[davem]

Interesting in this context:

http://www.epinions.com/content_374810250884

The Fantasy Disconnect

Tolkien is often credited for inspiring the modern genre of fantasy literature, and in many ways his influence is inarguable. But The Children of Hurin reemphasizes the fact that what Tolkien was about was something very different from what fantasy has become.

While the express purpose behind publishing this book was to give the story an opportunity to stand alone, something it accomplishes only with a significant introductory note, it is always clear that the mode has more in common with history or legend than it does with the adventures found in today's bookstore aisles. This can be felt in the amount of context and trivia surrounding the story, the use of elevated language, and the narrative tone, which insists the book be read as the summary of events ancient and wonderful, as opposed to a full and neat telling of a story with the immediacy and involvement we've come to expect from fantasy.

Do not come looking for a child of prophecy, called to free his people, slay the dragon, save the princess, and defeat the dark lord. In The Children of Hurin those tropes are all twisted to evil parodies, and the hero's theme is failure and defeat. It is a far cry from the eucatastrophies of popular fantasy, or even of The Lord of the Rings.


Provident Evil

The victory of evil over the fading flower of a more glorious age is central to Tolkien's elegiac ethos, his inheritance from the Northern literature he studied as a preeminent philologist. A central mystery in The Children of Hurin is whether Morgoth truly has the power he claims: "The shadow of my purpose lies upon Arda, and all that is in it bends slowly and surely to my will."