Sean Barrs 's Reviews > The Children of Húrin

The Children of Hurin is a tragic tale of love and loss, of remorseful earth-shattering revelations; consequently, it is also one of the most moving stories Tolkien ever devised. The execution never fully delivered it though, only because Tolkien never finished editing it. It just needs a little bit of polishing to remove a couple of tarnishes, and then it would be perfection.

The Ancient Greeks understood exactly how to evoke sorrow, pity and despair all in one powerful moment within their plays. And here Tolkien follows suit. The Children of Hurin could no longer live with themselves after what they discovered; it was enough to send the sanest of men mad. Tolkien captures all this within his narrative. The final scenes were majestic and terrible to behold, dramatic and memorable in their awesomeness. There’s no optimism here, this is dark and beautiful, easily the saddest thing Tolkien penned. The plot is so strong, and with swift final strokes the death blow of an ending is delivered eloquently and mercilessly.

And, of course, an edition illustrated by Allan Lee helps to give Tolkien’s words even more life:

“He was dark-haired as his mother, and promised to be like her in mood also; for he was not merry, and spoke little, though he learned to speak early and ever seemed older than his years. Túrin was slow to forget injustice or mockery; but the fire of his father was also in him, and he could be sudden and fierce. Yet he was quick to pity, and the hurts or sadness of living things might move him to tears.”





That being said though, this, most certainly, has one of the worse opening chapters I’ve ever read in fiction. Tolkien goes into extreme depth about Hurin’s lineage with the microscopic lens that is appropriate only in The Sillmarillion. I was bombarded with names, so many names, that I was so confused. It seemed a very odd way to begin things considering Tolkien eventually pulls this story into a traditional narrative and loses this authoritative authorial tone he began the book with. Perhaps, again, this is because he never finished editing it. So I recommend pushing through those first few chapters because this does eventually begin to pull itself together.

And it really begins with Turin, a young warrior cursed by Morgoth. The curse has come indirectly through his father’s lineage, from the man who once dared to oppose the original dark lord. He is haunted by black magic, his destiny shaped, leading to the tragic ending that befall the children of Hurin. Turin’s prideful nature sets it off somewhat so his destiny and own personality set him on the road to his marvellously grim ending, though Morgoth’s power is to blame: his revenge is realised.

“The doom lies in yourself, not in your name.”

“Then Morgoth stretching out his long arm towards Dor-lomin cursed Hurin and Morwen and their offspring, saying: 'Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon them wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world.”



The Children of Hurin lacks consistency. The tone changed and the writing was far too complex and loaded with history for it to be approachable; it was so unlike the mastery of tone in The Lord of the Rings. It lacked a certain sense of balance between storytelling and the insertion of history that makes the trilogy so grand. However, it is a vastly important work in the middle-earth cannon. On par with the brilliant Beren and Lúthien, Tolkien tells the tale of an equally as powerful, yet much more complex and conflicted (to say the least), romance. Not to be missed.

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