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The Silmarillion

J.R.R. Tolkien

3.96 · Rating details · 246,218 ratings · 9,771 reviews

Alternate cover can be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

The story of the creation of the world and of the First Age, this is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back and in whose events some of them, such as Elrond and Galadriel, took part.

The three Silmarils were jewels created by Fëanor, most gifted of the Elves. Wi ...more

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Paperback, 443 pages

Published December 2019 by HarperCollins (first published September 15th 1977)

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Mar 28, 2010 Manybooks rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommends it for: serious fans of Middle Earth

Shelves: book-reviews, tolkien, fairy-tales-fantasy, folklore-myth-religion

I had tried to read J.R.R. Tolkien' The Silamarillion multiple times in the past (and always unsuccessfully) and had basically given up, but I finally did manage to realise that I was attempting to read it the wrong way; I was trying to read The Silmarillion like I have read and with pleasure reread LOTR, as a story, an epic story, of course, but still first and foremost as a story. Now while The Silmarillion is of course also partially a story, it is (at least for me) first and foremost a relig ...more

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Mar 03, 2018 Mario the lone bookwolf rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: tolkien-j-r-r

That´s how worldbuilding has to be done the ultimate overachiever way. The only true one, the writing a life long on it mode, the one narrative style to rule them all.

Don´t expect anything similar to Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, this is Tolkiens´s self made manual, the extreme, pedantic, perfected expansion of the wonderful addendums that make general high fantasy with all its maps and sci-fi timelines and tech trees with astronomical maps so amazing.

But, as said, be aware, these stories are That´s how worldbuilding has to be done the ultimate overachiever way. The only true one, the writing a life long on it mode, the one narrative style to rule them all.

Don´t expect anything similar to Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, this is Tolkiens´s self made manual, the extreme, pedantic, perfected expansion of the wonderful addendums that make general high fantasy with all its maps and sci-fi timelines and tech trees with astronomical maps so amazing.

But, as said, be aware, these stories are disguised nerdgasms so full of the language Tolkien adapted from originals and invented himself, such a celebrating of OCD perfectionism, a planning close to no modern nowadays author would invest in her/ his work, the work of a lifetime, that it´s truly no easy read.

But some of the best and most successful fantasy and sci-fi writers do it in a similar way, invent extremely detailed universes with cultures, fractions, detailed geography, etc. often inspired by the behemoths that came before them or mythology. It seems to be the necessary and intelligent effort to be able to live in these worlds and thereby describe them in a way impossible for the ones who just write without true passion and obsession. It must be a kind of wonderful fusion of learning the self made theory, internalizing the world, fusing protagonists, worldbuilding, and plot, and in this way intensifying the flow and pleasure of creation. Just as I do it with my deeply disturbing cosmic body horror extreme terror sci fi nightmare fuel visions, sigh.

Speech is a mighty tool and how Tolkien used his expertise and knowledge to pimp the old originals, that inspired his work, and created new combinations and own languages, is how it has to be done. Whoever is into linguistics and language in general, or simply wants to know what the deeper meanings and ideological and magical backgrounds of LotR are, can dive deep into the immense detail of this aspect.

Tolkienoholics, people with no real life or no interest in one like me, aspiring dark overlords and writers, etc. should watch this in awe and especially remember and appreciate that he used his academic knowledge; not to bore the heck out of poor students in the all perpetrating combination of anachronistic teaching methods still used nowadays everywhere in soft humanities; to create something worthy of being called magic, maybe even holy, because of its positive influence on the world by founding the genre of high fantasy. So one should do research, know the originals, and study the tropes and how they evolve. It´s all about these tropes, humans themselves are a combination of epigenetic memes gone bonkers in their parents, just created like new subgenres out of the old ones.
Back to the show: If one is into playing with language, cool names, loads of mythology, and of course LotR backstory, this is the perfect, fine brew to consume in small doses and, for best results, contrast and compare with the original in addition. Might also be a good idea to combine it with a real rereading or first time reading (shame on you) LotR, because it gives the extra info to better fully dive into the world.

I will probably do it that way, just as I like to read my sci-fi and fantasy extra, outsourced exposition explanations about characters, chronological timelines, maps, fandom, etc., to get the flow better started.

Don´t expect an average short story collection, this is far beyond what one is used to see as a prequel, sequel, extra short story collections, or whatever else is nowaday instrumentalized in the mainstream fantasy sci-fi industrial complex to boost the sales.

