[Lalaith]

Have you got the deluxe or ordinary version, Mith? Can anyone tell me what the difference is? (I've got the ordinary one)

Do you think we should have a thread purely for literary discussion, for those who have read/are reading it?

I'm still in the early stages of reading but I'm already excited by what Christopher has to say in the introduction, about Tolkien's views on the consequences of Hurin defying Morgoth. The child-like conversations between Turin and Sador about the relationship between men and elves are something I don't remember having read before, but I've only read the Narn in the Sil and UT versions, I don't have HoME.


Back to the reviews - the Guardian today had a round-up of what the reviews on CoH said. Reviewers seem to either totally love it or absolutely hate it.
I can actually quite sympathise with reviewers who hate it, because if you don't like or "get" this sort of thing in the first place, then the literary devices Tolkien uses - reams of place names, characters changing their names constantly, and so on - would drive you mad.
I of course *do* like that sort of thing, very much, but I can accept that there are lots of perfectly intelligent literary people who have different tastes. In the same way that my neighbour, who works in the music industry and would therefore, one assumes, know his stuff, is obsessed with Bruce Springsteen. I just don't get it. *shrugs*