Have You Read The Silmarillion?

[tetramorph]

I read it yearly for about 7 or 8 years straight. It was my reading between the fall and spring semesters during my graduate student days. Yes to Stormcrow. Read it as annals, history, romances, chronicles, legend and myth. I like that more than a novel any day. It is fantastic for world-building, but nothing like a dungeon-crawl. For D&D purposes it is for campaign-setting inspiration rather than actual play-style. Just my opinion.

[Chainsaw]

No, haven't read it yet.

[terrex]

I read it and enjoyed it. At some point I will read it again.

[Falconer]

To echo Stormcrow’s point, The Silmarillion was written in the same genre as Appendix A of The Lord of the Rings. In fact, Tolkien DID write it initially as an appendix to his poetic epics which are currently published in The Lays of Beleriand. Its original title was “The Sketch of the Mythology.”

While I tend to prefer The History of Middle-earth series, I definitely think it’s a good thing that The Silmarillion and The Children of Húrin have brought the First Age to the masses (even if the former has given it a somewhat dubious reputation). I agree with Kent that the First Age absolutely was where Tolkien’s heart was. I join Geoffrey in wishing Christopher Tolkien would give the CoH treatment to a few more almost-completed masterpieces buried in HoMe (“The Fall of Gondolin” and “The Lay of Leithian”). Even if the result were thin volumes like Smith of Wootton Major or The Fall of Arthur, people do buy those. And I do greatly regret that “The Tale of Ëarendil” was never written, since Tolkien seem to have thought of it, from the time of his very earliest writings, as the greatest, longest, and most important tale of all his mythology.

However, there are so many things Tolkien DID write, that to me it’s easy to not get bogged down too much in regret over the things he DIDN’T write. And, thankfully, they HAVE been published.

[kent]

Tolkien improved as a writer between The Hobbit of 1937 and The Lord of the Rings of the 1950s, in fact he improved over the course of The Hobbit and the later chapters are very close in tone and effect to LotR. He desperately wanted to get The Silmarillion published after The Hobbit and when this proved impossible he desperately wanted The Silmarillion published to accompany The Lord of the Rings in some form, perhaps as a fourth volume.

For those who care about language, as I do, and think that ideas and language are intimately related, it should be said that The Silmarillion is a tightly structured compilation of well written material intended to cover the First Age in a coherent span. The History of Middle-earth on the other hand has a skeleton structure where long tales are loosely latched together, and those tales were written very early, typically before The Hobbit , and read like first drafts and frankly are poorly written in the main. Lets just say no publisher in his right mind would have published anything from The History of Middle-earth before The Silmarillion was published. This is not to say the ideas within the stories are poor, they are largely the same ideas conveyed with epic density in The Silmarillion. Personally I consider the HoME to be an appendix to or sources for The Silmarillion. I do appreciate being able to explore the ideas at greater length but lament the fact that they were not re-written post 1950s.

[cadriel]

Apr 21, 2014 12:51:25 GMT -6 kent said:

Tolkien improved as a writer between The Hobbit of 1937 and The Lord of the Rings of the 1950s, in fact he improved over the course of The Hobbit and the later chapters are very close in tone and effect to LotR. He desperately wanted to get The Silmarillion published after The Hobbit and when this proved impossible he desperately wanted The Silmarillion published to accompany The Lord of the Rings in some form, perhaps as a fourth volume.

For those who care about language, as I do, and think that ideas and language are intimately related, it should be said that The Silmarillion is a tightly structured compilation of well written material intended to cover the First Age in a coherent span. The History of Middle-earth on the other hand has a skeleton structure where long tales are loosely latched together, and those tales were written very early, typically before The Hobbit , and read like first drafts and frankly are poorly written in the main. Lets just say no publisher in his right mind would have published anything from The History of Middle-earth before The Silmarillion was published. This is not to say the ideas within the stories are poor, they are largely the same ideas conveyed with epic density in The Silmarillion. Personally I consider the HoME to be an appendix to or sources for The Silmarillion. I do appreciate being able to explore the ideas at greater length but lament the fact that they were not re-written post 1950s.