Might also be handy if one is into LARPG and wants to impress the hot elves with nerdiness so concentrated that it takes control over the brain applying it, whispering to the mind about seductive levels of fandom indistinguishable from complete loss of perception of reality.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph... ...more

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Apr 09, 2007 The Crimson Fucker rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Ever since I joined GR I’ve been putting off the writing of this book’s review… but since I’m high as fuck on cold medicine I feel like I can do it so here suffer thru it!:

Along long time ago a little 3rd world kid with an afro became fascinated of what he read on the internet about some British writer named Tolkien… he wanted his books… it became his obsession… so he embarked on a quest to find his books and read the shit out of them… but alas! The book was no where to be found on his dumb litt Ever since I joined GR I’ve been putting off the writing of this book’s review… but since I’m high as fuck on cold medicine I feel like I can do it so here suffer thru it!:

Along long time ago a little 3rd world kid with an afro became fascinated of what he read on the internet about some British writer named Tolkien… he wanted his books… it became his obsession… so he embarked on a quest to find his books and read the shit out of them… but alas! The book was no where to be found on his dumb little island… but that wasn’t going to stop our little afro hero… he looked and looked, he went to used bookstores, he ordered 5 times in the expensive ones, he looked online, on the streets, even on the flea markets… but they were not to be found… one day after wating for 2 hours for his translator to finish translating and E-copy of The Lord of The Ring: The Fellowship of The Ring. Into Spanish and realizing that it made no fucking sense once translated… our little afro hero went into the internet and founded the only bookstore with most of Tolkien’s work on stock… in Spanish! But there was only one problem… the fucking bookstore was in freaking Spain… the cost of the books + S&H was way more of what our hairy friend had on his piggy bank… so he did the unthinkable… his parents had been bitching about his afro for months…. So he proposed to them that in exchange of his fro they should give him the books he wanted… and they accepted… in an act of self mutilation* our fuzzy friend shaved his head to show his parent’s his anger over making him lose his fro… after that the money was given to him… he could order now (his parents weren’t as stupid as he always thought) and that day.. That day the curse was born!!! It was like the curse of Feanor… but lame, the books took an entire year to arrive… now imagine our froless hero waiting and waiting and calling and emailing and checking and re checking for a whole mother fucking year with his shaved head… (for those of you who wonder this is why I will never again buy a book from the internet, I’m fucking traumatized) but when they got there… how to put it into words… I read the first book (600 pages) in one day… the second in 3 days, the third in 2 days, the fourth on a day and a half… and then it was time for the Silmarillion…

I didn’t know nothing about the Silmarillion… I left it for last cuz I thought it would be the most boring one… and boy was I wrong! The first part The Music of the Ainur was such a mind blowing experience to me to the point of I cannot talk about anything else but how metal it sounded that my friends started complaining (somebody got to the point of threaten me that if said something else about Melkor being the coolest I was going to get punch in the balls) I mean if you ever read this book you should know how Melkor invented heavy metal on it… then it was the lamps and all the gay stuff that I didn’t like… that’s when I used to think Melkor was the coolest… then came The Trees… and I was just fascinated of how beautiful everything was… I know it sounds mad gay! But it was!!! And then Melkor did something that made me stop thinking of him as the coolest… he killed The Trees… is not like I cried or anything like that… but you know that was fuck up! The guy is cool and all but I know it sounds stupid… but I did like those Trees man… =( by this time I was so lost in this book that one could actually call it an obsession… I was walking while reading, talking to the characters… (if I were to get a penny for every time I told a character on this book “turn back you fool” I’d be rich by now!)… look I don’t wanna ruin anything to anybody I could honestly talk for hours about how fucking awesome Feanor is…. Or how big Fingolfin’s balls are (bigger than Steven’s) or how beautiful Luthien was and how I wished she never met Beren, or how fucking sick and twisted Morgoth gets… I mean the man was sick! But I need to stop! Cuz if I don’t I’ma be here for ever… I wanna say is that Tolkien was the mother fucking greatest of all times man… this is just such a beautiful book…

*:(even tho the paper don’t agree with me on this… it was self mutilation!!! She has no idea how “attached”
I was to that fro!!!!)

