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Summary: Mythology of Middle-Earth
Review: You really have to be in the right mood for The Silmarillion. I love it, but I realize it's not for everyone. This is the "big story" J.R.R. Tolkien worked on all his life, but never completed. His son, Christopher Tolkien, does an admirable job of assembling this collection of myths into a coherent whole. What is Middle-Earth? Where did it come from? Where did the Elves come from? What happened in the First Age? How did Númenor fall? There are so many questions answered in this book, as well as basic questions, like how the world was created (by music! awesome!), that are just fun to read. However, the early part of The Silmarillion is a tragedy. Imagine, if you will, two glorious trees, one with silver leaves and one with gold, that shine with their own inner light and illuminate the city of the gods. An elf, Feanor, uses the skills he has learned from the Valar (gods) to enshrine some of the light of these two trees into three brilliant jewels called the Silmarils. The dark lord (Morgoth) steals the jewels and heads off to Middle-Earth. The rest of the book entails the wars and tragedies that result as the Elves try to recover the Silmarils by force. This is high mythology, with heavy, dark content. At the time I read it, The Silmarillion was unlike anything I had ever read. Quite frankly, I haven't found any other fantasy series nearly so captivating (I am a science fiction fan, by disposition). This is not just swords and sorcery fare; Tolkien has some serious moral points to make, and he makes them subtly while telling you a grand tale, akin to the Odyssey. This is not a happy book. There is much sorrow in it and many tales of loss. But you cannot have loss without having gained something first, and Tolkien conjures up amazing images of faerie cities and uncountable riches. When those riches are lost, it is only through the moral weakness of those who possess them. You won't get much of that in Conan. The success of modern fantasy is owed in no small part to the success of "The Lord of the Rings," but before LOTR, in Tolkien's mind, there was The Silmarillion; and this is the real story he wanted to tell. Read and enjoy.
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Summary: Splendor of grace and imagination...
Review: Tolkien is one of the few writers with an ability of presenting evil in all of it's wickedness and then shading it with infinite goodness.
Silmarillion is an wonder...
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Summary: THE REVIEW
Review: This book was awesome! I love how Tolkien describes the way that Middle-Earth is formed. But I advise, this book is not for you if you don't know alot about Middle-Earth. YOu should know the Quendi Elves, Dwarves....
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Summary: Amazing
Review: Tolkien is an amazing writer. I enjoyed reading his books, especially The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and the Silmarillion. If you are a Tolkien fan, then, you should read this at least once. Even though it does not flow and hold your interest like The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, it still is a good read. This book is a collection of short stories as well as some of Tolkien's notes from the Battle of Unnumbered Tears until the destruction of the Ring. True this book is not like his previous novels, but you will certainly love it. You will want to read it more than once.
Also recommended: THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES, THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY, THE END OF THE THIRD AGE.
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Summary: Great
Review: The Silmarillion is another ingenious work of the great J.R.R. Tolkien. This book has it all; deception, war, greed, jealousy, and all those other real world emotions which most of us can relate to. While the book does have Elves, Dwarves, Magic, Dragons, and the like, it does carry with it an extremely serious tone. One thing that might turn some people off is the length of it. It is a whopping 480 pages! If you have the patience however, it is worth a try.
The beginning of the book starts out with a god-like entity who is referred to as Iluvatar. And from the head of Iluvatar sprang a bunch of angelic creatures known as the Valar. While that sounds like something written by someone who has spent too much time at a Grateful Dead concert, it all fits in with the story. After `creating' the Valar, Iluvatar then makes a world for them to shape any way they see fit. One Valar by the name of Melkor however, doesn't just want to help create this world; he wants to dominate it. So he goes about creating fortresses and causes problems for the others by destroying everything they create. This seriously upsets Iluvatar, because he planned to create new creatures to inhabit the world they were making. So after a long war with Melkor, the Valar finally subdue him and chain him up, only to have him rise again when the new creatures are created and attempt to control them. The rest of the book deals with the struggles the new creatures of the world have with Melkor.
