Well, I haven't re-read this whole thread (As a dog returneth to its vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly - & there is no real going back: the thread may be the same, but I am not the same, ect, ect...) so I may or may not be repeating earlier points here...
I do think its possible to view CoH as a counterbalance to LotR/The Sil as a whole. Tolkien wrote it as it is - & unless we want to accuse him of 'lying', or at least of attempting to mislead, it is equally as 'true' in & of itself, as the more 'hopeful' works. LotR & CoH are both tales set in an invented world, but that's no reason to reduce one of them to being merely a 'part' of the other. They are both equal, but in a moral sense, opposites.
Many people do live desperate, pointless lives, devoid of hope & purpose - & see Tolkien's own comments on Simone de Beauvoir in this documentary
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12237.shtml
Quote:
“There is no such thing as a natural death. Nothing that happens to [a] man is ever natural, since his presence calls the whole world into question. All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident. And even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”
Well, you may agree with the words or not, but those are the keyspring of The Lord of the Rings.
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"All men must die, but for every man his death is an accident. And even if he knows it and consents to it, an unjustifiable violation.”
I'd argue that they are not the keyspring to LotR (well, maybe a bit), but they are the keyspring to CoH - & they are definitely essential to an understanding of Tollkien's worldview.
Both LotR & CoH are true reflections of the vision of Tolkien, & ultimately true of the world we inhabit. I think to only read CoH in the light of LotR/The Sil is as wrong as to only read LotR/The Sil in the light of CoH. Just because the stories are set in the same world doesn't make one of them less true - or even dependent on each other. And it certainly doesn't mean we should see one of them as untrue if read alone.