I finished the book “The Children of Hurin” yesterday, and overall I found it to be pretty good. It certainly wasn’t Tolkien’s best work, but it had its moments. However, this is not a book to read if you are looking for a chuckle. This is also not a book to read if you are looking for something light and easy. I spent half the time rereading it, trying to remember who was who, and what place was where. Next time, I think I will have to write these things down while I read just to keep track.
I found this book to be disturbing on many levels. For one thing, it was extrememly depressing. This Morgoth dude puts a curse on the Children of Hurin, and WOW did that curse ever come true. It seems like anything Turin did ended up in ruins. (And was it just me, or was there some major incest going on??? Cuz EEEEEEEW!!!!) And, it seems to me that this relationship between Turin and the Elf Beleg to be a little too close to a Brokeback Mountain kind of thing. Now, I will get as angry as anyone about the claims of a “relationship” between Frodo and Sam from LOTR, (I have a blog about that coming up, I think), but for some reason this really felt like there was something more going on here. I think it was the overall depressing tone of the book really.
This book also affected my dreams a bit. Ok, a lot! I gotta be careful what I watch and read before bed. I had this dream the other night that while I was at work that a Balrog from the LOTR was attacking the campus in the middle of the night, and that Turin was trying to defeat it, but then he got stepped on. As the Balrog began to decimate the campus, I ran over to the dying Turin with my trusty first aid kit, who told me that The Powers that Be (from the tv show “Angel”) have released him from his duty as Hero, and that I needed to pick up the title. I tried to decline, but the Balrog was currently destroying a Starbucks. Realizing that all would be lost if not stopped, I grabbed Turin’s sword and his Dragon helmet (which had fallen off) and attacked.
It was a pretty cool and vivid dream, too. The Balrog realized he was no match for me, so he attempted to escape through a giant whole in the ground and began to fall. I realized that if he escaped, others would die, so I, the hero that I was, decided my life would be forfeit, and threw myself down with him. We had this mid-air battle like in The Two Towers movie between Gandalf and the Balrog, and also it was a bit like the mid air fights in Spiderman 3 (except I wasn’t wearing tights. At least not then.) I killed the Balrog in mid-air, and then we hit the ground. As I laid there, crumpled and dying, I thought it wasn’t fair that Gandalf did the same thing, and got to land in water, so how come I got to land on the hard ground? Then I woke up.
My wife told me that people who dream that they are falling never dream that they hit the ground, because if they do, then they will die in real life. She wondered what that said about my mental state. Well, I think I finally have an answer for it. In my dream, I put on Turin’s Dragon Helmet, which, if I understand it correctly, means that I am impervious to mortal wounds. Which meant that I could have fallen that long drop, and survived. I was happy with that thought until I realized that a dream helmet protected me from dying in real life.
Which then makes me wonder if this was really a dream to begin with.
Hm.
