RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Media What Are You Reading?

Just finished the (new) Tolkien book, The Children of Hurin.

The first chapter was complete hell. See, I liked The Hobbit except for all the hobbits and dwarves. Just not a fan of the little people. And I liked Lord of the Rings, but that is not bathroom reading. You know that chapter with the concil of Elrond, and all those elven princes they mentioned? I read the first few pages over and over again because I thought all the characters were important. And which elves were important? Elrond and Legolas.

The first chapter does open up with Hurin's massive family tree, and I ended up drawing a diagram to make sense of it all. (Here's a hint -- Christopher Tolkien must have known I was going to read this, because he stuck a family tree in the back, which also connected Hurin to Elrond. I, not being a Middle-Earth buff, did not link the two together.)

Anyways, after the introduction, I actually found the book to be quite interesting. At around 350 pages, it wasn't as long as The Lord of the Rings but was much more mature than The Hobbit. Plus, there's only one dwarf (who meets a bad end) and no hobbits. Just elves, men, and one badass wingless dragon.

The story actually ends sadly, and if I wasn't in the office, I probably would have started to cry. It was...epic...like I was reading Oedipus or Beawolf. The story is basically how Hurin fought Morgoth (who was the bad guy before that non-blinking eye in Lord of the Rings). Morgoth captured Hurin and cursed his entire family, then forced Hurin to watch said family fall apart. And while his son Turin is an asshole, even to his friends, you can sort of tell when things could have turned out right for him.

All in all, best thing by Tolkien I've read. Dear Peter Jackson, have a new idea for you...