The Children of Hurin is Professor Tolkien’s standalone story about Turin and Nienor, who live in the first age of Middle-earth — long before the War of the Ring.
Die-hard Tolkien fans will be able to guess the whole tale only by reading the title, as it also appears in The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales.
Yet, those who are only familiar with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit will have trouble in relating to the characters and may even find it rather tedious. The number of people’s names alone would cause first-time readers to flee.
Speaking of tediousness, perhaps none would know better than Cristopher Tolkien. He has edited this work for thirty years, polished and finished the project that his father had begun in 1918; yet could never finish.
The fate of Hurin’s children of Hurin is a tragedy — not at all an uncommon theme for high literature. But to belittle the value of this work because of the theme would be blasphemy. Who can claim of having original theme nowadays? Even the construction of Middle-earth is based on Anglo-Saxon literature, which is Tolkien’s expertise.
The story unfolds when Morgoth sets a curse upon Hurin and his lineage. Meanwhile, the war has forced his family to leave their home. And it was only years later when his children — Turin and Niniel — meet again, only to commit forbidden union without their knowing.
From the language, this work is not as dense as The Silmarillion; and not as descriptive. It is more similar to the trilogy in the way that it delves more into the emotional states of the characters, even without using much internal dialog. As the result, it gives the sense of reading an old myth instead of a historical account that is The Silmarillion. And only here you would see Tolkien at his darkest.
But still, read The Children of Hurin only if you have survived The Silmarillion.
