Is The Children of Hurin better than the Lord of the Rings?

[NogrodtheGreat]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I'm not sure I consider "better" to be useful terminology, personally, because that implies some standard of measurement that just doesn't exist. If it's which I prefer I would have to say The Lord of the Rings in terms of detail alone. I think a world where the narratives of The Silmarillion were as detailed as The Lord of the Rings would be no bad thing though.

Well , the notion that aesthetic judgments are completely arbitrary is probably wrong I think. I'm not quite sure I'd go so far as to say some kind of objective (meaning "out in nature") standard for beauty exists - although it certainly seems to be the case that humans have evolved to perceive certain qualities as beautiful non-arbitrarily.

Perhaps a case could be made that either of those two books is "better" because one or the other fulfills more of the criteria humans were 'designed' to perceive as aesthetically pleasing.

Of course, I'm not going to do that here

Doubtless The Lord of the Rings succeeds in questions of detail. By that standard it also beats Cormac McCarthy's the Road (a book similar in many surprising respects to the Children of Hurin), but neither detail nor length make a reading experience worthwhile on their own.

Robert Jordan's fantasy series spans multiple tomes and usually excruciating levels of detail, and yet I find his books far less memorable that the Silmarillion itself, let alone the Lord of the Rings. A tight, compact, exquisitely written work like The Road can leave an impact long after the covers have been shut, and so too, I think, The Children of Hurin.

It is perhaps unusual as a fantasy work because it is so short, but for me its tightness works to its advantage. The compacted levels of drama work to heighten the tension and when it is released, the pressure generates such an overwhelming catharsis.