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It's a literary lesson—not a novel
For those wondering just what this book may be, here is the skinny:
1. This is NOT a single-narrative novel. It is not even a pieced-together story like The Children of Hurin.
2. THIS IS a collection of incomplete manuscripts and manuscript extracts that JRRT wrote over the course of many years as he struggled (unsuccessfully) to set out in full the tale of Beren and Luthien. Son and editor Christopher Tolkien has selected the material presented here to show how his father's conception of the story evolved over time. This is the point of the book.
3. All of the manuscript material included here has been published before in various volumes of The History of Middle Earth. Nothing new is included.
4. This IS the story that was closest to Tolkien's heart, and it is the great tragedy of his career that he never finished a full-length version. He made several substantial efforts in poetry and prose and simple summaries only to abandon each one. With each effort he changed the storyline and the details. Most notably Beren went from being an elf to being a man. Out of all this, Christopher Tolkien pieced together one of the longest chapters in The Silmarillion. In this book, he provided a dedicated illustration of the complexities with which he had to contend.
No one will ever KNOW the story of Beren and Luthien because JRRT never worked it out himself. Readers of this book, however, will take away some understanding of how the Professor worked on his legend off and on through the years.
