Children of Hurin–what was gone has come again.
This is not a book review of the book, CHILDREN OF HURIN by JRR Tolkien, since I have only read up to page 40. However, it is a review of everything up to page 40.
In the professional judgment of this writer, the first 40 pages fulfill exquisitely the hopes and expectations of the target audience. I have read a lot of first-40-pages of books that were a lot worse. The first 40 page of SLAN HUNTER by Kevin J. Andersen, for example, did not hold this richness of nostalgic return. I had entertained similar return-to-the-past hopes for the movie PHANTOM MENACE, but, alas, the magic of STAR WARS could not return. Either I had changed, or George Lucas had changed, and what was gone, was gone.
But here what was gone has come again. The SILMARILLION is the first book I ever bought in hardback. That will tell you something about the thrift and the taste of this reviewer. I got it for Christmas when I was twelve. When I open this book, these days are those days: CHILDREN OF HURIN is for everyone who wants to be a 12-year-old at Christmas again. There is even a fold-out map in the back!
This story, I must warn fans of THE HOBBIT, is a saga of Nordic grimness, a tale about the remorseless workings of fate, an inescapable curse of the fallen archangel Morgoth of Thangorodrim, and the shadow of his malice that falls across the human house of Hurin.
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