...more

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Sep 21, 2009 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fantasy, novels, 20th-century, mythology, epic, fiction

The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien

The Silmarillion is a collection of mythopoeic works by English writer J.R.R. Tolkien, edited and published posthumously by his son, Christopher Tolkien, in 1977, with assistance from Guy Gavriel Kay.

The Silmarillion, along with J.R.R. Tolkien's other works, forms an extensive, though incomplete, narrative that describes the universe of Eä in which are found the lands of Valinor, Beleriand, Númenor, and Middle-earth, within which The Hobbit and The Lord of the R ...more

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Jan 17, 2014 Sean Barrs rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: tolkien, 5-star-reads, fantasy

Writing a review of the Silmarillion is like trying to review the Bible. Where do you even start? There’s just so much story in here. Any attempt to convey it in a review would be to do the book a massive disservice. There would only ever be enough space to talk about one or a few elements of the work.

So instead I thought I’d give my reasoning as to why every Tolkien enthusiast needs to read this in order to fully understand Tolkien: the sheer depth of the work.

“It is said by the Eldar that in Writing a review of the Silmarillion is like trying to review the Bible. Where do you even start? There’s just so much story in here. Any attempt to convey it in a review would be to do the book a massive disservice. There would only ever be enough space to talk about one or a few elements of the work.

So instead I thought I’d give my reasoning as to why every Tolkien enthusiast needs to read this in order to fully understand Tolkien: the sheer depth of the work.

“It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.”

description

The history of middle-earth is very rich, and it stretches a very long way. Much further than the time of Sauron and the Ring. And this sense of history is only very briefly glimpsed within The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit if at all. The Silmarillion is the entire picture; it is the entire vison of Tolkien’s fantasy world. It’s a huge piece of world building, and there really is nothing else quite like it. In here he relays a huge amount of history, a truly staggering amount for a fictional world to possess.

I often talk about the need for world building in fantasy, and here it is in full force. It’s astonishing. It’s beyond imaginative. It goes further than anything before it and since. And this is why Tolkien is the master of the genre. He wasn’t the first, and he certainly won't be the last to write such fiction, but he was the best writer to ever attempt it. He more than set the benchmark when he wrote this. So if you’re thinking about reading this, but find the task at hand a little bit too daunting, then stop thinking. Pick this book and lose yourself in the history of the greatest fantasy universe ever created. You won't regret it.

________________________________

You can connect with me on social media via My Linktree.
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Dec 20, 2008 Manny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: if-research-were-romance, science-fiction, linguistics-and-philosophy, transcendent-experiences

How To Build A Truly Convincing Fantasy World

1. It's all about the language. Make sure your world's language is convincing, and you're pretty much there. Conversely, if your language sucks then everything else will.

2. Your book can't include more than a few sentences in your invented language without losing your audience. But it can include plenty of names. So what people will really judge you on is the quality of the names.

The rest of this review is available elsewhere (the location cannot be g ...more

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Dec 17, 2013 Markus rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: read-more-than-once, fantasy, team-rocket, 2015, mythology, favourites, to-reread, tolkien

Buddy re-read with Shii!

I’ve been contemplating whether or not to tackle the challenge of actually reviewing this masterpiece for quite some time now. In the end, after having finished reading it for the second time, I realised that I should at least throw out my thoughts on it. So here we go…

This is in my eyes the most impressive book ever written.

Notice how I did not say “best”. That was completely intentional. I do not believe it is the best book ever written, even though I know others think ...more

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Aug 03, 2017 Charlotte May rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: epic-fantasy

"Oh woe-begotten spirit, fall now into dark oblivion, and forget for a while the dreadful doom of life."

I must admit. I struggled.

Though I love the Lord of the Rings and the Middle Earth Universe with all of my heart, tackling a large part of its history in this manner was tough going.
The world Tolkien created is absolutely extraordinary, without a doubt. Unfortunately The Silmarillion is written as a long history or mythology of biblical proportions. Name after name, battle after battle, son ...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Szplug rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Sauron was become now a sorceror of dreadful power, master of shadows and of phantoms, foul in wisdom, cruel in strength, misshaping what he touched, twisting what he ruled, lord of werewolves; his dominion was torment.

