a new interest and determination, I have finally finished reading The Silmarillion.
I have failed this book twice and I was so sure that I wont attempt reading it again.
However, I have just finished rewatching The Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions and reading the Three Great Tales of MiddleEarth thats edited by Christopher Tolkien.
I know this is not the recommended reading order but it's only because of doing these two activities that I found a new interest, knowledge, and motivation to actually persevere and finish this book.
Picture: Fingolfin versus Morgoth by ArtCalavera
Finishing The Silmarillion for the first time was one of the most difficult reads Ive ever attempted in my life.
It was so difficult that in my opinion, reading this book alone was harder than reading the entirety of Malazan Book of the Fallen.
My main problem with it was that that I found it the first half of this book to be extremely boring.
Im talking about hundreds of names characters, places, events being fired nonstop at readers, monumental events happening in two sentences, and the extreme difficulty in caring with the characters because there was close to zero characters thoughts exploration due to the biblical style of writing.
However, after reading the three Great Tales of MiddleEarth, these names started to become more familiar and much easier to remember.
In fact, when I got back to it, I found the second half to be so full of engaging and epic events.
“All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.
”
I wont be reviewing each story in this book, there are way too many of them and I genuinely think a lot of Tolkienist can do a much better job in explaining the greatness of this book.
Instead, Ill say this. The First Age of MiddleEarth makes the event of the Third Age events in The Lord of the Rings trilogy looks like a normal skirmish.
There were so many incredible and epic battle waged tons of tragedy and loss unmeasurable evil of Morgoth that makes Sauron looks like a brat.
Out of all the stories included in this book, there were two that stands out the most to me.
One is obviously the story of Turin Turambar that has already been told in full details on The Children of Hurin.
I have done a full review on this story but to summarize it, I absolutely loved it and I have no doubt it will be even better upon a reread one day.
Picture: The Sack of Nargothrond by Donato Giancola
The other favorite story was definitely the War of Wrath which depicts the final battle of colossal proportion that ended the First Age of MiddleEarth.
Its such a shame though that this chapter was super short, Like many of the stories contained in this book, I genuinely think that if the right author rewrote these stories with multicharacters POV to follow instead of an omniscient biblical style of writing, War of Wrath would definitely be one of the most epic fantasy war to be written.
Its seriously hard to explain the scope of this battle, instead, Ill show you an image of the battle between Earendil the tiny blue light in the picture and Ancalagon the Black.
Picture: The Dragon and the Star by Manuel Castañón
The Silmarillion was not an easy read and the first half of the book was completely not fun at all to read.
Due to the nature of writing style, there were also a lot of events that couldve worked so much better rather than making me feel so distant.
However, this book clearly shows Tolkiens capability as a pioneer in fantasy worldbuilding, I didnt even know how rich the lore and history behind MiddleEarth was until Ive read this one.
I highly recommend this book for patient readers and obviously, fans of Tolkien, If youre not a huge fan of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really think that its not mandatory for you to push through this book if its not working for you.
Don't get me wrong, there were a lot of great scenes that really shows Tolkien's imagination at its highest level.
But overall, I think I'm left wanting more out of the stories than feeling completely satisfied,
You can order the book from: sitelinkBook Depository Free shipping
You can find sitelinkthis and the rest of my reviews at sitelinkNovel Notions Thats how worldbuilding has to be done the ultimate overachiever way.
The only true one, the writing a life long on it mode, the one narrative style to rule them all.
Dont expect anything similar to Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, this is Tolkienss self made manual, the extreme, pedantic, perfected expansion of the wonderful addendums that make general high fantasy with all its maps and scifi timelines and tech trees with astronomical maps so amazing.
But, as said, be aware, these stories are disguised nerdgasms so full of the language Tolkien adapted from originals and invented himself, such a celebrating of OCD perfectionism, a planning close to no modern nowadays author would invest in her/ his work, the work of a lifetime, that its truly no easy read.
But some of the best and most successful fantasy and scifi writers do it in a similar way, invent extremely detailed universes with cultures, fractions, detailed geography, etc.
often inspired by the behemoths that came before them or mythology, It seems to be the necessary and intelligent effort to be able to live in these worlds and thereby describe them in a way impossible for the ones who just write without true passion and obsession.
