The Children of Hurin

[Marky Lazer]

I liked the book.

[Wiglaf]

Its not bad. It just sometimes doesn't quite connect the reader to the characters as well as LOTR or The Hobbit.

[LJonesy]

Originally Posted by Wiglaf

The problem with these stories of the first age is that there is no sense of immediacy; they would be better told as if the reader was reading an account of a current event. A tale told as an old tale from eons ago that is being bantered about by people who lived eons ago makes the action feel a wee bit remote.

As an aside, the alternate explanation of the petty dwarf's betrayal is the true one; it is much better.

You make a good point. Because if Tolkein had made the stories with a greater sense of immediacy, per say, then it would have been much more interesting.

Still, he can tell a good story.

[Marky Lazer]

Originally Posted by Wiglaf

Its not bad. It just sometimes doesn't quite connect the reader to the characters as well as LOTR or The Hobbit.

I think that might be because it wasn't really finished...

[Patrick Mahon]

Just finished reading The Children of Hurin, and I rather enjoyed it. As others have said, it's not as immediate as LOTR or The Hobbit. However, if you compare it to Tolkien's treatment of this story in one chapter of The Silmarillion, you can see what a great job Christopher Tolkien has done of finding, and linking together, his father's narrative into a story, rather than a synopsis, which is how much of the Silmarillion reads, to me at least.

[Marky Lazer]

Originally Posted by Patrick Mahon

... you can see what a great job Christopher Tolkien has done...

He, of course, had had some experience with The History of Middle-earth...

[Urien]

Finished this a week ago.

Obviously spoliers*

A tremedous saga, the tragedy and brief success of Turin is, it seems to me, a succinct insight into the wider fall and decline of the free races of Beleriand. They cower behind their walls, hide in their forests or underground, and each attempt to resist, (many initiated by Turin), results in even greater tradegy. For me the ultimate failure of Turin mirrors the longer term fate of Beleriand.

The writing itself is archaic in style mirroring parts of the Silmarillion and old Norse sagas. It's also quite episodic, but hypnotic in its rhythm. It's quite gloomy in tone, Tolkien creates a bleak world, a world much darker than that of LOTR. If Aragorn, Gandalf and Frodo had lost the Fourth Age of Middle Earth might have felt something like this.

[Marky Lazer]

I'm thinking that the Children of Húrin might very well be a better story than LOTR...

[Nesacat]

Yes Andrew. I thought the same when I finally shut the book. It was a terrible, bleak, dark world. All hope was gone and everything turned to dust no matter how well it started. It might well have been what would have been if the Fellowship had failed.

I've been wondering what it would have been like t read this first and then only go on to read Lord of the Rings. Might be like coming out of the dark into the light. Those books then might have a greater impact.

[Grimward]

Read the book last summer when it came out. Hadn't found this wonderful intoxicant we call The Chrons at that point, so can only offer my thoughts after the read.

I didn't read much of the reviews, and so was dreading another CT effort where JRR's writing gets lost in CT's editing. Was very pleased to find no such thing; the book was the Silmarillion's story of Hurin and family, only brought to life and given wings (an odd thing to say about Morgoth's Curse, indeed). It's true that it's dark; it is Tolkien's tragedy, and I remember the Nirnaeth Arnoediad chapter in The Silmarillion evoking that same bleak feeling and continuing it all the way thru Turin's life and right up to Tuor, too (BTW, Interesting that CT chose to keep that small piece where Tuor spies the Mormegil but says nothing; almost like it's important to connect the two cousins by physical proximity for one brief moment). All in all, a good read for any Tolkien fan. I can see, though, where someone who's not read the Silmarillion could get a little lost, as the reader cannot get the same background on Doriath, the other houses of men, or really why Gondolin and Nargothrond were important but doomed nevertheless from this book.

Still, well worth the read, well worth owning, and well worth discussing!

[The Procrastinator]

I just read this and really enjoyed it - if you can call the reading of a tragedy enjoyment... CT did a very good job with the editing, the story stood up very well I thought. Inspired me to go and read the Silmarillion again (I am currently up to the lovely tale of Maeglin). And once again I was left thinking, what kind of life would Turin have led if not for the curse? When you read this story in the context of the larger tragedy (the Silmarillion) you realise how much of it is about curses and their impacts further down the track - and yet throughout the whole there is always a small thread of hope - for instance, balancing Turin's tale of woe is the prophecy regarding Tuor (I think that's why the "almost-meeting" between those two had to take place).

[Sar]

Wow, what a tragedy. The style kind of reminded me of the old epics like the Illiad. I think that was one of JRRT's puposes. He was creating myth. I enjoyed it.

[Wiglaf]

Does anyone else agree with me that in the chapter "The Land of Bow and Helm" on page 148 in my edition where Mim the Petty-dwarf goes to the Orcs that the note at the bottom giving an alternate story would have been the better choice? Morgoth and his servants are already intrinsically evil; having Mim be less evil and more understandable would have made for better reading. Having the Orcs waylay him and threaten his son would have accomplished this by providing Mim with a more sympathetic motivation.

[GOLLUM]

HMMM....I've got a gift voucher that will cover the cost of this book (PB edn.), just not sure if it's worth getting.

Anyone else care to comment on this book?

[j. d. worthington]

I've not read it myself (yet, though I intend to soon after the move), but from various comments I've seen, I'd say to go for it; those whose opinion I've come to respect all seem to think rather highly of it....