The published Silmarillion isn't what you are claiming it is, though. It's a relatively hurried attempt to put the full legendarium into a form that could be published in the wake of JRRT's death. It's quite clear in places (particularly in the jarring chapter "Of Aulë and Yavanna") and frequently within individual chapters where emendations and additions from disparate manuscripts have been made in the process of stitching together a book out of its constituent parts. The structure, and chunks of the text, is roughly taken from the "Later Quenta Silmarillion" as published in Morgoth's Ring and The War of the Jewels, but that peters out before the "Great Stories" begin (i.e. Beren & Lúthien; Túrin Turambar; and the Fall of Gondolin). The versions of the Great Stories in the Silmarillion are weak, particularly Gondolin, with Túrin having come out the best. Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay are considered to have written Chapter 22, "Of the Ruin of Doriath," virtually from whole cloth.

Personally, having read The History of Middle-Earth, my preference is for the work of the younger Tolkien, and I consider The Book of Lost Tales my favorite. Yes, it's rough and unpolished compared to the later versions he would work out, but it's grander and broader in vision, far more epic and less concerned with reconciling heroic mythology with Catholic theology. Tolkien became obsessed with the "marring of Arda" by Melkor's rebellion, and worked out changes (many of which appear in the published Silmarillion) to reflect this concept. It's older (in human terms), heavier, more "mature" and obsessed with the tragedy of loss, but also hews closer to the concept of Original Sin.

The published book is, with a few exceptions, selections from The History of Middle-Earth, mostly from Morgoth's Ring and War of the Jewels, with additions from elsewhere when needed. It's told in the wrong way, and it's forced into a single Quenta Silmarillion when Tolkien clearly no longer intended that..

Charles Noad suggested this order for the book:

Quenta Silmarillion*
Concerning the Powers:
Ainulindale
Valaquenta
The Great Tales:
The Lay of Leithian
Narn i Chin Hurin
The Fall of Gondolin
Earendil the Wanderer
The Later Tales:
Akallabeth
Of the Rings of Power
Appendices:
The Tale of Years
Of the Laws and Customs among the Eldar
Dangweth Pengoloo
Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth
Quendi and Eldar

* Of the beginning of days; Of the coming of the Elves; Of the flight of the Noldor; of the return of the Noldor; of the ruin of Beleriand

This would have allowed the work to stand as a true composite, and given proper weight to the Great Tales. The published version is an unfortunate mélange, an attempt to cram too much of the legendarium into a literary form in which it no longer fit.

[kent]

There are several of us editorialising here, imagining what instructions we would give Tolkien if we were in a position to publish his work in say 1955.

As someone who reads widely but only the very little worthwhile fantasy I would say to him, 'think about producing one thousand pages, 50% First Age and 50% Third Age'.

I would suggest a proportion of 100 pages for The Hobbit & 400 pages for The LotR. For the First Age I would suggest he write a 250 page Silmarillion - the overview very much as it exists, and then select two stories to tell in detail or perhaps three 80 page stories - The Children of Hurin and one or two others. The detailed versions of these stories have much redundancy from one to the other when examined closely concerning his depictions of Men & Elves & The Enemy.

[Falconer]

Without commenting on what Ronald or Christopher Tolkien ought to have done, I can comment on my own re-reading habits, which tend to run something like this:

LOST TALES
“Ælfwine of England” from vol. II (pp. 312-22)
The Book of Lost Tales, Part I (complete)
“The Tale of Tinúviel” from vol. II

LATER WRITINGS
“The Lay of Leithian” from vol. III
The Children of Húrin (chs. 1-12 with cut passages)
“Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin” from UT
The Children of Húrin (ch. 13 through p. 257)
“The Wanderings of Húrin” from vol. XI

BACK TO LOST TALES
“The Nauglafring” from vol. II (pp. 112-6; 221-42)
“The Fall of Gondolin” from vol. II (starting from Tuor’s arrival)


And frequently-read First Age materials outside the main stream include:

“The Awaking of the Quendi” from XI (pp. 420-3)
“Finwë and Miriel” from X
“Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth” from X
“The Lay of the Children of Húrin” from III

[kent]

Interesting in that it leaves out so much from The Silmarillion, that is from the First Age.

What works of Tolkien did you read from the formative years of say 12 to 18?

[Falconer]

I turned 18 in 1997, so, just about everything, except it might have been a few years after that by the time I was able to get a hold of a copy of The Peoples of Middle-earth. Also, The Children of Húrin and The History of The Hobbit have come out since then.

I know The Silmarillion inside and out; I just don’t think it has a lot of re-readability. It’s the same reason I don’t need The Complete Guide to Middle-earth anymore.