It must be a kind of wonderful fusion of learning the self made theory, internalizing the world, fusing protagonists, worldbuilding, and plot, and in this way intensifying the flow and pleasure of creation.
Just as I do it with my deeply disturbing cosmic body horror extreme terror sci fi nightmare fuel visions, sigh.
Speech is a mighty tool and how Tolkien used his expertise and knowledge to pimp the old originals, that inspired his work, and created new combinations and own languages, is how it has to be done.
Whoever is into linguistics and language in general, or simply wants to know what the deeper meanings and ideological and magical backgrounds of LotR are, can dive deep into the immense detail of this aspect.
Tolkienoholics, people with no real life or no interest in one like me, aspiring dark overlords and writers, etc.
should watch this in awe and especially remember and appreciate that he used his academic knowledge not to bore the heck out of poor students in the all perpetrating combination of anachronistic teaching methods still used nowadays everywhere in soft humanities to create something worthy of being called magic, maybe even holy, because of its positive influence on the world by founding the genre of high fantasy.
So one should do research, know the originals, and study the tropes and how they evolve, Its all about these tropes, humans themselves are a combination of epigenetic memes gone bonkers in their parents, just created like new subgenres out of the old ones.
Back to the show: If one is into playing with language, cool names, loads of mythology, and of course LotR backstory, this is the perfect, fine brew to consume in small doses and, for best results, contrast and compare with the original in addition.
Might also be a good idea to combine it with a real rereading or first time reading shame on you LotR, because it gives the extra info to better fully dive into the world.
I will probably do it that way, just as I like to read my scifi and fantasy extra, outsourced exposition explanations about characters, chronological timelines, maps, fandom, etc.
, to get the flow better started,
Dont expect an average short story collection, this is far beyond what one is used to see as a prequel, sequel, extra short story collections, or whatever else is nowaday instrumentalized in the mainstream fantasy scifi industrial complex to boost the sales.
Might also be handy if one is into LARPG and wants to impress the hot elves with nerdiness so concentrated that it takes control over the brain applying it, whispering to the mind about seductive levels of fandom indistinguishable from complete loss of perception of reality.
Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
sitelink org/pmwiki/pmwiki. ph "Oh woebegotten spirit, fall now into dark oblivion, and forget for a while the dreadful doom of life.
"
I must admit, I struggled.
Though I love the Lord of the Rings and the Middle Earth Universe with all of my heart, tackling a large part of its history in this manner was tough going.
The world Tolkien created is absolutely extraordinary, without a doubt, Unfortunately The Silmarillion is written as a long history or mythology of biblical proportions, Name after name, battle after battle, son after son, It was hard to follow,
I can respect how wonderfully intricate and detailed the world is but with that many characters and no straight story to follow through.
I'm pleased to be able to say I've done it, but I don't think it's one I'll be able to come back to time and again.
I'll stick to LOTR I think, Though I will read sitelinkBeren and Lúthien and sitelinkThe Children of Húrin when I can.
Tolkien truly is a master,.stars.
"Help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the wise falter, "
Sauron was become now a sorceror of dreadful power, master of shadows and of phantoms, foul in wisdom, cruel in strength, misshaping what he touched, twisting what he ruled, lord of werewolves his dominion was torment.Ah, Sauron, Maia of Aulëbeyond doubt the singularly most enthralling antagonist whom I encountered as a young reader, possessing all of the malevolence and dark charisma and naked power of Satan, but unhobbled by the multiaspectual morphology of Christian theology and popular culture that far too often rendered the Devil a ridiculous figure: a wildeyed and beastly fornication ringmaster cavorting with naked acolytes a scarletskinned, pitchforkwielding fashion model for forkedtails and forehead horns or slyly smiling traveling salesman, pitching his gimcrack wares backed by looselyenforced contracts claiming lien upon some drinktossed wastrel's dubiouslyvaluable soul.
But Sauronthe dude fell, the dude schemed, the dude was scary, whether donning the raiments of a beautiful, translucent ringwise man or an unbearably, searingly abhorrent humanoid vessel of the void.
There exists no other book that I've read as many times as The Silmarillion.
Much more than the questing, heroic storyline of sitelink The Lord of the Rings was I drawn to the background of all those tumultuous events, the grand personages and royal lineages that stretched back into the mists of primordial time.
