Sunday, April 18, 2010

The Children of Hurin

Last night was another really quiet evening. I did watch the latest episode of Doctor Who, which I thought was really good, in which the Doctor (played by Matt Smith) encounters his oldest enemies, the Daleks, in Second World War London.

I finished reading the book The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien. The book is set in Tolkien's fantasy world of Middle-earth about 6,500 years before the events of The Lord of the Rings, where the world is terrorised by the evil Dark Lord Morgoth, who takes revenge on the warrior Hurin, the only man who ever dared defy Morgoth to his face, by placing a curse on Hurin's wife and children that they will be plagued by disaster and misfortune for the rest of their lives. Most of the book focuses on Hurin's son Turin as he wanders from place to place, bringing tragedy and misfortune wherever he goes as he tries to venge himself on Morgoth and find a way to break the curse. It's a pretty dark book and quite brutal, but it is really good and worth checking out. Tolkien worked on it for years, but never managed to finish it before his death in 1973 and, like all of Tolkien's posthumously published works, it was edited by his son Christopher.

I went along to my parent's house as usual for a Sunday, and had my lunch there. We had minced beef and carrot, topped with mashed potato and baked cheese with spring onion on the top, and peas. It was a nice lunch.

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