Originally Posted by tumhalad2
I pretty much agree with all of this, but I would reiterate a difference between the LOTR and CoH again: while it is certainly true, and clear, that neither Eru or the Valar intervene much in Middle-earth, the narrative of the Lord of the Rings is nonetheless resplendant with a sense of providential purpose. This is something that is not only lacking in the Children of Hurin, but the possibility of it is mocked by Turin, and the conversation between Hurin and Morgoth ends ambiguously. The wider Silmarillion too is repleat with much suffering, of course, but the Valar are nonetheless shown to be active participants in thought or deed. In the novel, the Children of Hurin, they are distant, amourphous and almost entirely unkown entities, especially to humans...
... However, I think where I'm getting at is that CoH, in its novelistic form, seems to undermine this construction; it seems to make eucatastrophe gratuitous. Now, I'm not saying we should take this interpretation because our own lives are bleak and nasty; I don't have such a life either, but I am saying that to my eyes the text itself seems to lend weight to such an interpretation. Now, we then have the issue of interpreting it along side its peritexts, the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings.
Should we then, treat Middle-earth as a kind of ontologically consistent history? Or should the novels absolutely stand on their own? Well, I think a balance is required. Certainly, CoH is set in the same world, as Nerwen points out, in so far as names, places and people are familiar. But it is this qualitative difference, this much terser, less aesthetic use of langauge that characterises CoH that worries me. It is entirely unlike either the LOTR or the Sil. It brings to bear its own style, and thereby its own unique tone and atmosphere. How is this to be understood?
|