Where did Sauron come from From what pit originally arose the Balrog What order was Gandalf exactly a member of Who were Beren and Luthien, and what relevance did their own story have to this ultimate chapter of the War of the Rings playing out on the pages before me Immediately that I finished the trilogy I rushed into the Silmarillion and though at that time I was still too young to appreciate the allusions to other great mythologies, to the wonderful intricacies of the languages that Tolkien had constructed for his MiddleEarth races, to the powerful theme of tragedyalways linked with a hubris of the striving spiritthat was enjoined to the Noldorin rebellion against the Valar and their heroicbutdoomed struggle against Melkor, He Who Arises in Might, Morgoth Bauglir the Black EnemyRadical Valar Renegade, Spawner of the Orcs, Dark Lord of the Balrogs, Tutoring Patron of Sauron in toto, Supreme Badass Motherfucker of all MiddleEarthstill I was held spellbound by these glimpses into the Great Creation, the Dawn of Elves and Men, the Noldorin Exile and the fate of the Silmarils, which ended with such a perfect balance, the priceless jewels at rest at the bottom of the sea, the deepest of earthen chasms, and the highest heights of the heavens.
What's more, after the breaking of Beleriand the reader is presented with the awesome arc of the founding and the doom of Númenor, in which Sauron gloatingly laughed atop the Island's mountain temple and lustfully defied the punishing lighting strokes that sizzled through the nighttime air and the concluding overview of the War of the Rings, in which much is explained that makes The Lord of the Rings even more enjoyably complete
than when the trilogyand its prequel The Hobbitwere the only source for the incredibly deep history that Tolkien had woven from his lifelong love of language.
These annals, with their brilliantlyetched admixtures of beauty and shortlived heroic triumphs set against an overpowering sense of futility and tragic defeat at the hands of an enemy whose cunning is as deep as the infernal pits of his cavernous dungeons and whose malice engirds the starkissed world, whose very corruption has been bled into the core of creation itself, were just what were needed to spark a young imagination Tolkien's private amusements and delights mirrored my own in their fledgling form, and inspired me to tributary tasks of creation that nobody else could understand or appreciate but which gave me immense personal satisfaction.
They awoke within me the powerful demiurgical desire to craft worlds, populate them, endow them with their own gods and mythologies, formulate a history, laden it with political systems, the whole works, all in the service of a timebound fate that culminates in an apocalyptic showdown betwixt the dark and the light.
At that point in a person's life, when the complex and inscrutable mathematical rituals and hierarchical causality of allpowerful modern science have immense appeal but few handholds, the prismatic and primal allure of myth and magic, the intuitive interconnectedness of nature with the sorcerously creative will of man, even at that tender age a force struggling to avoid restraint and desperately endeavoring to draw power from those spiritual furnaces deep within, the font of dreams, such tales of heroism and fortitude in the face of the supernatural are, for many, very hard to resist.
What's more, the channeling of natural phenomenon into organic spirits with anthropomorphic features and forms offers another intuitivelyappealing means to understanding a vast material world that otherwise seems awesomely inexplicable and frighteningly unpredictable.
Stories that tap into our innate desire both to be entertained and be edified by human theatre set within the panoramic vistas of a horizonhid pastTolkien delivered in spades.
I don't care that it was edited by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay and, thus, can't be declared canonical.
Who gives a shit Some complain that it reads like a MiddleEarth bible, that its archaic style and portentous prose are a labor to struggle through, and provide nothing as satisfying as the great trilogy he had wrought.
Ah, tell it to the judge, They read like the annals composed from the mythological strains that wend across a mysterious, fatebound history that they, in fact, are: it's just that this particular history was played out solely within the mental confinesa rich cerebral theatreof the author, and possessed a coherence and potency to rival the mythologies of the Greeks or the Northmen.
What more could a reader want If Tolkien's labour of love, crafted and edited, reworked and rewritten, was of such an amazing expressiveness and beauty and power that it both upheld the Ring Trilogy and lit its mythological intimations with a fulgent blaze that only served to augment one's appreciation of the latter's depths, then why not put it out there for that multitude of fans who were dying to sample more of the mystical marvels from one of the greatest and most uniquely imaginative minds of the past century.