The Children of Hurin

stoolpigeon writes "Throughout much of his life, J.R.R. Tolkien worked on a series of stories set in his well known middle earth. A few he considered his "Great Tales" and he would return to them often, writing them multiple times and in multiple forms. One story that he worked on often over many years was the tale of Hurin and his children Turin and Nienor. Following his death, Tolkien's youngest son Christopher has worked to collect, edit and publish much of what his father wrote but never published. The tale of Hurin's children has been told in part already in some of those works. But it is in this book that for the first time the complete tale is told from start to finish of The Children of Hurin." Read below for the rest of JR's review. The Children of Hurin author J.R.R. Tolkien pages 313 publisher Houghton Mifflin rating 7/10 reviewer JR Peck ISBN 0-618-89464-0 summary The complete tale of the children of Hurin Some insight from what I think of this book is revealed in the fact that I preordered a copy before it was published last year. I was very excited when it arrived, made it about a third of the way through and then set it aside for quite a while. It was just recently that I saw my copy sitting on a book shelf and decided that I would finish it. It really didn't take too much time. The story is not very long. The reason I had trouble was because I had been hoping for something along the lines of "The Hobbit" or "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien's most widely read efforts. They read like most modern novels, whereas much of the material published since Tolkien's death is written in a more classical and frankly, difficult to read style. Christopher acknowledges that those works are perceived in this manner in his preface by stating, "It is undeniable that there are a very great many readers of 'The Lord of the Rings' for whom the legends of the Elder Days (as previously published in varying forms in 'The Silmarillion', 'Unfinished Tales', and 'The History of Middle-earth') are altogether unknown, unless by their repute as strange and inaccessible in mode and manner." I have read the first two from that list of three and would say that yes, they are in many ways work to read.

Unfortunately I didn't find "The Children of Hurin" to be much more approachable or easy to enjoy. I think that Christopher's motivation is to bring these tales to a wider audience, but I doubt very much he succeeded. There are a few problems that plague the book. The first is that there is a constant use of proper names, for places and people, that for most readers will be unfamiliar. Not only that, they will be difficult to pronounce. The book does have a small pronunciation guide in the beginning, but the bottom line is that often I felt like I was reading a book written in another language. To some extent it is, Tolkien's own elvish tongue. But without some familiarity or explanation much of it just slides past and makes reading the story difficult. Main characters change names throughout the story and keeping track of it all can be difficult. Here is a short paragraph about Hurin's wife Morwen.

"Hurin wedded Morwen, the daught of Baradund son of Gregolas of the House of Beor, and she was thus of close kin to Beren One-hand. Morwen was dark-haired and tall, and for the light of her glance and the beauty of her face men called her Eledhwen, the elfen-fair; but she was somewhat stern of mood and proud. The sorrows of the house of Beor saddened her heart; for she came as an exile to Dorlomin from Dorthonion after the ruin of the Bragollach."

That isn't an unusual passage. That is the style and much like most of the entire book. Antiquated english with an immense amount of proper names and relationships constantly spread throughout.

The setting is Beleriand, some 6500 years before the events of "The Lord of the Rings". This land would eventually be mostly destroyed in a war that would end the First Age. So the places do not correspond to the landscape of middle-earth in "The Hobbit" or "The Lord of the Rings." The main evil in the land is Morgoth. He has come to middle-earth and set up shop in Angband. Hurin, a man, dares to defy Morgoth. Morgoth captures him and binds him to watch what befalls his wife and children that Morgoth has cursed.

This curse and how it works itself out is the redeeming quality of the story. The vast majority of the book focuses on Turin. He is an amazing warrior and leader of men. At the same time he is incredibly proud and rarely listens to anyone else. This failure of character on his part is pushed along by the malevolence of Morgoth and so a flawed man is also trapped in the machinations of an evil power. The working of the story brought to mind the great Greek tragedies. The reader confronts issues of fate and free will. It is a beautiful story, it is just not written in a manner that is going to connect well with a modern audience. And I doubt J.R.R. Tolkien would have ever released it in the present state. This may sound presumptuous on my part. In fact I know it is, but in the first appendix Christopher gives a history of how this tale developed as well as snippets from the other versions that existed.

J.R.R. had begun to tell the story in verse. The small sections of that poetry that are given in the appendix to this work, and that go beyond what was published in "The Lost Tales" is much more descriptive and beautiful than what is given in "The Children of Hurin". Often Children reads more like a history book than a novel. The facts are all there, and at times the life is too. But too often it just feels like a listing of facts about events, people and places.