It is a very compelling overall story, however the way it is put together may make most readers shy away from it. It has a very old English style of writing to it, which makes it seem like it was taken from The Bible or a history book. While that adds an authentic feel to the story, it may be tough for normal readers to get in to. I had to constantly re-read sentences that have old phrases and words that we no longer use. For instance when Iluvatar is informing a certain Valar of Melkor's misdoings, it reads "Seest thou not how here in this little realm in the Deeps of Time Melkor hath made war upon thy province?" While this style of writing is interesting, it is a little difficult to comprehend.
For those of you who enjoy finding ways to relate stories to real life, you could relate this book to a real world event that happened around the time Tolkien started writing the Lord of the Rings; WWII. The main evil in this book, Melkor, could easily be related to Hitler, and his orc pawns could be related to the Germans that Hitler had brainwashed. The Elves and other races could represent the Allies: how they had their differences with each other, and yet all came together in the end and united to stop the one thing threatening their freedom. That's of course just my view, and I'm sure you, the reader, could find different ways to relate it to different events.
I recommend this book to anyone who is a big Lord of the Rings fan and insists on knowing every little detail, like me. Also, anyone who is a fan of fantasy in general (and has a lot of patience) would most likely find this book an interesting read. Though it is hard to get into, it is worth the effort. This is, in my opinion, one of Tolkien's greatest works, and answers all those questions left from The Lord of the Rings.
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Summary: Not for everyone
Review: This is the grand prehistory of Middle Earth, setting the stage for 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Ring'. It is an amazing work where Tolkien develops the world of Middle Earth. From the creation, the first beings (the Ainuin), the rise of evil, the elves, the War of Wrath, the Fall of Numenor, and the Rings of Power. It covers the First Age, and the Second Age of Middle Earth.
It is amazing and wonderful to think that a writer, scholar took the time to develop the lore behind his stories. It set the standard for all writers to follow.
I first read this book after having read 'The Hobbit' and 'The Lord of the Rings'. I have since reread all of the books in chronological order enjoying them even more.
The Silmarillion is not for everyone. If you are not fan of Middle Earth, some of this book will be dry. It goes through a lot of history, and names that enrich the following stories, but could be tedious. However, I think that the book is well worth reading and helps define the later characters and the struggle they will face.
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Summary: Good listen of a good read
Review: Several friends warned me that trying to listen to The Silmarillion while driving could be asking to fall asleep at the wheel. On the contrary, I found Martin Shaw's reading of this classic to be a very pleasant way to experience Tolkien's unabridged work. Shaw has a powerful, engaging voice and since there is very little dialogue in The Silmarillion, he doesn't need to adopt many different personalities in his delivery. Many other reviewers have covered this title from the perspective of its greatness in a literary sense so I won't bother adding to that. But as far as the quality of this audio book edition, I give it full marks.
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Summary: Wonderful, awe-inspiring work
Review: If you're a true Tolkien fan, this is definetly a book you should read!
To find out about the Valar, how Middle Earth came to be, why Melkor became Morgoth, the story of Luthien, I can keep going, but there are many other amazing stories in this book.
The one thing is, it's a little harder to read for some as it's a blend of stories, not one big one like Lord of the Rings, and not a light as The Hobbit. But I still believe that people, besides Tolkien fans, should read this book.
