The Children of H?rin by J.R.R. Tolkien Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
(Click here)
Book Reviews of The Children of H?rin
Book Review: Great
Summary: 4 Stars
Whilst reading the Sillmarillion, a collection of some of Middle Earth's mythology, I found myself more attracted to this story than most. This is essentially the same story of Turin as in the Sillmarillion, although has been elaberated on a little. Still, when read seperatly this is a great story, up there with the best tales of Middle Earth.Book Review: Such a disappointment.....
Summary: 2 Stars
After being very excited about this novel due to its author or rather J.R.R.Tolkien, not his son! I was so disappointed. The only saving grace of this awful book is the pictures and artistry by Alan Lee.
The book which I was hoping to be an epic fell at the first hurdle. The story is of the "Children of Hurin" so why in middle earth do they only feature together for approximately 10% of the book. The intro was awful, I don't think I have ever read such a longwinded and more confusing book in my life. Don't get me wrong the family tree and heritage is important within Lord of the Rings, Hobbit etc etc, but I have to say that putting the character list and hidden family tree at the end of the book was a huge mistake!!! Why wouldn't you help the reader by having it as a preface to the book rather than an appendix???
As for the plot and characterisation, it was lacking. I felt less enthusiasm for Turin than any hero I have ever imagined. He was corrupt and flawed however that was part of his character and ensuing doom. The story itself never reached a cresendo in my opinion. The slaying of the dragon was so boring and uneventful that it was scary that it formed the basis of the book. Unlike the other swashbuckling and dangerous quests and stories within Tolkien's other novels this story didn't even feature any real combat with evil.
Admittedly the story of Nienor was remotely worthy and interesting however, I felt so dismissive of Turin and his worthiness as the heir of such an important lineage that the book took a nose dive as soon as he took control.
Overall a real mess and a disappointment for Tolkien and his namesake. The book was lengthy and didn't hold my attention bar the simple love tangle between the brother and sister and their unfortunate demise.
I wouldn't advise this novel to anyone who loved Tolkien's other works as there appears to have been a very good reason why he didn't publish it.
However praise for Alan Lee, he was the only reason I continued to read on and the book evidently needed extra help via the images.
Book Review: Interesting but not essential
Summary: 3 Stars
I bought this on a whim: after the unreadable tosh which is The Silmarillion I have avoided Tolkein outside of TLOTR and The Hobbit. The Children of Hurin is an interesting diversion which passed the time on a long train journey quite effectively.
The nature of the story and it's construction will be familiar to anyone who has read Beowolf or especially, I think, the Norse sagas - the working out of the doom imposed upon the hero (who is Hurin, not Turin) by the malice of the Gods. Tolkein is good enough a writer to avoid this being a pastiche but not good enough to avoid his trademark occasional over-writing and tortured syntax.
Nevertheless the tale is complete in itself and, I think, neatly plotted. That it is difficult, though not impossible, to identify emotionally with Turin is in large part because of the form which Tolkein has chosen - the tale is told with the narrative directness of the Norse sagas and thus without much of the emotional embellishment and subtext to which modern readers are used. This is deliberate on the part of Tolkein because of the particular form which he has chosen and gives the book a literary interest - although, in my view, the form was better deployed by the late George MacKay Brown: but that's a different review altogether.
Book Review: A beginners guide to The Children of Hurin
Summary: 5 Stars
I have read the other reviews left and find myself slightly amazed the diversity of views. It is clearly a love-it or hate-it phenomenon. For readers of the Silmarillion, the over-arching storyline is familiar, as it is summarised in this work, please read my companion review. The Children of Hurin is a piece by Christopher Tolkien, who also completed the Silmarillion on his father's behalf and this installment is one of the three main works that Tolkien wished to see completed in the epic tragedy that the Silmarillion was to be: Of Beren and Luthien (which is complete), The Children of Hurin and the Fall of Gondolin. In the foreword, Christopher Tolkien underlines the fact that this book is written for devotees of the existing series of tales, and particularly dedicated fans. Although I cannot claim to be as devoted as those who can quote sections of the story, my enthusiasm comes from exploring and forgetting some details as a casual reader. This separate publication is highly recommended to read as a bridging work, for Lord of the Rings fans to become familiar and confident to attempt The Silmarillion. I acknowledge from another reviewer that, without background of characters in the early chapters, the sudden introduction of names and places that have no reference on Middle Earth can be daunting and imposing (indeed, these tales are set in Beleriand, a region west of the Westernmost shores of Middle Earth that became destroyed before even Bilbo Baggins was born.) I would highly recommend a list of Dramatis Personae for future editions and a brief summary of their character to make this transition easier.
