Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexGrama
I just started The Silmarillion by J.R.R Tolkien and his son, Christopher Tolkien. Wish me luck, I heard it's a difficult read. |
Here's some notes I made the last time I worked my way through it, who knows, it may help:
In short; this book is very hard work. The sheer magnitude and complexity of the world Tolkien created; language, peoples and a history going right back to creation, is absolutely phenomenal. But being amazing does not make it exciting reading. Most of the stories are told with a deliberate air of legend and myth and so for most of them you feel quite isolated and apart - not involved in the stories at all.
Since the collection is actually made from writings stretching over 50 years there are (apparently) some accuracy and consistency issues (internally and with Lord of the Rings). As far I can see such items are barely noticable because of the mythic feel to the writing, you simply dont expect and dont look for greater precision.
This is probably not the sort of book you would want to read very often. Indeed, unless you are a very dedicated fan of Lord of the Rings, it is very likely you would prefer to stay away from it. However, for the real Lord of the Rings enthusiast, there are some nice pieces buried in the book - you just have to plough through a lot to get to them. The problem is that, unless you have spent the time going through the earlier items, many of the names and situations of the better stories will be meaningless.
The story of "Beren and Luthien" is quite good. The tale "Of Turin Turambar" is rather tragic but offers more substance than many of the earlier stories. "Of the Voyage of Earendil and the War of Wrath" is worth reading just to understand the relationship between Elrond and the Kings of Numenor - and later references to Earendil. The main reason for wanting to read "Akallabeth" would be to make sense of the start of the final story, it otherwise seems rather pointless and confusing. For all the complex history and explanations provided; how and when the Elves, Dwarves, Men, Ishtar, Balrogs, Orcs and even dragons came into existence, one surprising thing is the lack of explanation for Hobbits or the "river-folk" behind Gollum.
"Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" makes interesting reading just to get an overall sense of the history that is most relevant to the story of the books of "Lord of the Rings" - for many it is this last tale that will be of most interest; it explains succinctly some details difficult to extract from "Lord of the Rings" itself.