Children of Hurin Discussion Thread

[Barliman Butterbur]

The Children of Hurin was released April 17, and hopefully will create the kind of furor that will bring back some of the old gang! (And they're already talking about making a movie or movies of it — PJ, are you sniffing the wind???)

Here is an interview with Adam Tolkien (http://www.dor-lomin.org/noticias/noticias.php?pagina=0&anillotolkien=1504) (CT's son from his second marriage) on the book. (The top of the page is in Spanish; the English is below.)

And here is a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_hurin) that tells you pretty much all you need to know before you buy — very informative! Evidently this story is even darker than The Silmarillion. LOTR at least had a more or less happy ending, and TH was the happiest of all. From what I gather, this will be a challenge for sensitive souls.

And with that caveat, let the discussions begin! And just in case, you can pre-order (USA) right here (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-7020252-3262206?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=children+hurin&Go.x=9&Go.y=12&Go=Go), and in the UK right here (http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_w_h_/203-7650085-8796746?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=children+hurin&Go.x=8&Go.y=7&Go=Go) along with a list of ancillary accoutrements!

Barley

[Inderjit S]

Initial thoughts? Well, I am dissapointed that C.T hasn't updated the Finwean family tree. Gil-Galad has been removed, but he could at least have put characters like Argon, Findis and Lalwen in there! And put Orodreth as the son of Aegnor. And Gil-Galad as the son of Orodreth. Bah. Plus the lack of information on how Maedhros lost the battle is ridiculous...bah! All of these comments are only because I am little obsessed with the Noldor and Finweans....still haven't read the book properly yet.

[Barliman Butterbur]

Initial thoughts? Well, I am dissapointed that C.T hasn't updated the Finwean family tree. Gil-Galad has been removed, but he could at least have put characters like Argon, Findis and Lalwen in there! And put Orodreth as the son of Aegnor. And Gil-Galad as the son of Orodreth. Bah. Plus the lack of information on how Maedhros lost the battle is ridiculous...bah! All of these comments are only because I am little obsessed with the Noldor and Finweans....still haven't read the book properly yet.

Tsk tsk...this isn't up to your usual high standard, m'friend!

My understanding is that CT put virtually nothing of his own into this attempt — none of his own writings to fill in gaps. So if your favorite guys don't appear, it's because they (probably) weren't there to begin with. Anyway, get on with your reading! I want a full report so I can decide whether or not to buy the book myself! According to Adam's interview, the story seems to move along at at least the speed of LOTR, much faster than Sil, and evidently seems to have actual conversation in it, rather than the (mostly) maddening recitatival drone of The Silmarillion.

Barley

[Inderjit S]

Trouble is that C.T has already published much of the draft material in the HoME series which he uses for CoH, and Tolkien DID write a lot of the stuff he missed out on. I don't know, I would have thought a paragraph or so would have helped clear up any confusion about certain things i.e who the hell Maedhros is and what exactly happened to his army when they were beaten, rather than listing some things and not going into detail, it was pretty ambigious IMO. Not criticizing the book itself, it is, apart from such pedantic details, brilliant so far.

[Maeglin]

I am debating whether I should just go out today and buy the book since I have been eagerly awaiting it for so many months, or just wait a few weeks and get it for my birthday for free. I'll wait for a bit more info. on it from Inderjit before I make my decision I suppose, but it sounds like you are enjoying it so far.

[Barliman Butterbur]

I am debating whether I should just go out today and buy the book since I have been eagerly awaiting it for so many months, or just wait a few weeks and get it for my birthday for free. I'll wait for a bit more info. on it from Inderjit before I make my decision...

I was going to wait for more from Inder, but — I have sucked it up, girded me loins, bitten the bullet: I have just now ordered myself a copy from Amazon!

Barley

[Luke Sineath]

Well, I preordered this but I haven't gotten it yet. I read The Silmarillion over ten years ago (I think) and so I won't remember the other versions and so on of the basic tale...this might give me an advantage in appreciating the story, since it will all seem so new to me?

