Book Review

The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

Okay... last of my Christmas books. I saved for the end cuz I knew I'd love it. The prequel to the most popular fantasy series of all time, The Silmarillion is a tragedy. The Hobbit and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy are a slow build to a happy end, rising to a glorious climax. The Silmarillion is, for the most part, the descent into the dark circumstances from which the famed heroes arose. A literal falling from grace. But it was well executed and clears up a lot of foggy areas, providing much needed background for the next books of the set.

 

It also contains four other chapters that are decidedly separate from the story of the Silmarillion. The two in front deal with the creation of this world and the gods that rule it, the Valar, along with the enemies. The Silmarillion itself is the introduction of the elves and their fall from grace which is entwined with the forging of the three jewels, the Silmarils, the war for their possession, and the consequent exile of the elves from Valinor, the "paradise" of Middle Earth. The tale of the War of the Jewels has a relatively happy ending in that the primary adversary is overthrown, but the elves' peaceful fate is forever tainted with the sadness of Valinor being blocked off to them and more troubles for those who choose to remain settled eastward in Middle Earth. It then ends with two chapters that sum up the second age which is the age of the Númenorian Kings. It briefly goes over the rise of Sauon, who was there from the very beginning under Melkor/Morgoth, the fall of the kings from faith and honor and their futile attepmted war with the Valar which wipes out most of them and results in an even more tragic fate than that of the elves even though Sauron is temporarily defeated. It then goes on to clarify the forging of the Rings of Power, the One Ring, and a summary of the events of the Hobbit and LOTR series, tying everything together neatly.

 

I've already complained about how unnecessarily complicated Tolkien's Middle Earth is with an army of names, dates, and places, but the Silmarillion helps to make sense of it all, if you love it anyway, like me. This book is condensed and the writing less complex compared to the others. It's more like a series of vignettes and there's less poetry in it. It has to be read with a little patience since it's also structured like the Bible - it backs up in the timeline to carry on with more specific stories or details. But there's so much to love. The stories of battle and romance are equal to the valiant heroism that takes place in the later series. I love to see the similarities between Tolkien's and Lewis' world creation methods comparing this to Narnia... you can see they were close friends. You really can't find raw, original creativity like this anymore and the Middle Earth sagas are a thing of beauty.