Ah, Sauron, Maia of Aulë—beyond doubt the singularly most enthralling antagonist whom I encountered as a young reader, possessing all of the malevolence and dark charisma and naked power of Satan, but unhobbled by the multi-aspectual morphology of Christian theology and popular culture that far too often rendered the Devil a ridiculous figure: a wild-eyed and beastly fornication ringmaster cavorting with naked acolytes; a scarlet-skinned, pitchfork-wielding fashion model for forked-tails and forehead horns; or slyly smiling traveling salesman, pitching his gimcrack wares backed by loosely-enforced contracts claiming lien upon some drink-tossed wastrel's dubiously-valuable soul. But Sauron—the dude fell, the dude schemed, the dude was scary, whether donning the raiments of a beautiful, translucent ring-wise man or an unbearably, searingly abhorrent humanoid vessel of the void.

There exists no other book that I've read as many times as The Silmarillion. Much more than the questing, heroic storyline of The Lord of the Rings was I drawn to the background of all those tumultuous events, the grand personages and royal lineages that stretched back into the mists of primordial time. Where did Sauron come from? From what pit originally arose the Balrog? What order was Gandalf exactly a member of? Who were Beren and Luthien, and what relevance did their own story have to this ultimate chapter of the War of the Rings playing out on the pages before me? Immediately that I finished the trilogy I rushed into the Silmarillion; and though at that time I was still too young to appreciate the allusions to other great mythologies, to the wonderful intricacies of the languages that Tolkien had constructed for his Middle-Earth races, to the powerful theme of tragedy—always linked with a hubris of the striving spirit—that was enjoined to the Noldorin rebellion against the Valar and their heroic-but-doomed struggle against Melkor, He Who Arises in Might, Morgoth Bauglir the Black Enemy—Radical Valar Renegade, Spawner of the Orcs, Dark Lord of the Balrogs, Tutoring Patron of Sauron; in toto, Supreme Badass Motherfucker of all Middle-Earth—still I was held spellbound by these glimpses into the Great Creation, the Dawn of Elves and Men, the Noldorin Exile and the fate of the Silmarils, which ended with such a perfect balance, the priceless jewels at rest at the bottom of the sea, the deepest of earthen chasms, and the highest heights of the heavens. What's more, after the breaking of Beleriand the reader is presented with the awesome arc of the founding and the doom of Númenor, in which Sauron gloatingly laughed atop the Island's mountain temple and lustfully defied the punishing lighting strokes that sizzled through the nighttime air; and the concluding overview of the War of the Rings, in which much is explained that makes The Lord of the Rings even more enjoyably complete than when the trilogy—and its prequel The Hobbit—were the only source for the incredibly deep history that Tolkien had woven from his lifelong love of language.

These annals, with their brilliantly-etched admixtures of beauty and short-lived heroic triumphs set against an overpowering sense of futility and tragic defeat at the hands of an enemy whose cunning is as deep as the infernal pits of his cavernous dungeons and whose malice engirds the star-kissed world, whose very corruption has been bled into the core of creation itself, were just what were needed to spark a young imagination; Tolkien's private amusements and delights mirrored my own in their fledgling form, and inspired me to tributary tasks of creation that nobody else could understand or appreciate but which gave me immense personal satisfaction. They awoke within me the powerful demiurgical desire to craft worlds, populate them, endow them with their own gods and mythologies, formulate a history, laden it with political systems, the whole works, all in the service of a time-bound fate that culminates in an apocalyptic showdown betwixt the dark and the light. At that point in a person's life, when the complex and inscrutable mathematical rituals and hierarchical causality of all-powerful modern science have immense appeal but few handholds, the prismatic and primal allure of myth and magic, the intuitive interconnectedness of nature with the sorcerously creative will of man, even at that tender age a force struggling to avoid restraint and desperately endeavoring to draw power from those spiritual furnaces deep within, the font of dreams, such tales of heroism and fortitude in the face of the supernatural are, for many, very hard to resist. What's more, the channeling of natural phenomenon into organic spirits with anthropomorphic features and forms offers another intuitively-appealing means to understanding a vast material world that otherwise seems awesomely inexplicable and frighteningly unpredictable. Stories that tap into our innate desire both to be entertained and be edified by human theatre set within the panoramic vistas of a horizon-hid past—Tolkien delivered in spades.

