Lost Tales and Silmarillion

[Elfhelm]

I must say that, despite all the interruptions of Christopher's comments, The Book of Lost Tales reads more easily than The Silmarillion. And I wish JRRT had used the same method in the final version. I find the links entertaining, and the voices of te story-tellers, and the way they fill in little details that would be redundant if it weren't for the fact that it's different story-tellers each time. Of course, the names have changed, and Beren's race, and so much else over the 30 to 40 years between the versions. But it might have been nice to do the new version that way, say, with Bilbo at Rivendell instead of Eriol at Tol Eressëa.

In fact, when Frodo finds Bilbo nodding in the story-telling room, it just makes me think that JRRT had that going on in some way in his mind.