Review Picks

The Children of Hurin

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  • Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
  • Pages: 313
  • Price: $26.00
  • Publication Date: 2007-04-17
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
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Russ Albery whose SF/Fantasy book reviews we at LitPundit often feature in this section, has a nice review on J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Children of Húrin", edited by Christopher Tolkien.

The story in The Children of Húrin is told in more summarized form in The Silmarillion, so those who have read it will recognize this book, but this is a much-expanded version assembled by Christopher Tolkien from various manuscripts written at different times in his father's life.

...
This is not going to be to everyone's taste. Indeed, I'll go a step further and say that The Children of Húrin is not particularly compelling in isolation. The strength of its tragedy is considerably muted by a distant tone full of the stylings of epic: geneologies, extensive place names (the map is helpful but not quite sufficient), many references to other parts of Tolkien's mythology, and a somewhat archaic tone in all the dialogue.

As concluding remark, he says

(...) if you're looking to explore Tolkien's mythology beyond his popular novels, The Silmarillion is a much better starting point. If, however, you already have a copy of that (particularly the nice hardcover with similarly exceptional art) and have the stomach for more of the same, this isn't a bad choice.

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