I've starting reading this now for the first time, as incorporated into/in parallel with my re-reading of
The Silmarillion from shortly before the LotR movies were first coming out. I figured this discussion thread looked like a good spot to use.
So I hadn't really thought about it, but the time-scale for re-reading The Silmarillion is on the order of a couple decades, literally. Much to my surprise. It feels like the timing is good, because I have vague memories of the broad strokes of the narrative, but many details have been forgotten. My re-read of The Silmarillion has been purposely deliberate and slow; a page a day. With some of the supplimentary material I've incorporated at whatever speed I feel comfortable at. For some of the additions I've thrown in from THoME, it's been still very slow.
At first I thought I would replace
The Children of Hurin entirely with the
Turin chapter. However, I've continued with my deliberate pace through The Silmarillion partly out of habit, but also partly because I got the timing wrong. Even though I surveyed TCoH a short time ago, I struggled to line up the
events and didn't realize until I started reading that I would be backtracking and re-visiting The Battle of Unnumbered Tears (with an adjusted emphasis on Turin's family and house).
I've been really impressed so far with The Children of Hurin, it feel like it starts off really strong. I vaguely remember how his life unfolds as one travesty after another, so some of the early material with set-up and foreshadowing are really pretty moving. And actually, there is a scene from the Amazon streaming series that reminded me of the fate of
Earendil, and I've kind of been keeping an eye on the lineage. When I read the meeting of
Turgon and Huor during battle in The Silmarillion, and the foreshadowing of what will arise from both their families, I remembered thanks to the streaming show jogging my memory. Yet the re-telling in The Children of Hurin felt more personal and intimate, so the same moment really hit me hard emotionally.
This has started off so good, I'm hopeful that I won't notice some of the criticisms I've read of it being choppy. Perhaps I haven't done myself any favors, because I dipped ahead for curiosities sake and have been reading the appendix specifically about how Christopher
Tolkien organized this book's edition. This is kind of an outgrowth of my exposure to material from THoME throughout The Silmarillion re-read, where expanded narrative material comes hand-in-hand with "The Making of" aspects; I couldn't help it, I was genuinely interested. Maybe I wanted to prepare myself, too, so I could be more forgiving when the narrative gaps arrive?
I do feel a little unsettled by what Christopher Tolkien describes about details of his editorial approach to past works and to this work. He removed some material for The Unfinished
Tales, which he put back in for this book. Yet he also did a little bit of trimming as well for Children...I really wish he had left some of those small passages in. It makes me think of a post I came across regarding The Description of the Island of
Numenor, and how he trimmed stuff for The Unfinished Tales, and that material ended up in The Nature of
Middle-earth (which some fans are saying they really like?!). Someone said of The Fall of Numenor book about the 2nd Age has the advantage of giving that essay without any of the trimming of
materials, so someone doesn't have to flip back and forth between The Unfinished Tales and The Nature of Middle-earth. I'm wrestling with this; I've been getting used to and starting to like the notes and commentary, but I also feel like more of the fictional material should have retained in exchange for some notes and commentary that every once in a while seem a bit gratuitous. I don't want to overstate it; broadly, I have mixed feelings. I'm glad Christopher Tolkien has provided as much material as he has.