So how can I rate the book as a 7 out of 10 with all these issues? Well for some people, nothing that gives them more information about middle-earth and its history can be bad. They are probably cursing my name in the tongue of Mordor at this very moment. They loved "The Silmarillion" and they probably adored this work too. I share some of their passion, and despite its weakness, I did enjoy this story, especially once I had moved fully through the telling and could look at the arc of the entire story. It is a work of great skill and though I don't think it is Tolkien's best, it is still much better than many others.

For someone who is a casual fan or answers "I've seen the movies" when you ask them about "The Lord of the Rings", this is not something they would probably enjoy. Getting them "The Hobbit" to read would probably be a more pleasant experience for everyone involved. Or just wait and see if New Line can ever get done with the legal barriers and make a film of that was well.

The edition that I bought and matches the ISBN I've given is a hard-cover with beautiful art by Alan Lee. The cover dust jacket is gorgeous and there are full color illustrations throughout. The appendixes include the history of the tales as I've mentioned, genealogies, a list of names and a map of Beleriand. There is also a preface, slightly longer introduction and pronunciation guide. The preface, introduction and appendixes were all written by Christopher Tolkien.

You can purchase The Children of Hurin from amazon.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

Hard to read....

[Kazrath]

The review indicates it was a hard book to get through because of the dialog used. I found that all of Tolkien's books were very difficult to read. I used to pick up the Hobbit if I was having difficulty sleeping and would be out cold after 10-15 pages. I find his over descriptive style very boring to read yet, I recognize that his accomplishments have enabled many of my favorite writers in creating some of my favorite stories/books. If it were not for Tolkien, the Fantasy/Adventure genre may have never taken.

Re:Hard to read....

[jizziknight]

Over descriptive? Seriously? Have you ever read The Tale of Two Cites? The Hobbit is a children's book compared to that. The Lord of the Rings is a harder read (especially The Fellowship of the Ring), but is still relatively simple compared to some of Dickens' books, and some of the other so-called "classics."

As a side note... has it ever occurred to anyone else that maybe the reason certain books are "classics" is because of school teachers requiring all their students to purchase and read those books year after year? I mean, if it weren't for being forced to read them in school, I would never have read The Tale of Two Cities, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, The Scarlet Letter, etc. How many people would really go to a bookstore, pick up one of those and think, "Wow, this looks like a really interesting, enjoyable read. I think I'll buy it"? I doubt not nearly enough for them to be considered "classics."

Re:Hard to read....

[oldwindways]

You may have a point in that the appeal of many "classic" works of literature is simply not there for grade school students. Personally I was never a fan of Dickens, something I attribute to the fact he was paid by the word and so tended to go on interminably. That being said, some classic stories have timeless themes which appeal to young minds. I take exception to your categorizing Frankenstein with the work of Dickens and Hawthorne; to a young man with an interest in science, the idea of creating a superhuman, and the dangers of toying with such forces presented a truly seductive theme.

Is our definition of "classic" literature skewed towards somewhat inaccessible titles, written in a style that is not entirely painless for Americans to endure? Absolutely.
Is this choice with out reason? Not at all. If you think struggling through Dickens today is a challenge, be glad that you don't have to learn Greek to read the works of Plato and Aristotle in their original form, not to mention adventures such as The Iliad, or The Odyssey.
Value does not come from simply being difficult, but in the case of many classic works of literature, the barriers to entry are more than outweighed by the knowledge to be harvested within.

Whether The Children of Hurin is such a classic is a question I can not answer, but do not discount it simply because it is not easy.

Re:Hard to read....

[gEvil (beta)]

The important thing to remember about Dickens' work is that the stories were originally serialized. They were meant to be read in short bursts over the course of many many months. If you read them that way, they're wonderfully entertaining stories.

How many people would really go to a bookstore, pick up one of those and think, "Wow, this looks like a really interesting, enjoyable read. I think I'll buy it"? I doubt not nearly enough for them to be considered "classics."

Funny, because that's exactly what I do from time to time. And I've only been disappointed a few times, and I know that those times are purely due to personal taste. Many of the "classics" out there are such because they are great tellings of stories dealing with timeless themes.

Re:Hard to read....

[Kismet]

I felt the same way when I was a first-time Tolkien reader.

