Tonight I finished The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkein. Man, that was dense and a decided pain in places. For those of you unfamiliar with this work, it’s basically the mythology of Tolkein’s world, starting with the creation of the universe and ending (at a very general overview level) with the events of the Lord of the Rings. It’s pretty clear to me that Tolkein never meant for this thing to be published as a novel, or if he did he was in serious need of an editor.
It’s not structured like a novel and often derails into pointless spasms of genealogy and lists of Mount This and The River That. There’s also probably about one page’s worth of actual dialog in the whole thing, making what would normally be a medium-sized book (300 pages) a dense mass of tangled text with page-long paragraphs. It was tough enough for me to get through that I procured an audio book version from the San Diego public library and listened along to parts of it while I read. It kept the momentum going and forced me to pay attention.
Even with all that said, though, I enjoyed great swaths of the Silmarillion and I’m glad I pushed through it. I always find creation myths fascinating, and it was cool to see Tolkein basically take us all the way from the creation of the world to the events of Lord of the Rings, though much of the tales were told in generalities. I did, however, enjoy the stuff about Morgoth (Sauron’s predecessor and mentor) kicking ass until the gods have to finally get up out of their chairs and come out of the West to slap his punk ass down.
It’s not recommended for those just picking up Tolkein, but it does make a nice ending for those who got through and enjoyed the whole Hobbit/LotR saga.
I’m glad you enjoyed it and made your way through it. That is a lot of work to read a book. I don’t have that kind of discipline!
I find that hard to believe coming from someone who’s just getting ready to finish law school. The Silmarillion must read like the back of a cereal box compared to some of the stuff you’ve had to get through. 🙂
Yeah but no one was going to give you a grade for reading that book! If a book I’m reading for pleasure does not grab me fairly soon, I will abandon it. I seem to remember a book called The Corrections that every one was raving about. I tried really really hard but I just did not like it and did not care about any of the characters. I decided life was too short!