Having outlined some of the flaws here, I think it is important to balance up unmentioned strengths of the works. First and foremost, it has been overlooked that Alan Lee provides several beautiful full colour illustrations at regular intervals in the piece, as well as many more monochrome vignettes through and at the end of chapters, which help in complementing Tolkiens vivid descriptions.
The book can be depressing in parts, but readers of the Silmarillion will be familiar with this from the shorter chapter piece, and that the depressive element comes from maligned Turin, who has misfortune to have been son to Hurin, a man who was captured by the Great Enemy and spurned the attempts to corrupt him, resulting in a curse being placed upon his family. This curse is not purely manifest, but more a vow to relentlessly seek vengeance to hunt Hurin's offspring and anyone associated to them, but also because knowledge of this curse, Turin's experiences lead him to become pessimistic and, by his own reactions to others, help bring dismay and doom upon himself. Therefore tragic irony becomes a major plot driver and can therefore be paralleled with Hamlet and Macbeth, though Turin is for the most part a hero beset by tragedy, rather than a hero wholly corrupted by earlier actions for greed or vengeance.
Secondly, the embellishment of an earlier work could seem repetitive and boring to established fans, and indeed some lines of dialogue and prose are identical to their earlier counterpart. However, it is the manner in which the previously undrafted works lead up to these lines that makes this story worthwhile. For example a section where Turin is blamed for the death of someone is revealed that the Elf provoked his demise by relentlessly taunting Turin, a series of events not explicitly referred to and so underscores the death as a tragic accident that had dire repurcussions rather than the act of a brash ranger murdering the Elf in cold blood. The book makes a welcome return to having appearences of Dragons, which has only really been tackled in the novels in The Hobbit. In particular, the formidable wyrm Glaurung is presented as a General with as much influence as the successor Sauron.
In summary, I also echo the fact that this would be a superb gift for a reader of Tolkien
Book Review: For dedicated Tolkien fans only.
Summary: 3 Stars
Having dipped in and out of Christopher Tolkien's other collections of his father's work, I feel rather the same about this one - that I wished he had collected all the pre-LOTR tales of Middle-Earth together FIRST and THEN written a complete and detailed chronological history in several volumes with style and panache. As it is, there are numerous wonderful tales spead throughout several books and in no particular order, with tiresome and distracting notes, or cursory mentions of fascinating events. Although containing interesting episodes, it is a great pity that this tale was not presented with a little more polish and with a little less emphasis on unnecessary family lineage.
I have to take issue with Kermit in the review above when he insists that I re-read The Silmarillion to get a comprehensive view of the pre-LOTR history of Middle-Earth. The Silmarillion contains little more than ONE SENTENCE covering the fall of Gondolin, one of the most exciting episode in the histories - hardly comprehensive I would have thought! The full story of the sack of the city is elsewhere in Christopher Tolkien's collections. Congratulations, Kermit on missing my point so spectacularly - that a FULL and DETAILED CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY IN SEVERAL VOLUMES would have been wonderful!
Reeling from the diatribes by Kermit and more recently by L. Spencer of Florida, I simply had to check my recollections. I therefore 'cracked open the Sil' as he so eloquently puts it, and to my lack of surprise, on page 242, it says of the destruction of Gondolin 'Of the deeds of desperate valour there done........much is told in The Fall of Gondolin' followed by tantalising mentions of the battle between Ecthelion and Gothmog, the fall of the tower of Turgon and Tuor's rescue of Idril. The full (and completely wonderful) telling of this episode appears in the second book of Lost Tales. I can only re-iterate that the inclusion of this and other fabulous stories (the meeting of Tuor and Ulmo on the shore at Vinyamar, for instance) would have made the Silmarillion (or perhaps even that full and detailed chronological history I long for) even better! If L. Spencer still believes 'The Sil' to be comprehensive, then I can only conclude that he is reading a pop-up comic book edition prepared specifically for the notoriously short American attention span!