Beren and Luthien
Beren and Luthien by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Unlike The Children of Hurin, unless you’re a lover of poetry or you’re a diehard Tolkien fans, I doubt the overall content of this book will be enjoyable to read.
The Children of Hurin has a novel format with a standalone story. The novel begins with a preface from Christopher Tolkien, then the story starts and continues until the end without break in prose form. It’s pretty much a standard standalone fantasy novel format with a self-contained story that can be read and enjoyed by anyone who loves fantasy novel. Beren and Luthien isn’t like The Children of Hurin. Although I’m super happy that I approached The Children of Hurin without knowing anything about it and ended up loving it, I wish I have known about the overall content of Beren and Luthien before I bought it; because I wouldn’t have bought it.
It wasn’t the story of Beren and Luthien itself that didn’t work for me, it’s the overall structure of this book. By this, what I mean is that the story isn’t adapted into a standard novel format. The introduction and notes were 40 pages long, then the Tale of Tinuviel (Luthien) was told in prose form for 50 pages. After that, the remaining of the book tells a different and evolved version of Beren and Luthien’s story again, except that this time it’s in verses and poetry format for 100 pages long rather than prose. I have nothing against poetic prose but reading poetry itself is something I dislike; there’s a good reason why I don’t read Lang Leav or Rupi Kaur. There was also constant interruption from Christopher Tolkien where he explains J.R.R. Tolkien’s inspiration and the writing evolution on the creation of this book that really disrupts the reading flow. In my opinion, this feels more like a case study of the creation of Beren and Luthien than actually reading the story of Beren and Luthien. So yeah, unless you’re REALLY interested in reading poetry or knowing J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing process and knowing about the text comparisons and evolutions of this story, I highly doubt you’ll enjoy this one.
I also found that the story of Beren and Luthien to be better told from other sources like Wikipedia and stunning artworks throughout the internet than the actual novel reading experience. Don’t get me wrong, Alan Lee’s illustrations are always a delight to look at. But reading the story of Beren and Luthien here made me feel like I’m reading a Disney fairy tale version of Middle-Earth with a non-happy and a bit ambiguous ending. In the end, I don’t have a full review for this one, I think I’ve stated it clearly enough why this book didn’t work out for me. The 100 pages of verses/poetry was overkill to me.
I can only recommend Beren and Luthien for extreme Tolkien fans—which I’m not—who wants to learn more about him, his writing process, and Christopher Tolkien’s adaptation process of this book. My friend from Goodreads, Rinaldo, told me that even though I highly enjoyed reading The Children of Hurin, I most likely won’t enjoy reading Beren and Luthien and he’s damn right about it.
You can order the book from: Book Depository (Free shipping)