibility that these changes reflect manuscripts not included in the History (which does not claim to be exhaustive in this sense) or other sources of information about his father's intention not available to us. Kane acknowledges in the abstract that some changes may be made with authority, but in specific instances proceeds with his analysis on the assumption that they derive from CT. (It's clear from Kane's comments outside the book itself that he is comfortable with this approach because of his assumptions about the construction and intentions of the History, and about what constitutes a significant variation; I regard these assumptions as flawed, but this is tangential to a review of the book itself.)
Even if one accepts the theory that these changes were made purely by CT, as doubtless some were, Kane's critical analysis of these changes is frustratingly limited. In most cases all he does is list a change and say that he doesn't personally like it, because he regrets the loss of a detail or an image or some small aspect of characterization or theme. This is fair enough in and of itself, but there's rarely any attempt to identify potential reasons for the change. When such reasons are offered, they are quickly dismissed. The Silmarillion tradition, and the mind of its author, were large, detailed, and complex; the ways in which particular details might have seemed to CT unnecessary or inappropriate are many. But Kane almost never even alludes to this complexity. Intentionally or not, this creates the impression that CT must have made many inexplicable or capricious changes.
The weakness of the analysis of specific changes reflects a larger problem with the book. To criticize an editor's approach to a text, one must at least attempt to understand the editor's goals and principles, but any such consideration of CT's purposes in constructing the Silmarillion is lacking. Kane seems only to imagine a series of changes occurring in a vacuum, without reference to a coherent larger work. Likewise, he offers no clear statement of his own preferred principles of construction, though it is perhaps possible to intuit them from careful reading. Arda Reconstructed's literary-critical analysis is simply not detailed or in-depth enough to be fully successful.
In spite of these flaws, Arda Reconstructed remains a valuable book, and one that any student of the textual history of The Silmarillion should strongly consider purchasing. It is a vital first step in the critical consideration of CT's editing of the published Silmarillion. One can only hope that future works will be more rigorous and wide-ranging in their analysis.
