The Silmarillion is a slog.

[BAYLOR]

I know I've said this sort of thing about some book or other before -- but here goes again. I have 4500 books, and if I had to winnow my library down to 200, this book (in this case The Silmarillion) would make the cut. This isn't entirely just a way of talking. Perhaps one day I (and others here) will have to make that kind of reduction in our libraries before moving into quarters suited to those of advanced age. Nobody wants to do that but some of us will.

Id read it years ago in soft cover. Not too long ago I acquired an old hard cover edition, this one is saying my collection. Ialsoplan at some point to do a reread of it.

I enjoyed the Silmarillion from the first time I read it when it first came out.
Certainly some of it took a little effort to get through, and keeping up with all the names was hard at times(*). But not the creation story at the beginning, which I loved.

* Thank goodness (or just Christopher Tolkien) for the appendices and family trees at the end.

Reading wise, it really is worth the effort.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I enjoyed LOTR, and I enjoyed the Hobbit. But Silmarillion was just not readable. Like a textbook on a subject that really doesn't interest you, or in a foreign language. It got donated

It's a book I desperately wanted to like; felt that I ought to like. But I don't.

And that's kind of the point. It's a book rather than a story.

As (I think) I've mentioned elsewhere, I came to Silmarillion after having read The Hobbit and LOTR several times as a child. Then I discovered that JRRT had written a third story set in Middle-earth. Expecting a sequel to the first two, I was both disappointed and confused. It felt like segments of unfinished stories. This was not the same satisfaction as The Hobbit and LOTR had given me. I suspect this is the case for many others.

 

[HareBrain]

And that's kind of the point. It's a book rather than a story.

I think you could make the case that it's not really a novel (and so, yes, very different from LOTR and Hobbit), but story?

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think you could make the case that it's not really a novel (and so, yes, very different from LOTR and Hobbit), but story?

An incomplete story isn't really a story (in my opinion). To some extent it feels like an embelished appendix as seen at the back of Lord of the Rings.

There's lots of information in there, and plenty to interest those who wish to delve deeper into the history of Middle-earth. But it isn't a story.

I do sometimes wonder how Tolkien would have felt about it being released in an incomplete format. We know how Terry Pratchett felt about his partially completed stories being released for public consumption.

If Tolkien had had another quarter ventury, we may have seen a completed work that would have rivalled his other two great works. And no doubt someone somewhere will input all of his material from the book and other works and musing, and get an AI to write a completed story.

My opinion is that it would likely have veen a compendium of shorter stories than one all-encompassing tale.

 

[Elentarri]

Unfinished Tales is also essentially a collection of stuff that didn't fit in the LotR Appendices.

 

[farntfar]

Expecting a sequel to the first two, I was both disappointed and confused.

There's lots of information in there, and plenty to interest those who wish to delve deeper into the history of Middle-earth. But it isn't a story.

I think it's a little unfair though to expect anything different.
It was made pretty clear when it was published, that it was a collection of unpolished and often unfinished tales that JRRT wrote for himself, and Christopher had tried to collect together and make it more readable.
That's how I understood it, when I got it just after it was first published in my late teens.
As such I really enjoyed it, but it's true that it's not a consistently flowing narrative like the previous books. And some of it is hard work.

 

[Pyan]

When it comes down to it, I doubt that JRRT was really that interested in writing more publishable books - he started a sequel to LotR, and abandoned it after a few chapters (The New Shadow) and most of the other books put out under his names are basically fragments. I get the distinct impression that he was really happy just playing with, and filling the gaps in, his own mythology.
Yes, the Silmarillion is hard work, and when it was published, a lot of people that had expected another LotR were sorely disappointed. Some of the contents are wonderful (Of Beren and Luthien, Akallabêth, the Fall of Númenor), and a lot of it is difficult. But I do think that criticising it for not being another LotR is missing the point - it's JRRT's creation myth, and back history of his mythos.

