I'm really glad this thread got revivified--I seem to have missed it, the first time around.
Quote:
Originally Posted by davem
So, anyone else feel the same way - is CoH a book that you're glad you read but one that you won't want to read again?
I was very struck by Batson's comments because he's someone who knows the larger story, that Earendel will make it to the West & rouse the Valar, that Morgoth will fall & the eucatastrophe will occur.
Yet, he is left 'with a vacant sense of dread, but no hope.' This is what I meant about the effect of publishing CoH as a stand alone work - even those who know the greater context will be affected by the story's darkness & lack of hope. In effect we have two CoH's - one which is part of the Legendarium, & is the darkness that comes before the dawn. The other is the novel as a stand alone work, one that some may not want to read twice....
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Speaking for myself, CoH is one of my favourite parts of the
Silmarillion
legendarium, and I like the
Silmarillion as a complete work. However, when I read the
Silmarillion, I invariably skim through the Túrin chapter. Perhaps this is simply because it's the condensed version, and being familiar with the fuller tale, I naturally prefer that.
From that alone, it's understandable that I would prefer the fuller account, CoH, and naturally I'm grateful to have an unabridged account that doesn't have me reading
Unfinished Tales, and having to skip back to the Notes and the
Silmarillion account to fill the gap. However, I think it's more than that: when I read CoH, I don't
want to finish the
Silmarillion. At most, I wish that Tolkien had gone on with The Last Wanderings of Húrin, and that the tale of woe and doom had proceeded thence, more fully, to the mournful last days of Húrin and the woe wraught with the Nauglamir.
But I don't particularly want to come to the eucatastrophe and the War of Wrath. CoH makes one hate Morgoth as much or more than the whole fall of the Noldor and the rape of the Silmarils, but it casts a whole different air on him--or, perhaps, on those fighting him. In the
Silmarillion broadly, the Noldor are doomed, but heroic figures facing an unbeatable enemy, holding him back at all costs, and then winning at last through the heroism of one who sought the West and won their (deserved?) pardon. In CoH, however, Morgoth is never portrayed as unbeatable--rather, he is portrayed as winning time and time again because
his enemies are fallible, and foolish, and frail, and prone in the end to do as HE wants. Túrin, Nargothrond, and Doriath--the world of "good" portrayed in CoH--always seem to have the chance of more victory within their human grasp... but they fail to achieve it, whereas the "good" of the
Silmarillion--perhaps to be characterised as Beren and Lúthien, Tuor and Idril,and Gondolin--not only seem to deserve victory, they win victories beyond what they SHOULD win.
As I come up with this, it is occurring to me that perhaps this is why CoH
needs to have these two versions: one set contextually in the broader tale, and one set alone. The tale set alone shows the full consequences of the Fall, both Elven and Mannish, and just how doomed we are alone. In a sense, I think, it is an atheist's tale, whereas the
Silmarillion is the tale of a Believer, and in Túrin's part of the broader tale, you can see how the convincing despair of "there is no hope, no God" might fit into the grander scheme of hope in eucatastrophe....
Nonetheless, I
do prefer reading CoH alone. It's stands alone splendidly.