I look forward to discussing the book with you guys...this is an amazing forum! Still, I probably won't be able to start reading it until the end of May, since I have so much to do right now (I shouldn't even be making this post...egads!).

[Barliman Butterbur]

Hey Luke! If no one's said it yet — and even if they have — welcome aboard!

Barley

[octoburn]

I preordered it (the Deluxe edition) at Amazon on the 31st... originally the delivery estimate was 4/20. today I got an email saying it'd be delayed to 4/23-5/5 :rolleyes: looking forward to it though :D

[Maeglin]

I was at Borders tonight and almost bought it, but I couldn't justify spending 26 dollars on it when I had seen it for 17 on Amazon. Not to mention that I prefer the pretty deluxe edition, which isn't that much more than 26 if I use Amazon, so its a better deal for me! ;)

[Inderjit S]

Finished reading it-it is good, there are some new parts, mainly in the form of conversations/speeches which are extended from the versions in The Silmarillion and U.T, not sure how this equates to 30 years work though...but brilliant book nonetheless.

[Flame of Udûn]

The thirty years in the original press release was about the length of time CJRT has been publishing JRRT's writings. Of course the first reporter didn't bother reading carefully and nobody went back to the release to check subsequently.

[Barliman Butterbur]

Well, I recieved my copy of COH yesterday and dutifully began reading it. It is as dark and dreary as I feared, all done in shades of black.

It strengthens my conviction that JRR's experiences in WW I put deep and permanent kinks in his soul and his spirit. What surprised me very much is the fact that after he finished LOTR, he went back and worked on COH! This is probably my ignorance and everyone but me already knew that.

I do so wonder what dark brooding things were festering in this man's soul to make him so preoccupied with such intense themes of tragedy and death...I'd say it was — at the very least — a combination of WW I, his wife's death, and the loss of his beloved English countryside.

Beautifully written as usual, but it makes me want to go out and throw myself into the Void...

Barley

[Barliman Butterbur]

Whatever my reservations about COH, it sure is a page-turner! I finished it in a day! That said, it led me to some other conclusions about JRR:

One of the things that CT brought out in his notes about his father was his maddening habit of abandoning his projects. LOTR would never have been finished at all had it not been for C.S. Lewis' cojoling, pushing, encouraging, supporting Tolkien through the whole process. Another maddening habit: when he made some sort of "mistake," he started all over from the beginning. These two habits make me think that, far from writing with an eye to publication, he wanted escape from the real world. After all: he'd lost all his friends save one during the war; he'd lost his wife; he'd been horrifyingly traumatized on the battlefield (and was often sick enough to be removed from it), he even lost the beloved English countryside of his youth. And I am positive that the "stench of dragon reek" was the transformation of the stench of rotting corpses in the trenches and the battlefield.

My conclusion is that the man had a severe and lifelong case of post-traumatic stress syndrome from which he could never fully recover, and that his writings were mainly cathartic in their purpose. I seriously doubt whether any of this saga would have seen the light of day, or even conceived, had he not had to go to war.

I was also somewhat annoyed that many passages in COH I'd read before in other places: UT, etc. I felt a bit cheated.

Barley

[Halasían]

The Children of Hurin was released April 17, and hopefully will create the kind of furor that will bring back some of the old gang!
(And they're already talking about making a movie or movies of it — PJ, are you sniffing the wind???)
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is with this fetish so many people have thinking P.J. & co own Middle Earth? This story doesn't need his hand to be messing it up by doing a movie!

The local bookstore had copies for $50-AU, so was out of my budget. I'll be back in the states and will likely get it through the library to read. Its not like I don't know the story. Still, I look forward to reading it through in all its dark glory.

I agree with your assessment of J.R.R. Tolkien having PTSS, and his writing was likely a way of his in dealing with it since little was known of its effects in those days. The Battle of the Somme was one of the bloodiest in British history. As for his writing bits and peices and drafts and such, and needing cajoling from people to finish stuff, leaves me hope there is some hope for me, as I have these same tendencies in my storywriting.

[Barliman Butterbur]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What is with this fetish so many people have thinking P.J. & co own Middle Earth? This story doesn't need his hand to be messing it up by doing a movie!

