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Post by cadriel on May 5, 2014 11:31:23 GMT -6
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. It's not exactly accurate to say this. Tolkien worked throughout his life on the stories that are presented in the "Quenta Silmarillion" in The Silmarillion, but the format in which they are published in that book is not a literary invention of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien had tried to put the stories down in a format that was consistent, satisfying to him, and publishable as a book. The only time he wrote a complete version of the legendarium was the short "Quenta Noldorinwa" found in The Shaping of Middle-Earth. Every other attempt was incomplete in one way or another, missing various parts. His post-LotR efforts ( Morgoth's Ring and The War of the Jewels) broke it into two parts: the two sets of Annals (The Annals of Aman, dealing with Valinor, and the Grey Annals, dealing with Arda), and the Quenta Silmarillion, which focused on the creation and theft of the Silmarils. The published Quenta Silmarillion follows the incomplete post-LotR material where it can, except that it doesn't deal with the round-earth issues at all (Tolkien was torn on this), and to the extent it can be, it is a composite of the Annals and the later Quenta Silmarillion. This is supplemented where necessary by material from the pre-LotR work. In a few cases, chapters are shuffled around (such as "Of Aulë and Yavanna") or heavily invented (particularly in "Of the Ruin of Doriath"). I'm not saying this to be pedantic. People get confused about the genre of The Silmarillion, because it is a mixture of a flowing narrative (Quenta Silmarillion) and annalistic history (Annals of Aman / Grey Annals). It's made up of parts of both, with predictably odd results.
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Post by geoffrey on May 5, 2014 16:04:28 GMT -6
The only time he wrote a complete version of the legendarium was the short "Quenta Noldorinwa" found in The Shaping of Middle-Earth. That's my favorite of Tolkien's posthumously-published work. It is interesting to note that it was written at the same time as was The Hobbit.
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Post by Porphyre on May 6, 2014 1:01:44 GMT -6
It was one of my favourites by the time I read it (I was 15).
I actually really liked this mixture of genres. The fact that the narration could flow back and forth, from the "big picture" , and then focused on the particular story of one individual, gave -in my eyes, at least- the feeling of "organicity" to the whole thing, and a very "biblical" tone.
The Lost Tales, were more "primitive", but still coherent in a litterary sense, like reading the Mabinogion when you're more familial with the latest versions of the Arthurian Cycle.
The Rest of HoME, in the other hand, are more something like an academical or erudite work, rather than litteraty work, to me .
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Post by Vile Traveller on May 6, 2014 8:04:04 GMT -6
What I mean is that it's not JRR's finished work, but Christopher's compilation and expansion of his father's separate and/or unfinished writings. So, as a novel, it doesn't hang together as a novel the way the other books do.
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Post by cadriel on May 6, 2014 8:46:58 GMT -6
The Rest of HoME, in the other hand, are more something like an academical or erudite work, rather than litteraty work, to me . For me, I fell in love with the Beren and Lúthien story (and to a lesser extent, the Gondolin and Túrin stories) to the point where I was willing to go through all the drafts to see what glimpses of that tale Tolkien had left. Even though the Lúthien and Túrin chapters are the longest in the published Silmarillion, I still don't feel it did them justice; that's why I am critical of the published work.
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Post by kent on May 6, 2014 16:08:01 GMT -6
[admin Edit]Golly, that doesn't sound right.[/admin edit]
What a waste of time.
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Post by Falconer on May 6, 2014 19:35:22 GMT -6
It's not exactly accurate to say this. Tolkien worked throughout his life on the stories that are presented in the "Quenta Silmarillion" in The Silmarillion, but the format in which they are published in that book is not a literary invention of J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien had tried to put the stories down in a format that was consistent, satisfying to him, and publishable as a book. The only time he wrote a complete version of the legendarium was the short "Quenta Noldorinwa" found in The Shaping of Middle-Earth. Every other attempt was incomplete in one way or another, missing various parts. His post-LotR efforts ( Morgoth's Ring and The War of the Jewels) broke it into two parts: the two sets of Annals (The Annals of Aman, dealing with Valinor, and the Grey Annals, dealing with Arda), and the Quenta Silmarillion, which focused on the creation and theft of the Silmarils. The published Quenta Silmarillion follows the incomplete post-LotR material where it can, except that it doesn't deal with the round-earth issues at all (Tolkien was torn on this), and to the extent it can be, it is a composite of the Annals and the later Quenta Silmarillion. This is supplemented where necessary by material from the pre-LotR work. In a few cases, chapters are shuffled around (such as "Of Aulë and Yavanna") or heavily invented (particularly in "Of the Ruin of Doriath"). I'm not saying this to be pedantic. People get confused about the genre of The Silmarillion, because it is a mixture of a flowing narrative (Quenta Silmarillion) and annalistic history (Annals of Aman / Grey Annals). It's made up of parts of both, with predictably odd results. I agree with all of this, the word “notes” is just a trigger word for me in this context.
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Post by kent on May 7, 2014 8:42:04 GMT -6
If you two, Falconer and Cadriel, want to continue cutting and pasting your 'knowledge' straight from HoME then start another thread to do it in.
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Post by cadriel on May 7, 2014 9:00:08 GMT -6
If you two, Falconer and Cadriel, want to continue cutting and pasting your 'knowledge' straight from HoME then start another thread to do it in. Cut and pasted from HoME? That's not accurate. I'm basing most of my assertions on the book's creation on Arda Reconstructed by Douglas Charles Kane. He lays out how The Silmarillion was constructed by Christopher Tolkien from drafts that are available in HoME. It's a bit dry but it shows, in detail, how the book this thread deals with was made. Each paragraph is dealt with, including the inventions by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay (which I feel mar the resulting work). It seems odd to want to exclude scholarship dealing with The Silmarillion from a thread about the book.
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Post by Leonaru on May 14, 2014 7:38:23 GMT -6
I read it about ten or twelve years ago and have forgotten 95% of its content.
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Post by jmccann on Jun 29, 2014 13:27:01 GMT -6
I have just read the book for the first time, partly in response to this thread. The book has been sitting on my shelf unread for years and I am glad to finally have read it.
It is a tremendously interesting instance of world building even if you leave aside the constructed languages. I plan to reread the book in a few months, and then I will probably read TH and LOTR again. I also have Unfinished Tales but I probably won't tackle that until later.
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Post by kent on Jun 29, 2014 16:03:59 GMT -6
Good stuff, that was the primary purpose of the thread, to encourage the reading or rereading of The Silmarillion. I find on rereading the book it is the less familiar chapters or tales which take me by surprise with delightful details.
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Post by dukeofchutney on Jun 29, 2014 17:42:21 GMT -6
I'd never got around to reading it. But this thread has sparked my interest. My reading list is quite long at the moment though, I have copies of the Histories and the Worm of Ouroboros sitting next to the bed.
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Post by The Semi-Retired Gamer on Jul 1, 2014 10:18:03 GMT -6
I've read a little bit and I keep intending to read the entire work. Reading this thread has sparked my interest so it is moving up on my to read list...
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Post by kesher on Jul 2, 2014 8:24:20 GMT -6
At this point, I think I've read it five times. Every few years it calls to me, usually in the fall... I get something new out of it every time.
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Post by tkdco2 on Aug 16, 2014 1:13:10 GMT -6
I read the Silmarillion before The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, although I heard of/saw the Rankin-Bass cartoons before then. I loved it. I probably wouldn't be half the Tolkien fan I am today if not for the Silmarillion.
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