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Summary: Pure, Unadulterated Literary Genius
Review: By now, thanks to the efforts of PJ and crew, most people know the story of Frodo, the brave little hobbit who could, and the rest of the LOTR gang, but, sadly, few who have been won over by the movie, or even the books, seem to ever dig deep into the origins of Middle-Earth, and the ones who do rarely ever "dig" them (Please forgive me for that one). Now, I'm not saying that the Hobbit & LOTR can't exist on their own; they did that for over thirty years, but anyone that considers himself a moderate Tolkien (By the way, it's Tol-Keen, rather than Tol-Kuhn) fan should at least read the Silmarillion once, at least to understand the significance of Earendil, the light from Galadriel's smial and the other mythic passages of LOTR (Plus, the cute bookish girls will swoon if you can quote Beren's lament for Luthien). That isn't to say that the Silmarillion is important merely as a peripheral to LOTR or a prop to improve your social status; on the contrary, it's one of the most remarkable, brilliant and satisfying works in the English language, dripping with poetry, mysticism and emotion and held together by Tolkien's mastery of the English language; he's on par with Scott and Shakespeare and surpassed only by Peaks in fluidity and grace.
Many people are scared off by its reputation as being "difficult", and I admit it's rather hard to take in at first (I made the mistake of trying to read it at eight. Let's just say I didn't get too far), but in the end it's more than worth the small struggles to bask in the warm sun of Middle-Earth for even a short time.
While the Lord of the Rings was concerned to an extent with minutiae (One is presented with a day-to-day calendar of events in the appendices), the Silmarillion is astonishing in its sweep; the book takes place over hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of years of civilization, chronicling the events from the very creation of the world (in the Ainulindale) to the passing of the Eldar that signaled the end of the Third Age. Along the way we get heartbreaking stories of romance (The Tale of Beren and Luthien, which make Romeo and Juliet look like a tenth-grade hack-job in comparison), equally heartbreaking, though more swashbuckling, tales of chivalry and adventure (Finrod Felagund), incomparably epic wars (the Fall of Gondolin; the Dagor Bragollach)and accounts of the effects of betrayal and greed (the Sons of Feanor and the Kinslaying of Alqualonde), along with too many other brilliant things to mention.
Whenever I write a review I try to keep an aura of professionalism; no screaming BUY THIS NOW!!! or blatant grammatical errors, but when it comes to the Silmarillion it's rather hard for me not revert to fan-boy mode and express my total, unfailing love for this book; Tolkien was a genius who created a fully realized world with its own history, languages and even physics (That's all "magic" is, really) and then graciously allowed us to visit it through his works. Frankly, I think we need to give him a profound thanks for that.
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Summary: A beautiful, grand, and epic mythology
Review: Although it was indeed a post-humous publication, the Silmarillion is truly the work of J.R.R. Tolkien (with a little organization by his son) and as such, it is probably his crowning achievement as a writer. Embodying everything that he desired to acomplish linguistically as well as creatively, the Silmarillion stands as the greatest volume by the accomplished philologist.
Perhaps the greatest achievement of this work is its grand scope, covering the earliest years in the history of Middle Earth. Written in an extremely mythic style, the story begins telling the tale of creation. Due to his devotion to Roman Catholicism, Tolkien indirectly imbues these early myths with Judeo-Christian sentiments, leaving room for other northern-European influences as well. Because of this basis in true-world mythology, the early tales of the Silmarillion stand out as more than isolated tales of a fictional world. Indeed, they inspire the reader to imagine beauty which is beyond the confines of Middle Earth, renewing awe in the nature of the world and Man's place in there.
The main body of the work, the tale of the Silmarils and the events surrounding them is a story which is once again mythic but yet is a most excellent heuristic for looking at hubris as well as the corruption of evil. Indeed, this is an ongoing theme in the work, linking, in many ways, to Judeo-Christian teachings and myth. The overall theme of the work approaches the idea of subcreation and the beauty AND responsibility that come with it. The development of all the characters reflects the ramifications of free choice and the temptations that can stem from the abilities granted to individuals.
Because of its wholistic nature and thorough integration, the Silmarillion is a superb work which stands on its own as a fantasy mythology. However, this development lets the work to refresh the reader's view of the world and also grants insight and reflection on the responsibilities of mankind. Because of this, I highly recommend the Silmarillion for all who are willing to take the time to make through its elegant prose.
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