J.R.R. Tolkien: Silmarillion review

It has been several years since I first started reading Tolkien's Silmarillion for the first time. At that time I didn't finish. I read one third of the book, got mixed up with all the names of the elves and places and whatsoever and decided it wasn't time for it yet. (And yes - I did start Lord of the Rings twice and at the third time I finished it)
Now it was the time since I decided to read all the unread books from my bookshelf.

For my surprise it wasn't as difficult that I remembered. Though I had read Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (what a horrid book) just before it and compared to that everything is easy.

Silmarillion is an epic tale of the history of Middle-earth and the early times of elves and men. It includes the short stories called Ainulindalë - the creation of Arda (earth), Valaquenta, which describes the valar and the maiar, Quenta Silmarillion, which is the main story: history of elves and men, Akallabeth, which describes the rise and the destruction of Númenor, and the final part reveals how the rings were made and what happened in before and during Lord of the Rings.


Silmarillion is a tough book and difficult, no doubt. It's an epic like Finnish Kalevala (and it includes some elements similar to it, like in the the tale of the Children of Húrin - which I'll read later on too) and the language is quite archaic at times. Though I did read it in Finnish, so I can't say much of the original piece, but I can imagine it.
Because of the epic style language was difficult to read as there weren't commas in the places where they should have been for making the text easier to read. (Then again the use of commas is different in Finnish and English, so the translator might have taken some stylish liberties from English.)

The other hard part is the amount of names. Tons of names on people, elves, places, valar and so on - both in elvish and in the language of men, so no wonder you get mixed at some point.
There is a list of names in the end of the book (at least in the version I read), so that'll help in the case of confusion, but it also distracts the reading.

My hint is not to concentrate too much on the names but in the story. You can't remember all the names and that's not the point. The point is the awesome world and the amount of work Tolkien has done to create this epic tale.

If you're interested in Lord of the Rings and the Middle-earth, you should take a peek in Tolkien's biggest work.
It might not get into you in the first time, but as my partner said: on the first time you just read it. On the second time you realise what it's all about. And on the third time you think it's the best of his works.

/ [Caterin S.]

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