May I suggest that literacy does not merely consist of "knowing how to read words?" Children are inexperienced with literacy even when they know the mechanics of reading, because the language often fails to convey the intended ideas and sentiments. What good are prose and eloquence when these devices result in confusion and boredom?

Some people do not understand visual art. They have not developed a sense for it. Others can't fathom fine cuisine, having never experienced the range of possibilities. Most of us can't enjoy fine prose, rhetoric, and other types of literature, because we are essentially illiterate with regard to those particular devices. We read the news and the blogs, and then we seem to think that "advanced" literature has to do with content: usually controversial content. We believe that, when our writing becomes more licentious in tone, we have made some sort of advancement in literacy. But this is not true.

In fact, when one becomes immersed in the literature of ages, literacy is the result. Neither the sentiments of entertainment, lust, titillation, nor the simple acquisition of trivia, are new or novel in any way. But the connoisseur of literature, like the linguist, often discovers completely new sentiments or ideas that he never suspected were possible before. His mind is expanded; he has a greater context, new senses for quantifying reality. He begins to read prose that can move him with compassion, or words that can paint the Forms of dignity or of poverty or of the infinite tapestry of good and ill that constitutes humanity. His peers call it over-descriptive, boring tripe. Oh yes, they can read the words too; but not the Forms that those words were meant to convey. It requires much experience just to become literate, let alone a master wordsmith like Tolkien.

Many will argue that language has changed, and that some classics have become archaic or outdated (hence boring). It is true that our language is changing, but it is important to understand that the root of all language evolution is a culturally driven illiteracy of the full scope of the language. The language has expanded, but we now only comprehend a fraction of it. We have begun to forget even the ideas and sentiments of past ages because we are no longer literate in their mode of expression.

When you become fluent in another language, you will know I mean. You will find yourself saying things that have absolutely no translation into your native tongue. You will find that you develop additional character and personality, having now the ability to feel and think feelings and thoughts that were previously incomprehensible to you.

Tolkien's stories are more than just stories. They are loaded with human passion and human understanding, and it's too bad when we spend our effort trying to get past all of that in order to get a kick out of a fine fantasy novel. Tolkien didn't write in his unique style in order to be arcane, obscure, authentic, or for any other artificial reason that modern authors sometimes use to write in a voice that isn't their own. Tolkien was completely in-character, using the only language that could capably convey the true Form of Middle Earth to his audience -- those who have the eyes to see it. No other retelling has captured the same essence.

I have yet to read another fantasy author, with the exception of T.H. White (and possibly, occasionally, Robin McKinley), whose works could qualify as true literature. All of the rest of them have entertainment value, certainly; even brilliance and mastery of many story-telling techniques. In the distant future, maybe even some of these will become literature, if those who still have eyes to read can discover the ideas and sentiments conveyed by our modern written word.

Re:stfp

[Scholasticus]

Tolkien didn't really write these stories for an audience. He wrote them for his own enjoyment, out of his love for languages, for the mythical world he had created, and for the characters who populated that world. The Hobbit he wrote for his children, and The Lord of the Rings he wrote for all of the readers who wanted to know more about Hobbits.

Great book, lousy review

[Dave21212]

Sorry Mr. Peck, but that was the most schizophrenic review I have ever read :) I can't decide if you love it or hated it. Perhaps you should stick to reviewing the latest Walkman or Digital Photo Frames :)

"it is just not written in a manner that is going to connect well with a modern audience"
- Shall I suggest the comic book, or the new blog version perhaps ? (just kidding)

I've read nearly everything in the series, and this book matches up well to the style and stories that you'll find in The Similrillion or Lost Tales. If you enjoyed those, especially Lost Tales, you may enjoy Children of Hurin. Yes, it's not a style that mimics the latest J.D. Robb, but then it isn't supposed to, that's one of the things that appeal to me about the text.

Re:WTF?

[hey!]

I read The Hobbit to my seven year old son, which he liked tremendously. As soon as we finished, he immediately asked, "Is there a Hobbit II?"

Questions like that just make you want to sigh. It is sad that Tolkien finished so few books.

They say Tolkien was the kind of writer who never let go of a manuscript until it was ripped from his unwilling hands. "Hobbit II" was exactly what LotR started out to be; it ended up being the final episode of the Silmarillion, bringing to an end the Elvish presence in Middle Earth.

