The Children of Húrin

What Hacker News says

1. bombcarAug 2023
   It can certainly be an acquired (or reacquired) taste.

   If you want a different type of Tolkien story - the children of Hurin is tragic as anything the Greeks wrote.

   thread
2. christkvOct 2022
   I've just finished The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class by Joel Kotkin and I share many of its worries.

   On a more light hearted side

   The Diary Of A Bookseller (Shaun Bythell) A Factotum in the Book Trade (Shaun Bythell) Children of Hurin (Tolkien)

   thread
3. krueger71Nov 2021
   Fiction

   - Three Body-trilogy, Cixin Liu

   - The Children of Húrin, Tolkien

   - The Silmarillion, Tolkien

   - The Hobbit, Tolkien

   - Lord Of The Rings-trilogy, Tolkien

   - The Green Mile, Stephen King

   Non-fiction

   - Practical Vim 2nd ed., Drew Neil

   - Pestens år: döden i Stockholm 1710, Magnus Västerbro

   Show morethread
4. HaHa31Apr 2018
   I have obsessively read the Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin, and they are overarchingly the same, just in different formats. The Silmarillion is written like a history book; the Children of Hurin is written like a novel.

   I never got through the poem of Beren and Luthian, I am not a poem guy, but from the bits I have read, it seemed to have the same relationship to the Silmarillion as the Children of Hurin.

   Also, I am unclear if this is a "new" version of the Fall of Gondolin or just a new printing of the old one. Anyone found a more detailed source?

   Show morethread
5. arnvidrApr 2018
   Yup, The Children of Hurin is an extended telling of the story from The Silmarillion. They're basically the same, but I enjoyed the longer read.
   thread
6. StekoJul 2015
   Here's a full essay from Moorcock of the Tolkien critique:

   http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/english/currentstudents/u...

   While there is an argument for the reactionary nature of the books, they are certainly deeply conservative and strongly anti-urban, which is what leads some to associate them with a kind of Wagnerish hitlerism. I don't think these books are 'fascist', but they certainly don't exactly argue with the 18th century enlightened Toryism with which the English comfort themselves so frequently in these upsetting times. They don't ask any questions of white men in grey clothing who somehow have a handle on what's best for us.

   Google reveals a large number of people making similar points:

   I love JRR Tolkien's work, but it is racist and fairly fascistic. Most of the good guys are tall white men of the north and west, simple country farmers, and the dunedain who remain supermen even though their quality has diminished by mingling with the "blood of lesser men." The dwarves and elves are also good races. The enemies are various swarming slave races, the cowardly Easterlings, the savage elephant riding painted Haradrim, the literally subhuman orcs. Those counseling peace are perfidious fools, cowards or traitors.

   This won't keep me from rereading The Simirilian, The Hobbit, LOTR and the Children of Hurin. But Tolkien was a man of his time and place and we should appreciate his virtues without ignoring his vices.

   Calling Tolkien himself a fascist is quite a few bridges too far for me.

   {commenter at http://lorenrosson.blogspot.com/2006/06/tolkien-fascist.html}

   Show morethread