The local bookstore had copies for $50-AU, so was out of my budget. I'll be back in the states and will likely get it through the library to read. Its not like I don't know the story. Still, I look forward to reading it through in all its dark glory.

I agree with your assessment of J.R.R. Tolkien having PTSS, and his writing was likely a way of his in dealing with it since little was known of its effects in those days. The Battle of the Somme was one of the bloodiest in British history. As for his writing bits and peices and drafts and such, and needing cajoling from people to finish stuff, leaves me hope there is some hope for me, as I have these same tendencies in my storywriting.

Relax, friend Halasían, no one here is yearning for a PJ job on this! At least not me! Methinks that the Hobbit will probably be the last thing that PJ puts on the screen of Tolkien's, if that. Although that dragon getting stabbed in the guts with a black fiery sword...

One other thing I wanted to note: Alan Lee has finally come into his own with the artwork in this book. His tendency to dark dreary colors fits this story perfectly, and his general "look" seems to have gained maturity since his adventure in New Zealand.

Barley

[baragund]

Thanks for the insight on the illustrated edition, Barley!:) I sprung for it but Amazon tells me I won't get it until May. Oh well. Good things come to those who wait...:cool:

[Barliman Butterbur]

Thanks for the insight on the illustrated edition, Barley!:) I sprung for it but Amazon tells me I won't get it until May. Oh well. Good things come to those who wait...:cool:

Always a pleasure, m'friend!

Barley

[Sagan369]

Yea, since I've read UT countless times, it wasn't worth 30 bones to me to buy this one. I did get it at the local library last Thursday though, 2 days after its release.
The paintings are sweet, the type of paper used is sweeter. I wonder why he didn't update the genealogies tho?

[Starbrow]

I just got COH for Mother's Day. I don't know when I'll get a chance to read it though; probably, not until summer.

[Ancalagon]

Hello all:)

I'm currently reading it as quickly as I can, then I will re-read it, then I will go back to other works to cross-reference what I have learned. Then and only then will I be in a position to post something of limited value to this esteemed forum!

What I have read is excellent so far.

[UnderTheOath]

I just bought this yesterday with money I got for my birthday. I'd been hoping and dreaming for this for a long time: I'm the biggest Turin fan you'll eve meet. Every time I read Tolkien I go through *everything* in chronological order, so it will be helpful for me because I won't have to keep going back and forth between the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales accounts of Turin.

[Barliman Butterbur]

I just bought this yesterday with money I got for my birthday. I'd been hoping and dreaming for this for a long time: I'm the biggest Turin fan you'll eve meet. Every time I read Tolkien I go through *everything* in chronological order, so it will be helpful for me because I won't have to keep going back and forth between the Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales accounts of Turin.

There, by God, is a Tolkien fan!:cool: :D

Barley

[UnderTheOath]

It's true. I even have a list showing me what order to read in - including stories like Tel Elmar and The New Shadow :p.

Anyway, back on topic.

[Chymaera]

Welcome UndertheOath glad you are here. (When you start at the end and read it all backwards then you will be the Ultimate Fan)

I am reading slowly to savor the story. For me Beleg has just joined Turin's Outlaws.

The incident with Saeros was well done.

I find it quite nice to have the story all in one book. :)

[UnderTheOath]

Amen.

At the moment, Turin's in Nargothrond for me. The whole thing with Findualis plays out a lot better than in the Silmarillion.

[Grond]

Hello all:)

I'm currently reading it as quickly as I can, then I will re-read it, then I will go back to other works to cross-reference what I have learned. Then and only then will I be in a position to post something of limited value to this esteemed forum!

What I have read is excellent so far.Lasa's giving it to me on my birthday (05/23), so I don't dare even look at a cover. I, too, will not comment until I read it in full, cross reference and then study. See y'all in about three months.


Cheers,

grond

[Barliman Butterbur]

I'm back to watching the DVDs, extended version...:D

Barley

[Valandil]

Valandil's "Quickie" analysis of "Children of Hurin":

* I always want to say Hyurin and Hyuor, but I guess it's really Hoorin - though Hyuor is right. For their kids, I would say both Toorin and Too-or, but in that case, Toorin is right, but it's Tyuor. So... I had half of them right with the correct pronunciation.

