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Post by kent on Apr 16, 2014 21:01:34 GMT -6
See poll.
My definition of 'read' is that you would not be embarrassed to answer questions about the book.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2014 21:12:07 GMT -6
I never made it past the Two Towers. I friend of mine just finished the Simmorilium and he was raving about how good it was. I guess I'll take his word for it.
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Post by scalydemon on Apr 16, 2014 21:16:54 GMT -6
I pieced thru the silmyrillionion. It seems more like reference to me rather than a straight read. More power to you if you read it cover to cover though
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Post by crusssdaddy on Apr 16, 2014 21:23:19 GMT -6
I glanced at the cover of the Simmlerallion and was rendered unconscious. No thank you!
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Post by geoffrey on Apr 16, 2014 21:27:52 GMT -6
Yes, I've read it through at least twice, and I have read some of its sections more than twice.
My favorite chunk of the book starts with Feanor and ends with Earendil.
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Post by kent on Apr 16, 2014 21:34:34 GMT -6
The Silmarillion is awesome. It is the work that allows Tolkien to hang on by his fingernails as one of the great fantasists. Ive read it a few times over the years but reading it again to accompany some mapmaking Im struck by the density of thought as opposed to flights of fancy and obligatory mythmaking. He really worked over those chapters intensely and the material was obviously much closer to his heart than the Third age stories.
The Silmarillion is action packed, start at chapter six, and think of me as Feanor.
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Post by geoffrey on Apr 16, 2014 21:42:37 GMT -6
I regret Tolkien not getting his Silmarillion into definitive form. Perhaps the best format would have been four novel-length epics:
1. Beren and Luthien
2. The Children of Hurin (pretty much accomplished posthumously by the editorial work of Christopher Tolkien)
3. Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin
4. Earendil
The stuff that comes before and between all of that could be presented through dialogue and narration at appropriate points.
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machpants
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Post by machpants on Apr 16, 2014 21:48:06 GMT -6
I read (most of?) The Silmarillion when I was in my teens, so many years ago and I am not sure I did it all. I have only done sections since so would not at all be comfortable answering questions about it. I read the LotR at least once a year and can answer stuff on that. There is so much in The Silmarillion I reckon a good dozen read throughs would be required for me to be familiar with it.
So I ticked some, but not cos I couldn't get into it, it has just been a while.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 16, 2014 21:56:34 GMT -6
Yes.
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riftstone
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Post by riftstone on Apr 16, 2014 22:05:21 GMT -6
Read it, loved it. The battle between Morgoth and Fingolfin being perhaps my favorite part.
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2014 3:32:41 GMT -6
I actually had never gotten into the Silmarillion from the published form of the book; it was too dry - and the parts leading up to the Darkening of Valinor and the theft of the Silmarils are pretty tough reads. I got into it through the History of Middle-Earth series, really falling in love with it once I read The Book of Lost Tales. Beren and Lúthien was my favorite of the stories, with Túrin Turambar second and the Fall of Gondolin third.
Ultimately the form was flawed. I'm re-reading it now, and it takes so long before you actually get to Fëanor and company doing their thing that it's easy to understand why people get frustrated with it. Really Tolkien should have told the four "core" stories with a framing device, like in BoLT, and then treated the whole "why the Silmarils are important" part in an appendix. The retelling of Túrin in The Children of Húrin is good, but none of that gets me a better version of Beren and Lúthien - I guess BoLT remains my favorite there.
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Post by kent on Apr 17, 2014 8:05:18 GMT -6
By the way, while I advocate skipping to ch6 if you are getting bogged down, I do think the first five chapters are outstanding. That is where you will come to understand the different Elven races and their relationships to light and how Tolkien conceives of his blessed land and wild dark Middle-earth. Tolkien's mythmaking is not a load of boogaloo as with his imitators. It is coherent and rewards trying to make sense of it with a deeper appreciation of what follows.
I disagree with those who suggest The Silmarillion would be improved by focusing on long versions of the core stories. The Silmarillion does not read like entertainment, it is a more a crucial racial history - 'This is who we are. Don't forget it.' The brevity and density are essential and it has the feeling of being complied from several authorities, poets and historians, rather than being the work of a 'novelist'.
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idrahil
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Post by idrahil on Apr 17, 2014 8:31:00 GMT -6
Yes I have. Amazing piece of work. I grew up reading the King James Bible so I rather enjoyed the writing style.
