The Silmarillion
Ratings477
Average rating3.9
Many people call the Silmarillion dense – they say it's too hard to read, they say it's clunky and slow-going – and it's true. But so is a lot of Lord of the Rings. Tolkien writes like a historian, in this sense, and with the attention to detail and passionate worldbuilding he put into his life's work, it's no wonder he would want to share as much of it as he possibly could, spilling out into multitudes of different volumes just to fit it all in.
I read the Silmarillion for the first time just after reading Lord of the Rings, and I devoured it. It describes the beginning, the early times in Middle-Earth, and it is absolutely fascinating. I would recommend it to anyone who wants more time in Middle-Earth.
“Among the tales of sorrow and of ruin that came down to us from the darkness of those days there are yet some in which amid weeping there is joy and under the shadow of death light that endures. And of these histories most fair still in the ears of the Elves is the tale of Beren and Lúthien”
The lore isn't all that interesting as a whole but I'm sure if he'd been able to complete it it would make sense. As it is, this is to blame for all the fantasy authors who Care Too Much about their world and think their readers care as well.
This book is packed with wonderful lore about Middle Earth. I would definitely recommend reading this after you've fully read and understoood both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as this kicks the information thrown at you up to a whole new level. Andy Serkis narrating this book really helped with my comprehension, but I still feel that this book needs to be read multiple times before I can fully grasp and understad everything.
While a pretty difficult and often dry read, you really have to appreciate the amount of worldbuilding and thematic storytelling that Tolkien did.
What a journey! It's taken me 30+ years to read this thing, I've started and given up numerous times. I'd built it up as a marathon and set myself to fail...until now. For some reason this time I waded in, kept my feet wet and before you knew it I couldn't stop reading. This thing is incredible, the level of detail, the beauty of the prose, the sheer depth is unbelievable. So why not 5 stars? Well it's still a monster of a book to grapple with. I doubt anyone could read this and absorb everything the first time so I'm leaving that final star for some future re-read, for now, I'll return to the rest of Tolkien's writing in a whole new light...the road goes ever on.
I didn't expect myself to enjoy this book so much! It was fascinating exploring Tolkien's enormous world building, and the only thing that made it tougher to read near the end was the difficulty keeping track of the characters.
I felt myself invested in the shorter stories, and really liked seeing the greater arcs of the Silmarils and Rings play out in the background. I know most people consider this like an encyclopedia, but I thought it read much easier than that. Maybe i just like reading lore and worldbuilding...
There are some good stories here, but I don't think Tolkien would've published this as it is in a million years, and I couldnt've got throught it if it wasn't for the amazing performance by Andy Serkis in the audio version.
The introduction chapters by Christopher and the letter by Tolkien himself were super interesting.
The first two chapters add a lot to the middle-earth lore while also being well written and not super dense like the rest of this book and I to my knowledge you can't get the stories they tell anywhere else which is a problem with later chapters.
After those, the book becomes this ultra dense without much editing text of history, that it's that, a history book that you have to study to get the “value” out of it and I don't think you are meant to study fantasy as we do our history, since we don't live in the middle-earth world as much as we would like to XD.
Then come the good chapters, but they have their own standalones fleshing way more their stories out, so really there's no need to read this and I would've love to know this before reading the book.
Overall I still see value in this book as a curiosity thing and I'm not against the idea of it being published, but hey those are my thoughts.
A hard one to rate. When it's good, it's really good - essential - but when it's less good, it's bone dry. The good bits, I really loved. I loved that the entirety of the Lord of the Rings is summarised in pretty much three pages right at the end. Makes me wonder what some of the other stories would be like if they were written and characterised in detail.
Pretty boring book with the exception of a few stories. I will say that the world building was incredible but what really set the bar for this book and saved it from being terrible in my opinion is the outstanding illustrations by Ted Nasmith. Definitely a top 3 illustrator for me.
Loved it.
I thoroughly enjoyed these legends and the way they are told (most of that was due to Martin Shaw's great narration, I think).
The only thing left unanswered - the origins of Hobbits. The creation of Elves, Dwarves and Men was described and explained and Hobbit were just hinted at in the last part of the book. I was very curious to find about Hobbots' orgins, as (as far as I remember) it's not explained in the later books.
I'm glad I finally got to reading The Silmarillion (I was going to for quite a while) and I'm going to continue to The Hobbit and LOTR now :)
Beautiful, wonderful, no criticisms, aaaaaaaaaa.