[Falconer]

More to the point, it’s The Book of Lost Tales that really brought the First Age to life for me.

[kent]

Apr 21, 2014 17:14:44 GMT -6 Falconer said:

I turned 18 in 1997, so, just about everything
...
I know The Silmarillion inside and out; I just don’t think it has a lot of re-readability.

How did you get to know The Silmarillion 'inside and out' without re-reading it? Do you have a photographic memory?

[geoffrey]

Apr 21, 2014 16:43:49 GMT -6 kent said:

What works of Tolkien did you read from the formative years of say 12 to 18?

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Book of Unfinished Tales
The Book of Lost Tales (I and II)
The Lays of Beleriand
The Shaping of Middle-earth

Then I didn't finish The Lost Road and Other Writings.

I still remember being a freshman in high school and walking after school to the local post office to pick-up my ordered copy of The Book of Lost Tales (the first one). As I started reading, I was thoroughly confused. "What the devil is this...?" As I read, I became ever more amazed at just how long and deeply Tolkien had thought about his legendarium.

[geoffrey]

Apr 21, 2014 16:05:00 GMT -6 kent said:

There are several of us editorialising here, imagining what instructions we would give Tolkien if we were in a position to publish his work in say 1955.

As someone who reads widely but only the very little worthwhile fantasy I would say to him, 'think about producing one thousand pages, 50% First Age and 50% Third Age'.

I would suggest a proportion of 100 pages for The Hobbit & 400 pages for The LotR. For the First Age I would suggest he write a 250 page Silmarillion - the overview very much as it exists, and then select two stories to tell in detail or perhaps three 80 page stories - The Children of Hurin and one or two others. The detailed versions of these stories have much redundancy from one to the other when examined closely concerning his depictions of Men & Elves & The Enemy.

I would encourage the following:

1. Write an honest-to-goodness sequel to The Hobbit, in which Bilbo, Gandalf, and the 10 remaining dwarves have another adventure. Keep it on the level of The Hobbit. This is just for fun and profit.

2. Complete and perfect the account of the Elder Days in a set of four narrative volumes (i. Beren and Luthien, ii. Children of Hurin, iii. Fall of Gondolin, and iv. Tale of Earendil). Into this Tolkien could pour his heart.

3. Keep the above two projects completely separate from one another.

[Deleted]

Apr 21, 2014 23:04:05 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Apr 21, 2014 16:05:00 GMT -6 kent said:

There are several of us editorialising here, imagining what instructions we would give Tolkien if we were in a position to publish his work in say 1955.

As someone who reads widely but only the very little worthwhile fantasy I would say to him, 'think about producing one thousand pages, 50% First Age and 50% Third Age'.

I would suggest a proportion of 100 pages for The Hobbit & 400 pages for The LotR. For the First Age I would suggest he write a 250 page Silmarillion - the overview very much as it exists, and then select two stories to tell in detail or perhaps three 80 page stories - The Children of Hurin and one or two others. The detailed versions of these stories have much redundancy from one to the other when examined closely concerning his depictions of Men & Elves & The Enemy.

I would encourage the following:


2. Complete and perfect the account of the Elder Days in a set of four narrative volumes (i. Beren and Luthien, ii. Children of Hurin, iii. Fall of Gondolin, and iv. Tale of Earendil). Into this Tolkien could pour his heart.

I agree. Much of Tolkien's later work with respect to his mythology was what most readers would consider relative minutiae (e.g., making the Quenta Silmarillion consistent with modern astronomy). I wish he had instead completed and perfected the most important stories of Middle-earth.

[Falconer]

Apr 21, 2014 17:56:38 GMT -6 kent said:

How did you get to know The Silmarillion 'inside and out' without re-reading it? Do you have a photographic memory?

Beginning in 1995, I helped build and run an online, text-based role-playing game called Beleriand MUSH. For many years, I kept the 1977 Silmarillion handy like a Bible, and flipped through it constantly for reference purposes. In those days, we considered the SIL77 to be definitive, and The History of Middle-earth series to be too obscure for general use (although unavoidably even then The Book of Lost Tales, Part Two was used to flesh out Gondolin and Nogrod).