* Many, many, MANY people died. You did not want to be IN this story. Your odds of making it through would not be very good.

* Turin had many, MANY woes, which I will endeavor to list at another time.

* Turin had many, MANY names, which I will endeavor to list at another time.

* Three of those names Turin took to himself - upon arriving at each of the last three places he lived (see next point).

* There were five major places where Turin lived: Dor-lomin, Doriath, Amon Rudh/among the outlaws, Nargothrond and Brethil. Going back never did him much good.

* Turin had three lame friends: Sador, Gwindor and Brandir - each of whom is portrayed as giving wise counsel, each of whose counsel Turin disregards, and each of whom dies - in large part (perhaps) because Turin didn't listen to their counsel.

* Brandir and Turin were second cousins, which finally occured to me on seeing the family tree in this book. Interestingly (oddly?), the book makes no direct mention of it - yet Turin should know it all along, and Brandir should know it once he finds out who Turin is.

* Ironic how Niniel/Nienor tells Brandir that he's like a brother to her, but that she loves Turambar/Turin... when in fact Turin IS her brother.

* Turin slew two friends - one in confusion (Beleg), one in anger (Brandir).

* Interestingly, upon slaying Glaurung, Turin recalls of his sword, Anglachel/Gurthang, that the saying said about it at its forging is true, that it will slay whatever it has once bitten. Does he not remember that he was once pricked by that sword?... when Beleg did so accidentally while cutting him loose from the Orc bonds (when he then rose up and slew Beleg). And just a few pages later... the sword takes his life as well.

* Talking sword... cool! :p ;)

* Having just recently re-read "The Silmarillion" and the UT version of the Turin story, MUCH of the material was already presented in either one or the other. I was well into the book before I read something I was sure was unfamiliar.

* Again that question... if Turin had been able to resist the words of Glaurung, and hastened after the Orcs to attempt a rescue of Finduilas, would he have somehow escaped the curse of Morgoth thereby? And... if he didn't love her, as he seems to not have so much at Nargothrond... why does he behave as he does on finding that she died in Brethil? Maybe he felt more for her than he ever let on there...

[baragund]

* Again that question... if Turin had been able to resist the words of Glaurung, and hastened after the Orcs to attempt a rescue of Finduilas, would he have somehow escaped the curse of Morgoth thereby? And... if he didn't love her, as he seems to not have so much at Nargothrond... why does he behave as he does on finding that she died in Brethil? Maybe he felt more for her than he ever let on there...

I dunno. To me, the recurring question is if Turin just got his head out of his rear-end, and listened to the advice of his loved ones, how much of his woes would have been avoided.

[Thorin]

The tale of Turin reads like a Shakespeare tradgedy or like Oedipus Rex.

I think Turin killed himself more of the shame and wastefulness of his life and the realization that everything he loved was gone due mostly to him, then just because his loved one was dead. In the face of such tragedy, the truths that hit him in the face were more than he could take.

I doubt I will read 'Children of Hurin' as I am quite familiar with the story having read it many times in 'Unfinished Tales' and HoME. If it eventually gets to the public library I will pick it up.

[Barliman Butterbur]

I dunno. To me, the recurring question is if Turin just got his head out of his rear-end, and listened to the advice of his loved ones, how much of his woes would have been avoided.

Well that's the thing: the basic premise of this whole saga is that Turin and everyone connected with him are living under the evil will of Morgoth. It isn't even a curse, it's simply the situational reality that Morgoth has created, and put all these Elves into. They are born into a lose-lose situation! They're beaten before they're even born! It's just too depressing; I don't plan on getting into it again.

It's The Hobbit for me, and the Party Chapter of LOTR: the doings of the Four Farthings and Bree — otherwise, just leave me the hell alone! :eek: :p

Barley

[Valandil]

I agree with BB on both points:

1. Turin's life was bound to be miserable, because Morgoth was going to make sure it was. Besides... the Elves were fighting a losing war. If they had kept being cautious, it wouldn't have mattered in the end. Except that it might have been a generation later before an Earendil went over the sea to Aman.