I know people like to tease this book by saying that it's like reading the Bible or something like that, but in my opinion that's one of its strengths. This tale is gorgeous and sweeping and it elevates your state of mind so high into the clouds that you feel like a divine being, watching these events transpire and the years roll on. Absolutely brilliant.
Completamente fora de mim! Nem acredito que finalmente li esse livro (venho tentando desde a adolescência, mais ou menos).
This was such a difficult read, and I had to take it slowly to fully understand it. The book spanned across many generations, races, and languages so there was a lot to keep up with. The rating is on the lower side for me due to the two mentions of incest which I was not a fan of. Otherwise it was an interesting story of how Middle-earth came to be.
Actually this was a reread and I found myself enjoying the book a lot more than the first time.
De hecho, esta ha sido una re-lectura y he disfrutado mucho más que la primera vez.
This was a lot more engaging and readable than I remembered or expected. I guess the last time I tried to read it, I was too young for it (I was probably a teenager). Anyway I was prepared to slog through it, and I guess it did take me a YEAR because I would read one of the sections and then go read something else, but I am glad I finally read this, and I have a lot of Tolkien nerd thoughts about it.
Misc (I may add more later):
* Turin and Beleg: Tragic, epic, extremely gay love story which someone should 100% make into a movie
* “Doomed to die” - Mortals were gifted with the “doom”, i.e. fate, of mortality. I always read this line as the nine rings killed the Ringwraiths, but rather, “mortal men doomed to die” is a description of the race of Men (and what sets them apart from the Elves); Sauron in fact tempted the Ringwraiths by saying they WOULDN'T die, and with the rings, they did not – they wasted away until they became wraiths and thralls of Sauron
“Potenti sono gli Ainur, e potentissimo tra loro è Melkor, ma questo egli deve sapere, e con lui tutti gli Ainur, che io sono Illùvatar, e le cose che avete cantato io le esibirò sì che voi vediate ciò che avete fatto. E tu, Melkor, t'avvedrai che nessun tema può essere eseguito, che non abbia la sua più remota forma in me, e che nessuno può alterare la musica a mio dispetto. Poiché colui che vi si provi non farà che comprovare di essere mio strumento nell'immaginare cose più meravigliose di quante egli abbia potuto immaginare”
Ho letto con profonda tristezza le epiche e tragiche vicende de Il Silmarillion, che niente invidiano ai miti epici nordici o ellenici, seppur creati per un mondo immaginario e alieno creato dalla mente di un professore inglese solo nello scorso secolo.
Quest'opera rientra sicuramente tra le opere più suggestive e imponenti mai lette, che sono riuscite a raggiungere un livello di credibilità tale che il sottile velo tra realtà e fantasia si fosse sciolto, tanto che ho difficoltà a non considerarle come un antologia di gesta epiche dei giorni Antichi. Non saprei dire se sono stati più convincenti i dialoghi che sono riusciti a fare una breccia nel mio cuore o la tragedia. Sono certo che i sentimenti di dolore e di perdita trasmessomi dai grandi attori della storia, le magnifiche aule scavate nella terra e nascoste tra magiche foreste, o ancora le battaglie più aspre e memorabili, mi hanno procurato un perenne sense of wonder completamente alienante. Rimarranno spero sempre impresse nella mia mente lo sconforto dei figli di Hùrin, lo scontro tra Morgoth e Fingolfin, le peripezie di Beren e l'amore di Luthien che ha generato Eärendil che è riuscito laddove nessuno dei mortali. O ancora La Caduta di Gondolin, della Caduta del regno di Numenor, e con esso tutto ciò che di bello e magico restava a fronte di un lento ed inesorabile decadimento di tutto ciò che era bello.
Quest'opera non è solo l'opera epica più bella che abbia mai letto, ma anche l'opera più credibile, in un genere dove questa caratteristica è fondamentale. Ho apprezzato anche lo spettro cristiano, e la dose di filosofia fatalista a tratti conservativa e nazionalista che permeano nelle storie, tocco personale -e forse involontario- dell'autore che cerca di inquadrare concetti come la vita, l'arte, la bellezza e il male. Tuttavia mi sento di consigliare di affrontarlo nella maniera giusta, a piccole dosi, apprezzando frase dopo frase perché nient'altro merita tanta attenzione come Il Silmarillion.
