The Children of H rin is the first complete book by J.R.R.Tolkien since the 1977 publication of The Silmarillion. Six thousand years before the One Ring is destroyed, Middle-earth lies under the shadow of the Dark Lord Morgoth. The greatest warriors among elves and men have perished, and all is in darkness and despair. But a deadly new leader rises, T rin, son of H rin, and with his grim band of … of outlaws begins to turn the tide in the war for Middle-earth — awaiting the day he confronts his destiny and the deadly curse laid upon him.
The paperback edition of The Children of H rin includes eight color paintings by Alan Lee and a black-and-white map.more
Disappointing. Not in the same league as the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings. Only die hard Tolkien fans will persevere.
Probably one of the best books ever written.
I read this right after I finished Tolkien’s “Silmarillion”. This was much easier to read because I already knew many of the characters and some of the events which took place in Middle Earth.
Not quite as good a read as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but a great history development.
A MUST READ
“Then Morgoth stretching out his long arm toward Dor-lómin cursed Húrin and Morwen and their offspring, saying: ‘Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon them wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world… Upon all whom you love my thought shall weigh as a cloud of Doom, and it shall bring them down into darkness and despair. Wherever they go, evil shall arise. Whenever they speak, their words shall bring ill counsel. Whatsoever they do shall turn against them. They shall die without hope, cursing both life and death.” – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Children of Húrin
This is going to be a long and passionate review (sometimes bordering on ranting) so please sit back and relax (if you can). I really do hope this helps to ignite some curiosity towards Tolkien’s works at large if not in particular with the First Age of Middle-earth and gives those of you who are already familiar with the Elder Days some new things to think about.
The Children of Húrin is by far one of Tolkien’s darkest and most twisted tales. If one simply skims it or reads it without much thought, it may not seem like much, but the more you pay attention, the darker the tale grows. While The Hobbit and even the first third or so of The Lord of the Rings is quite sweet and amiable (at least in comparison to everything else), Tolkien’s “greater” works, especially The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin have a vastly different style, one that hints that even while the story is being told in glory and in eloquence, what is being told is only a shadow of the true and complete tale.
By the way, this is going to come off as really random, but for those who are familiar with The Lord of the Rings but not with anything from the Elder Days, did you know that Túrin (the MC of this book) is literally Elrond of Rivendell’s great uncle? Weird, huh? Also, Celeborn and Thranduil were closely related to King Thingol of Doriath (another character in the book) and Legolas may or may not have been inspired by an even greater elven bowman by the name of Beleg Cúthalion (who was close friends with Túrin). Anyway, I hope that piqued your interest a bit!
The Children of Húrin tells the story of Túrin and his sister Nienor, who are, not surprisingly, Húrin’s two children. When Húrin is taken captive by Morgoth (the devil of Middle-earth, basically), he defies him and Morgoth becomes angry and curses his entire family. Unfortunately, the curse works out quite well in the end but I strongly believe that things didn’t go the way they went only because of the curse but also because of certain people’s decisions as well, which were often horribly bad decisions but still ones they made consciously.
Túrin is the tragic hero of the story (I like him much better in that role than say… Romeo… I don’t even know…) and his story is based loosely on pagan legends, particularly on a work called The Kaleva about a man named Kullervo. Most of Tolkien’s stories illustrate how while darkness seems to win, light will come eventually and overcome the darkness. The Children of Húrin is exactly the opposite. Sometimes Túrin thinks he has overcome his fate and escaped Morgoth’s shadow, but every single time, he is dragged down once more until Morgoth’s ultimate plan is finally achieved.
On the surface, it seems like Túrin simply has horribly bad luck but Tolkien may actually have something deeper going on here. There was one passage in which Túrin is arguing with Gwindor in Nargothrond’s court (p. 160-161) and Gwindor tells him that they should all look to the Valar’s help and wait for them to deliver them because Morgoth is much to strong for Elves and Men alone to defeat. Túrin immediately scoffs at this and says that the Valar have abandoned them all and that the only power they have to do with is Morgoth himself. Túrin then goes on to speak proudly of taking everything into his own hands and wanting his own way. This, for some reason, made me feel like it was almost like Túrin was, in a manner, denying God Himself and ultimately saying that God is dead and so we should be free to do whatsoever we please to do without constraint. And so if this is true, and it may well be since Tolkien was a devout Catholic, then The Children of Húrin is ultimately an illustration of the pointlessness and utter despair of life when one denies God. Similarly, in The Silmarillion, even with all the glory and prowess of the Valinorian Elves, their war against Morgoth is ultimately an utter disaster without help from the Valar.
