The story of Hurin's children was already thorougly covered in The Silmarillion, but this is the more elaborated version. Mine was an audio production narrated by Christopher Lee, whom I have to admit I at first had to get a bit used to, but now at the end as I look back, I'll say that actually he did an excellent job on it. His deep voice really sort of fits the mood and feel of the piece, and indeed the Tolkien verse in general.

The writing in this one is the same sort of style as The Silmarillion, which always feel a bit to me like a sort of a text book. I felt like I was reading a historical account with that one. This one has more detail with dialogue and such, but it still doesn't reach the level of readability that the LotR trilogy has, which I actually also find a bit dry in places. I'm not even going to mention The Hobbit in this connection because that one is very much more 'younger readers' in comparison with Children of Hurin. (Obviously it's not only for younger readers in and off itself). This one is a complicated text to follow, although not too complicated for the audio book format. (I tried The Silmarillion as an audiobook once. I wouldn't recommend it, really. Very difficult to follow that way)

This story is pretty much tragedy from cover to cover. I wonder if Tolkien was actually conducting some sort of experiment as to how many angsty things he could put into one book. We've got everything here from death from illness, over accidental murder and to incestual relationships. I honestly can't think of anything tragic that hasn't been somehow woven into the tale. And yet, I wouldn't say that I was particularly affected by all these really sad things that happened to the characters, and to Turin in particular. Part of that was the rather formal writing stile, but I think, to be honest, a large part was also the fact that I just didn't tend to find Turin a very likable fellow. A lot of the awful things (though not all) that happen to him seem to me to stem directly or indirectly from his own arrogance.

And maybe that arrogance was in fact that very thing which, in Turin, Morgoth's curse exploited.

I don't really know if I'm making myself clear with this thought or not, but I know what I mean. That must be good enough.