![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
The Silmarillion: A commentary by someone who's been on the fringes of Tolkien for twenty years
There is SO MUCH to say about this book, and that's just so interesting on its own, given that it's the mythical backstory to a fantasy novel. Tellingly, most of what's interesting about it isn't the content as such, but the space this book occupies IRL.
On genre
I read LotR with the consciousness about it "wanting to create an English mythology" and never seeing it. Well, friends, I sure see it now. It's an interesting case of recognising a type of narrative I've never properly read, seeing that I've never read any classical text on any ancient mythology. But boy howdy do I recognise the style of it in Silmarillion anyway, because a reader occupying Tolkien's class would be as familiar with classical mythology as with the Bible, and anyone of his academical pursuits would be as well-versed in old Germanic texts. The genre (that's an approximation) is one that no-one could've gotten away with in 2019, at least not anyone with aspirations of an influence nearing that of Middle Earth; it would've been (hell, probably has been, numerous times) pointed straight to the garbage dump of "wannabe author having played too much D&D".
Of course, The Silmarillion is - or at least appears to the trained-but-not-in-those-text-types reader - to do a splended job of emulating the genre while creating a content that is simultaneously new and familiar. The stories all feel like they could've fit swimmingly into any old epic or bard's tale, if you discount the fact that 90% of the cast are, uh, elves. And even if it took about half the book to the get used to reading the style (which to be fair was the exact same for Mrs. Dalloway, which I read right before it), it wasn't ever boring. And I find myself wanting to know MORE about these stories and these people, so... good luck for me that both the fall of Gondolin and the story of Beren and Luthien appears to have gotten the Children of Hurin treatment?
On its reflection in LotR
I've been driving my car a lot, and listening to the BBC radio dramatization of LotR, a lot, this summer. (I like it better than the films. It has Glorfindel AND Radagast. But still no Tom Bombadil) On today's mission, I started back on FotR, but not before going through the soundtrack for themusical stage show. Which is absolutely amazing, but a story for another post of my gushing about their knowledge and love of the power of the French horn. For both of these incarnations of LotR, it was striking how just much of previously disruptive lack of context now was as familiar as any reference to the Bible might've been. So... yeah. My problem with LotR was primarily the fact that what I wanted was The Hobbit II, which LotR stops being after its first part. Secondarily, it was the text's assumption that I knew about all these important people that it mentions but never elaborates on. Silmarillion does the elaboration, and going back to LotR now, that entire story suddenly has a whole new layer of glittering beauty because just to mention one, Aragorn isn't just some rando with a defunct sword, but the culmination of a story going back two thousand years.
TL;DR The Silmarillion made The Lord of the Rings great again, pass it on.
A bit on the content, then (8/10 needs more dwarves)
For the LotR reader, there isn't really a whole lot of character backstory here, since 95% of the cast is either dead or relocated to Elf Paradise by the end. The only LotR survivor to get any much detail here is Galadriel, and she doesn't get a lot but we at least know some of what she was up to before settling in Lothlorien; the same goes for Elrond, though his history is much shorter. As mentioned, we get to know the deal of what was going on with Aragorn's ancestry, but the primary focus on all tales are people who aren't around any longer by the time of LotR.
It's not a novel in any way, but I liked reading those stories.
In the end, I was left with only one question and the internet answered it: No, nothing is ever said about the Moriquendi leaving Middle Earth, only the Noldor.
It's a very important issue, okay. And the fact that I can now ask that question says something about how deeply into the pit I've fallen *g*
On genre
I read LotR with the consciousness about it "wanting to create an English mythology" and never seeing it. Well, friends, I sure see it now. It's an interesting case of recognising a type of narrative I've never properly read, seeing that I've never read any classical text on any ancient mythology. But boy howdy do I recognise the style of it in Silmarillion anyway, because a reader occupying Tolkien's class would be as familiar with classical mythology as with the Bible, and anyone of his academical pursuits would be as well-versed in old Germanic texts. The genre (that's an approximation) is one that no-one could've gotten away with in 2019, at least not anyone with aspirations of an influence nearing that of Middle Earth; it would've been (hell, probably has been, numerous times) pointed straight to the garbage dump of "wannabe author having played too much D&D".
Of course, The Silmarillion is - or at least appears to the trained-but-not-in-those-text-types reader - to do a splended job of emulating the genre while creating a content that is simultaneously new and familiar. The stories all feel like they could've fit swimmingly into any old epic or bard's tale, if you discount the fact that 90% of the cast are, uh, elves. And even if it took about half the book to the get used to reading the style (which to be fair was the exact same for Mrs. Dalloway, which I read right before it), it wasn't ever boring. And I find myself wanting to know MORE about these stories and these people, so... good luck for me that both the fall of Gondolin and the story of Beren and Luthien appears to have gotten the Children of Hurin treatment?
On its reflection in LotR
I've been driving my car a lot, and listening to the BBC radio dramatization of LotR, a lot, this summer. (I like it better than the films. It has Glorfindel AND Radagast. But still no Tom Bombadil) On today's mission, I started back on FotR, but not before going through the soundtrack for the
TL;DR The Silmarillion made The Lord of the Rings great again, pass it on.
A bit on the content, then (8/10 needs more dwarves)
For the LotR reader, there isn't really a whole lot of character backstory here, since 95% of the cast is either dead or relocated to Elf Paradise by the end. The only LotR survivor to get any much detail here is Galadriel, and she doesn't get a lot but we at least know some of what she was up to before settling in Lothlorien; the same goes for Elrond, though his history is much shorter. As mentioned, we get to know the deal of what was going on with Aragorn's ancestry, but the primary focus on all tales are people who aren't around any longer by the time of LotR.
It's not a novel in any way, but I liked reading those stories.
In the end, I was left with only one question and the internet answered it: No, nothing is ever said about the Moriquendi leaving Middle Earth, only the Noldor.
It's a very important issue, okay. And the fact that I can now ask that question says something about how deeply into the pit I've fallen *g*