Think about that. Practically every chapter in the Silmarillion would be an entire LotR sized work, if it were expanded to the scale it had in Tolkien's head. The story of the Children of Hurin is not exception. It wants to be over a thousand pages of lush mythopoetic prose. What it is, as published, is a couple of hundred pages of story sketches reworked into reasonably acceptable narrative consistency.

Furthermore, it is not finshed by a writer with J.R.R. Tolkien's gift for language. It's not that there aren't occasional bad pieces of prose in LotR, which in a work that size is not surprising. But there is so much that is so elegantly written and perceptively detailed in it. Reading the Silmarillion, and The Children of Hurin, is like reading a plot synopsis of a great opera. Some operas have better plots than others, but it's never the plot that makes them great.

Some day, when the works have gone into the public domain, there may be writers who successfully turn their hand into finishing the pieces from Tolkien's mythology. Sadly, most of us will not live to see that day.

Re:Non-Tolkien material in these completions

[MightyMartian]

It's long been my opinion that the entire HoME series was released for one purpose; and that is as an apologia for the published Silmarillion, and in particular for the Doriath chapter, which CJRT and Kay did write due to the lack of any suitable text by JRRT.

To be more clear on the problems with the Doriath chapter:
1. The only complete narrative of this chapter is found in the Book of Lost Tales, which is the earliest phase of the mythos, and would have been completely unsuitable for inclusion in the Silmarillion.
2. There were serious plotting problems with the outlines that JRRT came up with, in particular how precisely the Dwarves managed to get past the Girdle of Melian to attack and kill Thingol. In all the extant texts, the Dwarves leave after Thingol refuses to surrender the remade Nauglamir (with Beren and Luthien's Silmaril set within it), and then get some pals from the other major Dwarven cities of Beleriand and then get back into Menegroth and murder Thingol. Since everything else ever written about the Girdle of Melian suggests that it was impenetrable to those who Melian or Thingol didn't want in (including Morgoth and his servants), why in the devil could a pack of angry Dwarves get past it.

In fact, the entire Nauglamir subplot of the Silmarillion is fraught with these problems. It was Hurin (Turin's father) who, after Turin's death, finds the Nauglamir in the ruins of Nargothrond and then himself manages to get through the Girdle of Melian and into Doriath, not just alone, but with a bunch of guys with him!

This seems to have been a major stumbling block for JRRT's completion of the Silmarillion. The Nauglamir is key to the final episodes in the Silmarillion because it is this "necklace of the Dwarves" in which the Dwarves of Nogrod set Beren and Luthien's Silmaril. It is after Thingol's murder that Beren and Luthien recover the Silmaril and after their death, it is passed on to their son Dior and from him to his daughter Elwing, and ultimately to Earendil, a major figure in the mythos who, in the published work, ultimately gets only a couple of small chapters because, ultimately, JRRT could never make it work.

CJRT and Kay's solution to the Fall of Doriath solves a number of the problems (though not all of them), and without it, there really could not have been a published Silmarillion. There's a sideways admission of it in the Foreward of the Silmarillion ("as much the son's work as the father's"), and there is an ultimate admission in the release of the final versions of the Silmarillion that JRRT worked on in (as I recall) Volumes 10 and 11 of HoME of the fact that the Fall of Doriath was entirely CJRT's and Kay's writing. It did take him until almost the end of HoME to finally admit it openly, so I think there was some shame there, in that he didn't try to work with some of the possible solutions that Tolkien was rolling around in the late 1950s and early 1960s before the interruptions caused by the 2nd editions of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings, and JRRT's total reworking of the cosmography of the mythos ultimately made it impossible for the old man to finish it himself.

Re:Tolkien themes

[meringuoid]

Yes, he was Christian, and more specifically Catholic, and while there is a deep level of Catholicism in his works, he never intended to write an allegorical variant of Christianity (unlike his good friend CS Lewis).

An interesting thing to notice here is that despite both men being faithful Christians, and Lewis in particular consciously writing a Christian allegory, there is no Church in their works, no organised religion. I find only one temple mentioned in the whole history of Arda, and that was built in Numenor in the days of its darkness, to sacrifice victims to Morgoth, with Sauron as its high priest. I find also only one temple mentioned in the chronicles of Narnia, and that is the great temple to Tash in the Calormene capital. Both of these are portrayed as thoroughly evil institutions. The religion of the heroes, where it exists at all, is simple and personal and carried on entirely without the involvement of any kind of priest.