 

[HareBrain]

When it comes down to it, I doubt that JRRT was really that interested in writing more publishable books - he started a sequel to LotR, and abandoned it after a few chapters (The New Shadow) and most of the other books put out under his names are basically fragments. I get the distinct impression that he was really happy just playing with, and filling the gaps in, his own mythology.

Did he ever completely give up hope that The Silmarillion would prove publishable? I know he originally hoped it would be, though of course he could never get it to a state he was satisfied with.

An incomplete story isn't really a story (in my opinion).

I don't mean to labour the point (he said, labouring the point) but I think the Quenta Silmarillion (by far the largest part of the published book) is a complete story: the story of the origin and theft of the silmarils and the Noldor's war on Morgoth for their recovery. Yes, there are a lot of tangential sub-plots, and sections that could be stripped out and made separate, but I think the encompassing arc does hold it together. In fact I would say that the QS is one of the greatest stories I've ever come across.

I'd say it reads not as straight history, but as a fictionalised version of it.

 

[Bick]

But it isn't a story.

It is a collection of linked, and perfectly complete stories, together forming a cohesive whole. I don’t really understand the criticism to be honest, and I think in many ways it is Tolkien’s best work. I would also disagree it’s a hard read - that’s personal impression of course but I find it a breeze to read and have read it several times. Indeed I find it one of the easiest books to get into if I pick it off the shelf.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I think it's a little unfair though to expect anything different.
It was made pretty clear when it was published, that it was a collection of unpolished and often unfinished tales that JRRT wrote for himself, and Christopher had tried to collect together and make it more readable.
That's how I understood it, when I got it just after it was first published in my late teens.
As such I really enjoyed it, but it's true that it's not a consistently flowing narrative like the previous books. And some of it is hard work.

It may have been made clear when first published, but I was unaware. And I suspect that many have bought it after reading Hobbit and LOTR, expecting a similar story.

But I do not want this to sound like criticism. You cannot blame an unfinished work of art for being incomplete.

Is the world a better place for The Silmarillion having been released? Yes. Stirling efforts were made in order to edit it into a publishable edition. It gives glimpses into what could - what would - have been Tolkien's magnus opus, if he had had the time to complete it.

For being dificult to read, there is no 'right' or 'wrong' answer. People find some fully completed books dificult to get through, even from acclaimed authors.

I think that we have to ho beyond what we want, or expected, Silmarillion to be, and accept it fpr what it is. I wanted a sequel to LOTR or a prequel to Hobbit. At the very least I expected a complete sequential story. It isn't any of those things, but what it is is an insight into the mind of Tolkien and into the creation of both The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

 

[HareBrain]

It may have been made clear when first published, but I was unaware. And I suspect that many have bought it after reading Hobbit and LOTR, expecting a similar story.

I remember going into a bookshop with my mum when I was ten. I'd just read LOTR and wanted to buy some laminated cards based on it. The Silmarillion had just come out and the bookseller tried to interest me in a copy. I wonder if he even knew what kind of book it was. There can't have been many ten-year-olds who would have got much out of it (not in Bognor Regis, anyway).

 

[Elentarri]

 

[Boaz]

Ive always believed that Tolkien should have turned it and into an epic like LOTR.

I disagree. I agree with what I assume is your desire for a strong personal narravtive. I'd love that.

I do agree with Teresa Edgerton that it is too short. There are seven or eight epics before humans even show up in the The Silmarillion.

There could be a dozen or more epic stories within The Silmarillion. Collectively, The Lord of the Rings movies run over nine hours (extended versions total more than eleven hours). Twelve to fifteen epic stories, each around nine to eleven hours, would give us somewhere between 100 to 160 hours of film. This would be thirty to fortysome novels.....

To the original post, I LOVE THE SILMARILLION. I read it dozens of times as a teen. The concept of writing an oral story as handed down, instead of turning the story into a personal narrative, appeals to me. I find it enjoyable to be told a story, just as much as I enjoy seeing the story from a character's point of view. I have given away many copies as gifts....