I don't care that it was edited by Christopher Tolkien and Guy Gavriel Kay and, thus, can't be declared canonical. Who gives a shit? Some complain that it reads like a Middle-Earth bible, that its archaic style and portentous prose are a labor to struggle through, and provide nothing as satisfying as the great trilogy he had wrought. Ah, tell it to the judge. They read like the annals composed from the mythological strains that wend across a mysterious, fate-bound history that they, in fact, are: it's just that this particular history was played out solely within the mental confines—a rich cerebral theatre—of the author, and possessed a coherence and potency to rival the mythologies of the Greeks or the Northmen. What more could a reader want? If Tolkien's labour of love, crafted and edited, reworked and rewritten, was of such an amazing expressiveness and beauty and power that it both upheld the Ring Trilogy and lit its mythological intimations with a fulgent blaze that only served to augment one's appreciation of the latter's depths, then why not put it out there for that multitude of fans who were dying to sample more of the mystical marvels from one of the greatest and most uniquely imaginative minds of the past century? ...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Forrest rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Though I had many near-misses with The Silmarillion throughout the years (having been introduced to Tolkien's universe by discovering The Hobbit in my school's library in 5th grade), I finally slogged my way through it during the summer after my sophomore year of college. The first two years of my undergraduate degree were rather gruelling, and I wanted, more than anything else at that time, to just read a bunch of books I wasn't required to read. After making my way through The Complete Sherloc Though I had many near-misses with The Silmarillion throughout the years (having been introduced to Tolkien's universe by discovering The Hobbit in my school's library in 5th grade), I finally slogged my way through it during the summer after my sophomore year of college. The first two years of my undergraduate degree were rather gruelling, and I wanted, more than anything else at that time, to just read a bunch of books I wasn't required to read. After making my way through The Complete Sherlock Holmes, I decided to revisit Tolkien.

I had read The Hobbit twice before and the Lord of the Rings once (and a half). As I've stated, I dipped my toes in The Silmarillion, but never let myself dive in. This time, in the interest of reading something other than required reading, I jumped in with both feet.

It was cold. And deep. And dark. It took a while to feel my limbs. It took even longer to get my arms and legs moving, but I soon found I was OK: Still breathing and able to dog paddle.

As I worked my way into it (and it was work!), I discovered that certain tidbits in the myths and legends of middle earth rang familiar. I knew that much of The Silmarillion had been "back-written" after the fact, which might strike people as some sort of disingenuous act on the part of the Tolkiens. I was thrilled. Here I learned who Elrond was, the significance of the fall of Saruman, and the true nature of and relationship between Gandalf and the Balrog. This was a revelation.

I plugged my way through and finished. No, I didn't remember everything and I probably never will. That summer was a unique opportunity for me, to read almost interrupted for such a long stretch. I followed up by reading The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in succession, immediately after finishing The Silmarillion. Then, and only then, did I appreciate the full magnitude of Tolkien's brilliance. It was a whole new world. I had already visited it, but now the scales fell from my eyes and I saw it in a whole new light. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were transformed, for me, from great books to epic.

Rather than being caught up in complaining about how difficult The Silmarillion was, I felt richly rewarded. I had worked for the glittering prize and it was even more beautiful than the time when I first laid eyes on it in that musty school library in Nebraska. Can nostalgia be forward-looking? It was for me that summer. I was caught in some sort of blissful time-loop that only released me when the urgency of school set upon me again that fall. But something joyful was sparked in me that hasn't ever fully left, thanks to The Silmarillion. ...more

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Dec 11, 2018 Petrik rated it liked it · review of another edition

3.5/5 stars

With a new interest and determination, I have finally finished reading The Silmarillion.

I have failed this book twice and I was so sure that I won’t attempt reading it again. However, I have just finished re-watching The Lord of the Rings trilogy extended editions and reading the Three Great Tales of Middle-Earth that’s edited by Christopher Tolkien. I know this is not the recommended reading order but it's only because of doing these two activities that I found a new interest, knowle ...more

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Jul 30, 2011 Lyn rated it really liked it · review of another edition

*** 2022 Reread

I reread this wonderful book in anticipation of the upcoming Prime Video series. Still as good as ever.

Tolkien tells the story of the beginning of Middle Earth and has provided us with a very cool mythology for his creation. We learn about the Valar, the Maiar (of whom Gandolf and Suaron are both members) the tribes of the elves and the fall of the great cities of the Elves in Middle Earth.

