What a wonderful afternoon! Went and picked up The Children of Hurin, and went to the coffee shop to read it. Meanwhile, of course, a thunderstorm breaks out. I read it a bit, the storm abates, and I head back home before it restarts.
Sure enough, now that I am back home, ass on the couch, writing this here blog, the storm has just broken out in all its thunderous glory and is threatening to break my window panes. But I can tell you - this is THE most joyous feeling the world - inside reading Tolkien with the world shattering around you!
What can I say? So far, the book has definitely lived upto expectations. The story of Turin/Nienor is the same as that of The Silmarillion - not as terse though, but it retains the same sense of history that pervades all of Tolkien's works. In his own words :
"I doubt myself about the undertaking (to write The Silmarillion). Part of the attraction of The L.R. is, I think, due to the glimpses of a large history in the background : an attraction like that of viewing far off an unvisited island, or seeing the towers of a distant city gleaming in the sunlit mist. To go there is to destroy the magic, unless new unattainable vistas are again revealed"
-- J.R.R. Tolkien (Letters, pg. 333)
This book definitely does reveal new "unattainable vistas" by the passing mention of Vala, Maia, Feanor, etc. and at the same time describes in great detail some of the stories which are in themselves only given a passing mention in The L.R. Lovely day!
And to top it all, I am going to spend the evening watching Pan's Labyrinth. Oh the Joy!
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