Book Review: The Story of Kullervo by J.R.R. Tolkien

For a Tolkien fan, this is a lesser piece in the puzzle, but still very interesting. Kullervo's story is a story Tolkien translated and poeticized from a much older original. What's most rewarding is not the story itself but how its tragic themes are developed by the young Tolkien and how they grow into his later work. I found the essays at the end to be even more valuable than the story itself, because here Tolkien analyzes the old story, and it contains an insight about how we worked out puzzles through writing. For example, he was always bothered by why a man would steal a golden cup from the dragon in Beowulf, enraging the dragon and setting part 3 of the story into motion. So that motivated him to write a story about an unassuming hobbit conscripted to steal a cup from a dragon's hoard. That one insight made the book worthwhile for me. But I just told you, so should you read this? Probably only if you are a Tolkien completist or are interested in the process of translation.