I remember reading the Voyage of Earendil one night on my back patio. It is one of my favorite memories.
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Koren n'Rhys
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Post by Koren n'Rhys on Apr 17, 2014 9:05:59 GMT -6
It's been a long time (like 25yrs) since I read any of the supporting Tolkien works beyond The Hobbit and LoTR, but yes I have. I read The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the first two Books of Lost Tales - they were all that were out at the time. I keep telling myself to reread those and continue on through all the new stuff that's come out over the years, but it hasn't happened yet.
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Post by makofan on Apr 17, 2014 10:45:06 GMT -6
My favourite Tolkien book
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Azafuse
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Post by Azafuse on Apr 17, 2014 11:34:01 GMT -6
I've read it all, but I don't remember clearly when Ridge Forrester took the Silmaril from Sally Spectra.
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2014 12:07:11 GMT -6
By the way, while I advocate skipping to ch6 if you are getting bogged down, I do think the first five chapters are outstanding. That is where you will come to understand the different Elven races and their relationships to light and how Tolkien conceives of his blessed land and wild dark Middle-earth. Tolkien's mythmaking is not a load of boogaloo as with his imitators. It is coherent and rewards trying to make sense of it with a deeper appreciation of what follows. I disagree with those who suggest The Silmarillion would be improved by focusing on long versions of the core stories. The Silmarillion does not read like entertainment, it is a more a crucial racial history - 'This is who we are. Don't forget it.' The brevity and density are essential and it has the feeling of being complied from several authorities, poets and historians, rather than being the work of a 'novelist'. I disagree, having just re-read those chapters. One of the major issues is that the Valar aren't that interesting, except for Aulë and Yavanna. They're all very well behaved; the closest we come is that Tulkas sulks a bit because Manwë won't let him have it out with Melkor. It's not like actual mythology where there are epic conflicts and disagreements among the gods even though they ultimately acknowledge one as superior. Aulë's bit with the dwarves is good, and Yavanna becomes sympathetic when she makes the plants and animals, but the rest are kind of a waste of a good set of quasi-deities. Mandos has a certain cachet when he speaks doom, but that doesn't kick in until later. There's really not much to the differentiation of the Eldalië. Some elves decide they'd rather stay in Arda instead of going to Valinor, and the Teleri go but hang out on the coast by their ships. The only interesting character to come out of it is Elu Thingol, and if you didn't know he was going to be Lúthien's father later in the book, he's just sort of odd (the only elf of the Calaquendi to go back and live with the Sindar, and the only child of Illúvatar to marry a Maia). For me it reads something like a fictional version of Bulfinch's Mythology - spending a lot of time on laying out the ground work, and then condensing each of the big stories into a chapter or two. My preference is for something more akin to the Mabinogion, a focused telling of the high-impact stories.
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Post by kent on Apr 17, 2014 13:14:40 GMT -6
There's really not much to the differentiation of the Eldalië. Some elves decide they'd rather stay in Arda instead of going to Valinor, and the Teleri go but hang out on the coast by their ships. Certainly it was never intended that people like you would read The Silmarillion.
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 17, 2014 13:15:41 GMT -6
See poll. My definition of 'read' is that you would not be embarrassed to answer questions about the book. I've read it a couple of times, but I'd hesitate to take a quiz on it. The main stories are pretty clear in my mind but there are so many characters and places (and more importantly, each has multiple names) that I can't recall a lot of the smaller details.
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2014 13:43:08 GMT -6
Certainly it was never intended that people like you would read The Silmarillion. I doubt that a man who called his wife "My Lúthien" wrote The Silmarillion for the sort of people who find more to appreciate in the migration of the Eldalië than the Tale of Tinúviel. It's very clear where Tolkien's heart was in his work.
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Post by kent on Apr 17, 2014 14:32:49 GMT -6
Certainly it was never intended that people like you would read The Silmarillion. I doubt that a man who called his wife "My Lúthien" wrote The Silmarillion for the sort of people who find more to appreciate in the migration of the Eldalië than the Tale of Tinúviel. It's very clear where Tolkien's heart was in his work. You said you didn't get The Silmarillion so it is not clear why you are going on and on trying to persuade others. I believe you.