One more thing I have to say concerning The Children of Húrin in general is the lesson of pride. This message above all others rang out the loudest for me both times when I read the book. It is like Tolkien is saying in all caps, “PRIDE WILL ALWAYSSS BE THE DOWNFALL OF THE PROUD!” …which is scary because we can all be proud and arrogant and want our own ways at times. But, see, I will give you some examples just to prove I’m right. Húrin was proud in believing that he could withstand Morgoth’s evil and corruption and instead, he ended up falling into despair and utter hopelessness (not described in this book but it is in The Silmarillion) and even gave the location to Gondolin to Morgoth on accident because of it. Morwen was proud and refused to go to Doriath for like ever because she didn’t want to humble herself to ask Thingol for leave to stay there. She was also too proud to listen to basically everyone else’s counsel and just had to go her own way because she didn’t want to admit she was wrong about anything. Her actions ended up with her two children (Túrin and Nienor) having incest with each other without either of them even knowing they were siblings (go read the book if you’re wondering how in the world that can happen!) Saeros was proud and arrogant because he was a councillor to King Thingol and this got him killed eventually. And of course, Túrin himself hardens his heart and ignores fair counsel over and over again. When Beleg begs him to return to Doriath with him, Túrin refuses because he doesn’t even want to humble himself a tad bit in order to seek out Thingol’s pardon. When he ends up in the fortress of Nargothrond, he wants his own way in everything and ends up revealing the fortress’ location to Morgoth and initiates the fall of Nargothrond. Túrin’s pride in particular (as well as the curse on him), hurt/killed a lot of the people around him as well as himself, eventually. Even Morgoth, who bragged to Húrin that he had made the world in the beginning of time (which he did not) and was the “Elder King” (which he was not), would eventually be cast from his throne and fall to ruin. Soooo, just a warning from Tolkien to me and to you that pride isn’t a good thing at all. You may think you want to save your dignity or that you know more than other people or are more talented than other people and thus you are somehow better than them, but these kinds of beliefs are going to end up being super harmful, not only to other people but to you as well.
Ultimately, The Children of Húrin is a tale masterfully told as well as one that readers can go back to again and again and never tire of. I don’t think any of us will ever figure out how in the world Tolkien managed to make his characters and his world so real, so deep, and so beautiful, but he did and so we should most certainly seek to draw inspiration from all of it. This book won be for everyone and personally it took me multiple tries to get The Silmarillion down but it was more than worth it. So if you are thinking you want to give this book or any of the professor’s works a try, I would highly encourage that you do! Don’t be afraid, just do it!
Namárië, nai aurelya nauva mára.
I won’t worry about recommending Tolkien’s vastly-better-known The Lord of the Rings here; it hardly needs the publicity. But this overlooked, late edition really merits more attention than it’s been given.
The Children of Húrin is an expansion of a significant story told in ponderous, almost Biblical fashion, in Tolkien’s “Silmarillion.” In expanding that chronicle into a full prose work, Tolkien has given us the best of both worlds: here we have the heavy mythic gravitas of the Silmarillion in its purest form, but rendered in a far more accessible prose voice, not far off from the tone and style of “The Lord Of The Rings.”
Tolkien fans of LotR who are frustrated that neither “The Hobbit” nor “The Silmarillion” quite duplicates the tonal and stylistic perfection of his longest and best work ought to rejoice in this volume.
Over the last decade, Tolkien’s notes and unpublished manuscripts have been mined for new material like never before. Perhaps, like the Moria-dwarves, HarperCollins are delving too earnestly and too deeply in their greed. But Christopher Tolkien is now in his nineties, and here he must certainly foresee an end to his own stewardship of his father’s work. It is clearly important to him (since it will all be exploited for profit after he’s gone) that the work be given the best possible edition while he’s still alive to oversee it [EDIT: he has since passed on, and will be deeply missed].
Even so, “The Children of Húrin” stands apart as a much more satisfying, complete work than Tolkien’s other basement-finds: “Beren and Lúthien,” “the Fall of Arthur,” “the Lay of Aotrou and Itroun,” and the Verlyn Flieger-edited “The Story of Kullervo” are rare and precious finds, but they are fragmentary and never quite feel like complete works. This is perhaps the last true Tolkien novel; and in some ways, for my money, it’s the best.
Is it better than “The Lord of the Rings”? It’s hard to compare them; the sheer depth of imagination and originality of the famous novel can’t be matched. But it’s obvious to any reader that the line-to-line prose of “The Children of Húrin” is markedly superior. This is Tolkien’s writing at its most mature & sophisticated, and while it is tinged by greater sadness than before, and leans toward bleakness even in its heroic moments, it’s fair to call his writing here “more of the same, only better.” If that’s not a strong enough endorsement to LotR fans, I don’t know what is. You won’t find the lightness and humour of the hobbits here; the Middle-Earth of the First Age is a land of no hobbits, and that makes it harder to relate to. But you will hopefully find that eccentric beauty that made you fall for Tolkien’s world and writing in the first place.
Not like LOTR or The Hobbit, but puts some story into many of the names that come up in other books.
It’s Tolkein. Enough said
Not up to the quality of his later works.