The closing chapters also talks about Numenor and the rise and fall of the that great island ...more

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Sep 20, 2020 Brett C(urrently deployed...can't read too much) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: high-fantasy

This is an epic masterpiece. This is the cosmology and history of Middle-earth. It starts with the creation of the world by the god-like being, Iluvatar. From there He creates angelic beings called Valar and Maiar. These beings interact with each other, create things, and the story perpetually unfolds. We learn of the creation of Elves, of Men, of Dwarves, and lots of other entities. There is Fëanor and the creation of the Silmarils, wars fought, and much more. Then there's Melkor: the angelic b ...more

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Mar 12, 2014 Annemarie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-favs, read-in-german

The whole day, I have been trying to find the best words to use in this review, but how can you find the right words to describe perfection? This book was just a delight to read, from start to finish. The fact that a single man was able to create a fictional world with so much detail absolutely blows my mind. You can feel the love Tolkien had for Middle-earth in every word he writes. The way everything comes together makes it hard to believe that all of this is truly just fictional. There is so ...more

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Dec 18, 2018 Hannah Greendale rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: tolkien, fantasy, fiction

In terms of reading interest, this oscillated between three and five stars, but with respect to what Tolkien accomplished here, The Silmarillion deserves nothing less than five stars.

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Sep 24, 2017 James Trevino rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: all-time-goodies

Time for James’s unpopular opinion: I liked this better than The Lord of the Rings!

Before saying I am crazy, hear me out (actually, if you have nothing better to do, then read this review; if you have, then I gave this 5 stars, so you know my opinion anyway! See, you can’t say I don’t care for your time!).

Silmarillion tells the tale of the making of the world by Eru, the God of Middle-Earth and all that followed through the first two ages of creation, up until the events described in The Hobbit Time for James’s unpopular opinion: I liked this better than The Lord of the Rings!

Before saying I am crazy, hear me out (actually, if you have nothing better to do, then read this review; if you have, then I gave this 5 stars, so you know my opinion anyway! See, you can’t say I don’t care for your time!).

Silmarillion tells the tale of the making of the world by Eru, the God of Middle-Earth and all that followed through the first two ages of creation, up until the events described in The Hobbit and LOTR. Christopher Tolkien did a great job of connecting his father’s writings on the subject, so we have a nice and chronological story. But it is not a novel exactly, for it covers countless years.

Eru and his Valar, spirits of great power, create Arda, which is the Earth that is seen and there they make the world ready for the coming of the First Born, the Elves. The Second Born, Men, come too at some point. Silmarillion is broken into 4 parts:

1. Ainulindale (the creation part)
2. Valaquenta (the bulk of the story, chronicling the rise of the Elves and then their fall from grace, the deeds of Melkor (or Morgoth), the greatest of the Valar that fell to darkness, also the master of Sauron (how awesome is that?!); and there’s also the coming of men and their part in the war that followed)
3. Akallabeth (of the great kings of Numenor, the ancestors of Aragorn from LOTR)
4. Of the Rings of Power and The Third Age (basically a summary of what happened in The Hobbit, LOTR and a bit before that)

Now, I said it is not exactly a novel. Silmarillion is written as a combination between The Bible and a history/mythology book. It has a huge number of characters, with some of them being very prevalent. You learn here of a lot of the things only mentioned in LOTR: like Galadriel and Elrond’s origins, Earendil, Gil-Galad, Hurin, Turin, the fall of Gondolin, the great city of the Elves, the Silmarils, the most beautiful jewels ever created, the great love story of Beren and Luthien, the archetype for the fate of Aragorn and Arwen.

I said I prefer this to LOTR and that is because the scope of Silmarillion is unimaginably huge. Next to it, the events in LOTR seem like child’s play. It is much more epic than LOTR and some of the characters really stick with you. The archaic style is also something I loved, unlike many people reviewing this book.

Actually, I am surprised at the low grade this has here on Goodreads. The only explanation I have for it is the fact that a lot of readers search for instant gratification these days. Sad really. It is true though that if you want to read this Tolkien epic, you need patience and attention. But it is soooooo worth it!

Now, I hope that some movie studio will adapt this one day (in a series of 10 movies or so that would be needed to fit all the story).

All in all, it is by far the best book I (re)read this year! ...more

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May 30, 2008 Cecily rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: god-religion-faith, ya, classics, fantasy-faeries-magic

This is the epic backstory and mythology of Middle Earth. The grandeur and beauty of the language, and indeed the content, is reminiscent of the King James edition of the Bible, beloved by Tolkien.