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Post by kenmeister on Apr 17, 2014 15:32:20 GMT -6
Need another poll option for "No, but keep meaning to."
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2014 16:20:09 GMT -6
You said you didn't get The Silmarillion so it is not clear why you are going on and on trying to persuade others. I believe you. No; I said I've read it repeatedly, am currently re-reading it, and that I enjoy the actual character-driven stories the most. That's a perfectly valid opinion and stems from reading the Silmarillion and all of the HoME series.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2014 16:52:47 GMT -6
I doubt that a man who called his wife "My Lúthien" wrote The Silmarillion for the sort of people who find more to appreciate in the migration of the Eldalië than the Tale of Tinúviel. It's very clear where Tolkien's heart was in his work. You said you didn't get The Silmarillion so it is not clear why you are going on and on trying to persuade others. I believe you. To the contrary, the point he is clearly making is that he does get The Silmarillion. Although it is a shame that Tolkien was not around to finish it and polish it. I read it cover to cover in one sitting in 1978 when I was in college and I agree with cadriel, the Valar as a group are pretty bland and only a few stand out the rest are no more than window dressing. Had Tolkien been able to finish it himself, prehaps this would not be so.
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Post by geoffrey on Apr 17, 2014 17:24:13 GMT -6
I disagree with those who suggest The Silmarillion would be improved by focusing on long versions of the core stories. The Silmarillion does not read like entertainment, it is a more a crucial racial history - 'This is who we are. Don't forget it.' The brevity and density are essential and it has the feeling of being complied from several authorities, poets and historians, rather than being the work of a 'novelist'. How would you compare The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin?
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Post by cadriel on Apr 17, 2014 18:03:01 GMT -6
kent, when you talk about the "brevity and density" of the Silmarillion I guess this is referring to the published book titled The Silmarillion, which is an invention of Christopher Tolkien and not of JRRT himself. A number of Tolkien enthusiasts have noted that this is at best a flawed presentation of the stories, and certainly not Tolkien's preferred result; putting the whole thing in a final, perfected form was a labor he started in 1916 and didn't finish by his death in 1972. The "feeling of being compiled from several authorities ..." is not a deliberate affectation, but rather the result of its composition; Christopher was using sources from across over 50 years of writing to assemble the final document. Likewise, trying to pin down exactly what Tolkien wanted is difficult or impossible in part because Tolkien changed over a long life, and his priorities changed as well. There were times when he was primarily concerned with the central stories, and times when he was mostly concerned with the subtleties of the world-building and the theological implications of the mythology. The attempt to put it all in one volume results in a mix of material that reflects these different interests, and it suffers from a lack of focus because of this.
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Post by Finarvyn on Apr 17, 2014 19:30:31 GMT -6
The problem I have with threads like this is very quickly they seem to draw the "Tolkien expert snob" like moths to a flame. Instead of having a great Tolkien discussion, folks spend their time trying to impress everyone with their vast knowledge. Do we really have to argue about who is worthy to read and discuss a book? Seriously?
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Post by kent on Apr 17, 2014 19:40:08 GMT -6
Personally Im trying to get more people reading the book so they may take an interest in the two threads I started in the Tolkien forum. That would take some of the load off Geoffrey and Falconer.
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Post by kent on Apr 17, 2014 22:56:33 GMT -6
How would you compare The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin? Can you be more specific? They are very different kinds of work for me. Would I like to have seen every chapter expanded in like manner into its own little volume by Tolkien from the late 1950s on? Absolutely.
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Post by Stormcrow on Apr 18, 2014 9:21:30 GMT -6
To really enjoy The Silmarillion, one needs to understand what sort of story they're getting. Tolkien was interested in writing myths, not adventure stories. He didn't care for stories like Treasure Island, and prefered the myths and legends of Northern Europe.
Furthermore, Tolkien wrote his legendarium in several styles. His first pass was given as a series of legends wrapped in a frame narrative, and were designed to reveal a fictional mythology of England. Later, he focused on writing the annals of Aman and of Beleriand as a history. These tended to stretch into stories of greater detail than he intended. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings only fit grudgingly into the legendarium, and are of an entirely different style; they're plainly novels, while The Silmarillion is a novel that pretends to be a collection of annals and legends.
Read The Silmarillion as you would read a really good history, not as you would read The Lord of the Rings.
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