Children of Hurin, The - J.R.R. Tolkien

The Children of Hurin has many influences- Finnish Folk Poetry, Icelandic prose stories, Oedipus story etc. But the vein of the story lies much in its unique Tolkienian mythopoeic epicness. Obviously when I mention epicness and mythopoeia in one sebtence you'd probably wonder what I mean by that.

Well for fellow geeks like me they would instantly understand and know that Middle Earth was fabricated solely from Tolkien's imagination combined with his vast knowledge of languages and regions we are not so very aware in our displaced closed world niches and myopic world views. I say chap, get off your bum and grab a Tolkien book with your cuppa tea.

You'll be surprised where this book takes you(Which is what one could say with every Tolkien book ever written). Of course there is a back story to this beauty of a story of the tragic hero Turin. You need to look at the Silmarillion  first to get a better understanding on the development of plot. The Children of Hurin is an epic telling of the story of a young man's fate shaped by the curse of a dark lord Morgoth and by his own fumbling  which I personally equate with a human's tendency towards folly without intention.

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This is by the same author who gave us the magnificient 'The Lord of the Rings' and the delightful 'The Hobbit'

Although not as grand in terms of vision as LOTR and not as simplistic as the hobbit it is still a good read for all the fans of the elvish mythology created by professor tolkien. Be warned though, it is a pretty dark book, a grim read. There are no delightful hobbits around but plenty of dark forces and noble warriors.

The story starts at the beginning of the third age, roughly 6000 years before the events of the lord of the rings. It goes on to explain how the forces of Melkor/Morgoth (lord of Sauron) waged war on the elves and how the first descendants of the race of men helped the elves taking huge losses in their stride.

There are no hobbits in The Children ofHúrin.

The primary players are Men, Elves, Orcs, a few Dwarves, Morgoth (the original Dark Lord -- Sauron was his most powerful lieutenant), and Glaurung, "father of dragons, " who ranks with the monstrous spider Shelob as one of Tolkien's most terrifying creations. For centuries, Men and Elves have been engaged in a mostly losing battle against Morgoth's forces, whose members -- Orcs but also Men known as Easterlings.

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Everybody who is anybody

has read or seen The Lord of the Rings, there is no denying the book

is in places dark but in the end it is the story of how good triumphs

over evil and so on and so forth. Reading the Hobbit(which is a

prequel of sorts to the lord of the rings), one gets the same

feeling. And so when I ordered the Children of Hurin I was expecting

another tale of magical worlds, of creatures large and powerful and a

story with Elves, Dwarfs and Men. No surprises there, the book did

have all of them.

But what amazed me was how dark and dismal

a world Tolkien has painted, the great time of the humans has not yet

come, the dwarfs are all but extinct and the Elves are growing wary

of combat and fighting evil. Agreed that good does triumph over evil

in the end but what is perhaps the master stroke of the book is that

Turin(The protagonist) is perhaps at best grey, not white. Turin's

activities are erratic, impulsive and Turin portrays a character that

is short tempered.

Tolkien has done a brilliant job in

weaving a complex web of deciet and misfortune that follows Turin

through out the book, I will not go into the details of the story as

that would spoil your fun(Especially if you are a Tolkien fan and

have not yet read the book). But saying that Tolkien was in a happy

and elated mood when he created this book would be incorrect, there

is definately a dark undertone to the book and one that lasts tlll

the very end of the book. Yes our hero triumphs over evil and yes the

book is all about making the right choices in life but honestly

speaking Tolkien has outdone himself.

A few other things that

are worth adding and which I missed in the book were a poems

(especially elvish), another thing that was a little different was

that the book is rather short in its reading, I managed to finish the

book of in a day not like The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, since

the book has actually been reconstructed by Tolkien's son and is not

completely JRR's work I think that is understandable.

So to

round it up is this a typical Tolkien book, NO. But the question is

it worth buying for the 390 odd I spent on it(Indiaplaza.in full

marks of the pricing and quick delivery). Definitely. If you are a

Tolkien fan or just a person who wants to read a good story akin to

the lord of the rings a must buy. As always no revealing the plot.

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