2. Even before "Children of Hurin" came out, I was making a concerted effort to re-read all the First Age stuff in both Silmarillion and UT - and then moving on into the Second Age. Man is it depressing! :p I don't know if I can keep it up. Or if I even will want to for much longer. We'll see... :)

[Urambo Tauro]

I finished it a week or two ago.
Although I did read the account in the Silmarillion, I never got around to the Narn.

The first thing I noticed in TCoH was the revised title, Narn i Chîn Húrin. Interesting. (I was hoping for some Tengwar on the title page too; oh well.)
I intended to read the book as slowly as I could, but this turned out to be a futile effort as I devoured page after page.

I did manage to refer back to the names in the back each time a new character popped up. I also try to get the pronunciation correct, (even if I am just silently reading it!) How interesting to find that Neithan sounds very much like our modern Nathan! (On that topic.... Valandil, is Huor really pronounced hyuor? It's not real important, but your observation caught my eye.)

As I read it, I tried not just to visualize the story, but to imagine, "how would this look as a movie?" Of course, The Death of Beleg was very dramatic, but at the end of the chapter there is an interesting "cleansing". I'm not entirely sure what to make of it; it's almost.... baptismal, I guess.
Among that which has already been mentioned in this thread, one of the scenes that I found quite rousing was chapter XII, The Return of Túrin to Dor-lómin. Very exciting! Too bad the effort is found to be a waste.

I'm going to have to check out the Narn in Unfinished Tales. I realize CT left out a lot of (enriching) details that some would consider boring.

[Chymaera]

Valandil's "Quickie" analysis of "Children of Hurin":

* Turin had three lame friends: Sador, Gwindor and Brandir - each of whom is portrayed as giving wise counsel, each of whose counsel Turin disregards, and each of whom dies - in large part (perhaps) because Turin didn't listen to their counsel.




:eek:

Thank you for that bit of insight. I had never noticed that before and once you point it out it is obvious.


Now here is question: How much different would Túrin's life have been if Húrin had died in battle with his brother?

[Barliman Butterbur]

Thank you for that bit of insight. I had never noticed that before and once you point it out it is obvious.

Sounds like a position on a chess board...;)

Barley

[Urambo Tauro]

I found this through a link at TORn; it's a list of divergences in The Children of Húrin as compared to earlier published texts. A very thorough job indeed, courtesy of Hyalma!

The Children of Húrin compared with The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and HoMe (http://czytaj.elendili.pl/2007/05/06/the-children-of-hurin-compared-with-the-silmarillion-unfinished-tales-and-home/)

[YayGollum]

Greetings, some. Well, I read the thing. The highlight ---> The lone footnote all about Mim, defending the guy, informing that only one tale tells that he went looking for Orcs to lead them to his house, but that another one merely informs that some Orcs caught him and forced him to reveal its location. Very entertaining.

Anyways, I didn't learn much that I didn't already know, but I had fun reading the thing. Even though it was all about Turin elfbane. I had been wishing for more cool information about Mim and Glaurung and Mablung (one of the few elves that I can tolerate), but I didn't get much. Mablung stole the show, for myself. Hurin seemed pretty cool, though, and I was sorry that it was only The Children Of Hurin, instead of Hurin And Stuff Directly Pertaining To Him, since I would have enjoyed seeing what he did after Mel released him. Mostly to read about Mim again.

Oo! Pretty pictures! My favorite ---> Glaurung burning stuff, of course. Mim was in there, but I could have used something with more personality. There are lots of pictures that I would have liked to see, but oh well. Anything else?

[Halasían]

My neice dropped her copy of this book by teh house & I read it in a few days. It is how the story should have been released, instead in the poorly edited Silmarillion chapter or the raw story filled with footnotes in Unfinished Tales. Sure I knew the story, which prevented me from dropping my own quid on it, but it is a good and worthy read. I don't think it will have much pull to a person who is unfamiliar with Tolkien as it does throw names out rather quickly in the beginning.