Today, I find that approach too problematic. For one thing, by now, anyone who is REALLY into the First Age is going to have read HoMe. It has simply been around long enough to not be that obscure anymore. It seems foolish, now, to ignore its veritable treasure trove of First Age information. Secondly, Christopher Tolkien has admitted that many of his editorial decisions in SIL77 were erroneous — such as the whole-cloth inventions in “Of the Ruin of Doriath,” or the insertion of some of his father’s very late ideas which were never part of the narrative tradition (for example, radically changing Gil-galad’s parentage, renaming Fionwë to Eönwë, and demoting Ossë from his long-established position as one of “the Nine Gods”). Indeed, Christopher Tolkien has on multiple occasions expressed regret that the SIL77 “experiment” was ever undertaken. Nowadays, through HoMe, we have access to all (well, very nearly all) of the unedited manuscript texts on which SIL77 was based, and it seems to me self-evident that these sources bear greater authority.

More to the point of your question, I indeed HAVE re-read SIL77, I just find little appeal in doing so today.

[kent]

Falconer, you don't seem to have understood that JRR Tolkien wanted his first age presented in a form much like it was published in The Silmarillion, with the tales densely and briefly told and the whole of the first age and before covered in one volume. He worked on getting it in that form, that is collecting and retelling the early tales in a single narrative from the 1950s till his death. You must have a tin-ear for language if you haven't noticed how poorly written much of the HoME is and again you don't understand that JRR Tolkien wanted write about the first age using the kind of language we can read in The Silmarillion.

The foreword to The Book of Lost Tales is helpful here. JRR Tolkien in a letter wrote,

The legends have to be worked over (they were written at different times, some many years ago) and made consistent; and they have to be integrated with The L.R.; and they have to be given some progressive shape. No simple device, like a journey and a quest, is available

No wonder you exhausted your interest in The Silmarillion plundering it for facts for a computer game, rather than reading it continuously, leaving it alone for a while and reading it continuously again. The fact that you think your attitude to The Silmarillion, burned out after such vulgar misuse, is generally helpful in a discussion of its literary merits is mystifying.

Let's get Chris Tolkien's attitude to The Silmarillion straight. It was considered by readers to be a difficult book and he says it is debatable whether it was wise to publish it as if it was self-explanatory. He also says he thinks it was an error to publish it without a framework, where a framework is commentary and discussion of sources. He is not saying it should not have published it. He is not saying he should have published the HoME instead. Only an idiot could read the foreword to The Book of Lost Tales and not conclude that The Silmarillion was the primary work and that the HoME was intended to be that 'longitudinal' framework to allow readers themselves to answer questions about its construction. The HoMe accompanies The Silmarillion, it is not intended to replace it, and if you want to read about Sauron conceived of as a cat or Beren as an elf then go to it.

You come across as someone who would say they preferred the version of Lord of the Rings with Strider as a Hobbit, if it would make them appear to be a greater Tolkien 'scholar'.

[simrion]

Own it but never read it...It's on my To Do List, like slaying the Dragon! ;-)

[cadriel]

Apr 22, 2014 11:33:59 GMT -6 kent said:

You must have a tin-ear for language if you haven't noticed how poorly written much of the HoME is and again you don't understand that JRR Tolkien wanted write about the first age using the kind of language we can read in The Silmarillion.

Honestly, I'd say you should check your own ear for language if you find The Silmarillion (i.e. the 1977 published volume) to be in any way an exemplar of superior writing. It has no flow from paragraph to paragraph, mostly because large sections of it are actually stitched together from multiple sources. The early sections were not written fluidly; they were from different manuscripts (The Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals, written annalistically, and the Quenta Silmarillion, written as a fluid work, both found in Morgoth's Ring and The War of the Jewels.) In places it goes back to summaries written before The Hobbit, out of general paucity of source material.

It's also ironic for you to mock the language of The History of Middle-Earth and laud that of The Silmarillion, when most of the content in The Silmarillion is drawn from the same manuscripts as HoME. The published Silmarillion can and should be considered, not a "primary work" as you put it, but as a composition of Christopher Tolkien on the same level with its manuscript sources in HoME. Now, Christopher had the best position from which to compile it, but its form and flow and the choices made are his and very much not his father's. Tolkien's Silmarillion was never finished, and it does not help us to pretend that the first, deeply flawed attempt his son made to present the material is the real thing.

Many Tolkien enthusiasts prefer History of Middle-Earth because it actually does reflect Tolkien's ideas and his priorities. That it wasn't ever completed doesn't diminish the richness of what is there.

