Hello all!
Well as I said in my previous post, I was nearly finished with The Silmarillion. I have since completed it and thought I might say a few words about both it and another book by Tolkien I read immediately after.
The Silmarillion is, as I have said before, a difficult read. It often reads much more like a history book than it does a fantasy novel. Therefore, it can get tedious at times, and even a bit dull. If you know me, you know that I consider myself a huge fan of Professor Tolkien's works and as such, if I am saying something that he wrote can get a bit dull, I am being perfectly honest and you can rest assured that I am being unbiased.
Imagine reading page after page of little more than place names (difficult to pronounce at that) and their geographic relativity to other (nearly impossible to pronounce) place names. Imagine reading about all the counties in Wales, written in Welsh, not English...and how they are geographically placed...and who lives in them...and why. Then try to imagine keeping the names straight in your head. Names like 'Beleriand', 'Arvernien', 'Falas', 'Ossiriand', 'Balar' and 'Doriath' being all too common. (And those are some of the easier ones to say!)
That's only the places. The people are just as difficult. 'Tuor' and 'Turin'...'Fingolfin' and 'Fëanor' and 'Finwë'...'Melkor', 'Morgoth', 'Maedros' and 'Maglor'. As I said, it is not an easy read. It's like trying to remember all the names in a family of Swedes!
Anyway, the intersting part about reading The Silmarillion is not in remembering the place names so much...it's discovering how Middle-earth came to be. It's finding the anscestory of some of your favourite characters like Aaragorn and Elrond. It's finding how the great enenmy Sauron came to be...back when he was just another right-hand-man to another baddie altogether.
If you have interest in the world that Tolkien had in his head...how it came to be...how deep his thoughts and organisation of something completely foreign to everyone save himself was...then this book is the place to start. If you're like me, it will take multiple readings to get everything in place in your head, but you won't be sorry for the effort. This was an incredible read and I highly recommend it...it's just not for everyone. It's a page turner...but the pages might turn very slowly...and backwards and forwards several times.
Your thoughts?
More to come!
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