[Aldanil]

The comment was offered, and readily agreed with, some two months back toward the top of this thread, that Tolkien was driven to compose the tale of The Children of Hurin because he suffered from a "severe and lifelong" case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, that only his need for some catharsis to purge the dark things "festering" in his soul can explain a preoccupation with "such intense themes of tragedy and death", that the imagination which gave birth to Arda and the Elder Days and the Rings of Power was moved not by Sub-Creative impulse but instead by a compulsion to "escape the real world". However belatedly, I must disagree. The notion is distorted, distorting, dismissive, and facile; what follows will take some pains to refute it. (I hope no further pain may be caused in the process.)

That Tolkien's experience in World War I had a profound impact, both personal and authorial, on his later life is an unquestionable and well-established fact. John Garth's brilliant Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth (2003) lays out the matter most cogently -- and the class photograph on the inside of the dust-jacket alone is well worth the hardcover price, for you acquisitive bibliophiles. It's a looong way from what Garth recounts, however, to any credible diagnosis of PTSD, or "shell shock" as it was known at that time. George Carlin pointed out several years ago the difference between those two painfully honest and straightforward syllables and the far fuzzier and more indirect eight that we now employ to characterize the "syndrome". The condition itself, whatever length or number of words is used to describe it, was medically recognized in soldiers who'd seen service at the Battle of the Somme, and many were invalided home because of it; Lieutenant John Ronald Tolkien of the 11th Lancashire Fusiliers wasn't one of them. What sent him back to England on sick leave was trench fever, debilitating enough (and fortunately so, in retrospect) to pull him out of the forward lines, but brought on by filth and fleas and not by the terrors of combat. Beyond the general Hell which was the Western Front in 1916, there is no record that Tolkien was ever "horrifyingly traumatized" on the battlefield, and his medical disability was not based on shell shock.

That Tolkien was not moved to create Middle-earth by grief for the loss of his wife, an odd and anachronous notion that our dear Befuddled Barkeep puts forward multiple times, is confirmed by a cursory glance at the calendar. His beloved Edith died in 1971, by which time Tolkien had abandoned all but the most desultory work on his legendarium. In fact (as is also widely known), the central story of that mythology, one far more important to the larger narrative than is the tragedy of the Children of Hurin, derives its central character, Luthien Tinuviel, from the sight that John Ronald had of his beautiful young wife dancing in a grove of flowering hemlock trees, in 1917 when he was home on leave. His living love for her, and not lamentation for her death, was what made the tale of Beren and Luthien (the names beneath which John Ronald and Edith lie buried, side by side) the linchpin of the Great Tale of Arda.

That Tolkien's sorrow for the lost countryside of his childhood was not what prompted either his initial interest in the story of Turin or his return to the subject after completing The Lord of the Rings seems almost as easy to establish. The depth of that sadness, and the anger it gave rise to, are -- like the influence of his experiences in the First World War -- well-attested to and beyond debate; they find expression in many forms throughout his body of work. I've suggested elsewhere, as have others, that much of our author's pleasure in the march of the Ents upon Isengard, beyond reclaiming the narrative opportunity that Shakespeare squandered so shamefully in Macbeth, must have come from giving the trees he loved so well the chance to take their revenge on those who'd hacked and hewn them down so cruelly. From the burning sands of the Anfauglith to the Scouring of the Shire, Tolkien decried the wrack and wretchedness wrought by the Machine upon the living earth. This is hardly a theme which resonates in The Children of Hurin, however: even the fiery path of destruction that Glaurung burns in his unswerving course toward Brethil is given no particularly powerful emphasis, and the defilement of Eithel Ivrin is but a sad grace-note to the thunderous strains of Turin's ruin.

One more stroke to hammer home the point, with perhaps less bludgeon and blunt force than Morgoth's Grond upon the helm of Fingolfin, but with no less decisive result: Tolkien's first imaginative encounter with this tale, in the story of rash and hapless Kullervo in the Finnish folk-epic The Kalevala, came while he was still an undergraduate at Oxford in 1912-1913, three years at least before he went to war in France.