[Falconer]

Apr 22, 2014 11:33:59 GMT -6 kent said:

[Christopher Tolkien] says it is debatable whether it was wise to publish [the 1977 Silmarillion] as if it was self-explanatory. He also says he thinks it was an error to publish it without a framework, where a framework is commentary and discussion of sources.

Both defects have been corrected by the publication of The History of Middle-earth.

[Porphyre]

Yes, but that was some twenty years ago, so I would probably be a little embarassed taking a quiz' now

[Falconer]

Also, please try to make your point without personal attacks.

Or just quit, as your point seems to be that I should LIKE the 1977 Silmarillion better.

[kent]

I couldn't care less what you think about it so long as you don't talk crap about it in this thread.

[cadriel]

Apr 22, 2014 15:42:47 GMT -6 kent said:

I couldn't care less what you think about it so long as you don't talk crap about it in this thread.

You were the one who created a thread about The Silmarillion and seem to have expected universal acclaim for it, when in fact many Tolkien enthusiasts (those who've read HoME at least and understand the issues) have mixed feelings for it at best.

[Finarvyn]

[admin]

Guys, can we play nice? I assume we all share an enjoyment of Tolkien's works.

"This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Let's not bicker and argue about who killed who." -- Monty Python & the Holy Grail

[/admin]

[kent]

Apr 21, 2014 21:09:58 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

Apr 21, 2014 16:43:49 GMT -6 kent said:

What works of Tolkien did you read from the formative years of say 12 to 18?

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Book of Unfinished Tales
The Book of Lost Tales (I and II)
The Lays of Beleriand
The Shaping of Middle-earth

Then I didn't finish The Lost Road and Other Writings.

I still remember being a freshman in high school and walking after school to the local post office to pick-up my ordered copy of The Book of Lost Tales (the first one). As I started reading, I was thoroughly confused. "What the devil is this...?" As I read, I became ever more amazed at just how long and deeply Tolkien had thought about his legendarium.

Have you read the 1936 lecture, 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics'? Its about thirty pages long and best found in the Norton Beowulf as an appendix to Seamus Heaney's translation. It is interesting to see the extent of his literary sophistication contemporaneous with the writing of The Hobbit. He does not invest The Hobbit with any of these insights ! As with his letters he comes across as condescending and a bit of a know-it-all but I think he was defensive because he was fighting his corner in an academic culture more obviously loathing of fantasy and monsters for their own sake as is the case now.

[geoffrey]

Apr 24, 2014 10:44:44 GMT -6 kent said:

Apr 21, 2014 21:09:58 GMT -6 geoffrey said:

The Hobbit
The Lord of the Rings
The Silmarillion
The Book of Unfinished Tales
The Book of Lost Tales (I and II)
The Lays of Beleriand
The Shaping of Middle-earth

Then I didn't finish The Lost Road and Other Writings.

I still remember being a freshman in high school and walking after school to the local post office to pick-up my ordered copy of The Book of Lost Tales (the first one). As I started reading, I was thoroughly confused. "What the devil is this...?" As I read, I became ever more amazed at just how long and deeply Tolkien had thought about his legendarium.

Have you read the 1936 lecture, 'Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics'? Its about thirty pages long and best found in the Norton Beowulf as an appendix to Seamus Heaney's translation. It is interesting to see the extent of his literary sophistication contemporaneous with the writing of The Hobbit. He does not invest The Hobbit with any of these insights ! As with his letters he comes across as condescending and a bit of a know-it-all but I think he was defensive because he was fighting his corner in an academic culture more obviously loathing of fantasy and monsters for their own sake as is the case now.

Yes, but I didn't read that until I was about 20 years old. Though I have read it more than once, I haven't read it in a long time, and I do not remember much of it.

[havard]

Ive read it

-Havard

[Vile Traveller]

I've read it but couldn't get into it. In a historical context it's all mixed up with The Hobbit and LotR in my my mental image of Middle Earth, but as a novel it didn't live up to those two (not surprising, as it was only a compilation of JRR' notes).

[Falconer]

No, it is not a compilation of notes. Tolkien actually wrote a piece of literature which he called The Silmarillion. It is, however, more chronicle than romance. That is, its genre is closer akin to Appendix I of LotR than to the LotR proper.