The penultimate comment in this over-dense post derives from John Garth, specifically the front flap of that dust-jacket aforementioned: "Tolkien used his mythic imagination not to escape from reality (emphasis mine), but to reflect and transform the cataclysm of his generation, While his contemporaries surrendered to disillusionment, he kept enchantment alive, reshaping an entire literary tradition into a form that resonates to this day." To the seductive appeal of disillusionment, one might add the tendency that some indulge in, avoiding "such intense themes of tragedy and death" because they're "just too depressing".

The last word I'll leave to John Ronald, from the Letters: "I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. they only detract attention from an author's works, and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. But only one's Guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author's works. Not the author himself (though he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not so-called 'psychologists'."

[Halasían]

The last word I'll leave to John Ronald, from the Letters: "I object to the contemporary trend in criticism, with its excessive interest in the details of the lives of authors and artists. they only detract attention from an author's works, and end, as one now often sees, in becoming the main interest. But only one's Guardian Angel, or indeed God Himself, could unravel the real relationship between personal facts and an author's works. Not the author himself (though he knows more than any investigator), and certainly not so-called 'psychologists'."
Which is a mani reason why I never read 'Letters' or much of HoME. The author's works are what deserves the attention, not what the author wrote to others about them.

[Starbrow]

I just finished it. It's a good story and more fleshed out than the Silmarillion version, but obviously not too suspenseful for those of us who have read the other versions.

Spoiler alert:
Does anyone know why the part about Hurin confronting Thingol in Doriath was not included? It comes near the end of the story as I recall.

[Urambo Tauro]

Well, imagine if that part was included.... think about it and let it sit for a while.
As a stand-alone story, it is a scene which would feel out of place to me. I like where the story ends.

The Narn in UT ends without Húrin & Morwen. A few extra paragraphs gives us the TCoH ending. And only a few paragraphs more would end the tale of Húrin.

But it's not his tale. It's not Narn I Húrin. It's the story of his chîn. I'm sure it was a carefully considered editorial decision, and CT probably went back and forth about it before making his choice.

[Barliman Butterbur]

Since what I am about to briefly discuss concerns The Children of Húrin, I thought it best to post this here:

The Tolkien Estate is what many Tolkienites love to hate. The Estate attempts to protect JRR's works from being "deflowered," warped, distorted, taken out of context and generally from being "mis-used" in any manner that would (in their mostly-correct opinion) subtract from Tolkien's literary greatness.

They have recently put up a "short form" of what is to be, later in the year, their complete and official website. Here it is: http://www.tolkienestate.com/.

Now you have a place to read their views on why it is that they are so closely protective of The Great Man. And I suppose you also now have a contact where you can vent your wrath at their simply not allowing people with slender writing talents to publish fan-fiction and other derivative third-party ventures at their (and Tolkien's) expense.

Barley

PS: After the first reading of COH — I prepared a place for it in my Tolkien shelf and put it down there, mayhap and maylike never to pick it up again. It sits there, gathering dust. But I bought it — nobody can say that Barliman Butterbur lacks loyalty, even at the cost of twenty Middle-earth quid! :eek:

[solicitr]

dancing in a grove of flowering hemlock trees

Not 'hemlock trees.' What Tolkien remembered from Holderness and put into his tale was the umbelliferous wildflower also known as cow-parsley or Queeen Anne's lace. Not by any stretch the unrelated giant conifer of North America (which doesn't produce flowers).

[Eledhwen]

I've never heard of hemlock trees. This (http://www.horsedata.co.uk/images/Plants/hemlock.jpg) is the plant Tolkien was remembering (Conium maculatum). It can grow several feet tall, and is similar to many other white multi-headed flowers (and Tolkien said that the flowers were hemlock-like).

I add this to help those who don't know hemlock to better imagine the scene of Beren and Luthien (or JRRT and Edith).

Barley, I too have only read my copy of the book once; but I had read the story in the Sil more than once before already. I think it's one of JRRT's stories that would make a particularly good film. Are people ready for an unhappy ending though?