Its beauty is sometimes counterbalanced by its opacity. My child was keen to read it, but aged only 7 or 8, struggled, so I read it aloud, which was quite a challenge: convoluted sentences half a page long, and complex genealogy, exacerbated by characters and places referred to by two or more names fr ...more

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Aug 22, 2021 John Mauro rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

J.R.R. Tolkien turns the world-building knob all the way up to 11 in The Silmarillion, which is a masterclass in high fantasy.

This book is Biblical is scope and also Biblical in its writing style. It's not for the casual reader, but it is a goldmine for the Tolkien enthusiast.

This particular edition of The Silmarillion is gorgeous. It is published on high-quality paper and features 45 pages of beautiful artwork. The artwork truly enhances the reading experience.

This edition also includes a foldo ...more

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Jul 28, 2021 Lena rated it liked it · review of another edition

Maybe I shouldn't have read this before The Lord of the Rings or maybe I just don't like this type of narration ('ancient myths and legends' type), but I didn't enjoy it all. Way too boring for my taste. Although Tolkien showed himself as a brilliant linguist and myth-maker it was completely impossible to follow dozens various plot lines. The amount of names (people, places, nations and events) is overwhelming and tiresome. ...more

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Sep 16, 2017 Krystal rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: myths-legends-and-retellings, heartbreak-hotel, tolkien, light-fantasy, must-re-read, classics, faves, owned

I think of all the worlds I've visited in books, that created by Tolkien will always be my favourite.

The detail is so rich and its history so compelling that it so easily comes alive for me. If you want to know more about Middle Earth, the info is there. You just have to find the book that tells it. If you're looking for more beyond The Lord of the Rings, this is that book.

Now, I'm not going to lie - the first 150-or-so pages are a bit of a slog. This could be retitled "A Condensed History of Mi ...more

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Dec 28, 2018 Piyangie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: my-library, brittish-lit, fantasy-classic

The Silmarillion gives a clear and comprehensive history of the mythological world Tolkien created to set his Lord of Rings trilogy. In five parts, he describes the world of which Middle Earth is a part, the spirits who rule the world (who the Men called gods), the making of Elves, Men, and Dwarfs, and the events that took place in the world, especially on Middle Earth from the First Age to the Third Age. In short, The Silmarillion can be safely described as a forerunner to the Lord of the Rings The Silmarillion gives a clear and comprehensive history of the mythological world Tolkien created to set his Lord of Rings trilogy. In five parts, he describes the world of which Middle Earth is a part, the spirits who rule the world (who the Men called gods), the making of Elves, Men, and Dwarfs, and the events that took place in the world, especially on Middle Earth from the First Age to the Third Age. In short, The Silmarillion can be safely described as a forerunner to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Amidst the history, The Silmarillion also tells the dark story in the First Age, where Elves and Men in league battle with the First Dark Lord, Morgoth, to recover the "Silmarili" (three perfect jewels) which he has stolen from the High Elves. The bulk of the story (Quenta Silmarillion) is devoted to the heroism and valour of the Elves and Men in their terrible war against Morgoth, in the absence of the support of the ruling spirits (gods). Although I say there is a story (for there is), it is not a continuous and smoothly flowing story; in fact, the story is continued in detached episodes. Yet there is a sort of connectivity between the chapters to keep the readers on track with the story.

There are a huge number of characters, both Elves, and Men, without proper notes or charts that you cannot keep track of. The same can be said to places and battles. There were some helpful charts and maps in the edition I read which made the read a little easy. But I should have taken notes as I read along. That is something to remember when I return to it again (for I do plan to reread).

This was an interesting read, though I admit that it was one of the most difficult books that I read. What is amazing is the thoroughness that is displayed by Tolkien in creating this mythological world, the characters - Elves, Men, Dwarfs, Gods, Dark lord, and his creatures. The main characters being Elves and Men are described to the minutest detail including their different races and their descendants. It is really impressive. I have read that Tolkien always felt the absence of British lore and had felt the need to remedy the defect. I think his works quite compensate for that absence.

I did enjoy the read but I think I would have enjoyed it more had I given my full reading attention without other books getting in the way. So when I do return to this, I want to take proper time and space to read it. ...more

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Jun 18, 2016 Amalia Gkavea rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, fantasy, british-literature, european-heritage, european-culture

“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”

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Feb 03, 2011 Jen - The Tolkien Gal rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Buddy read with the lovely Karishma

Karishma, you are the Tolkien queen!

Image result for silmarillion deviantart

...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Bradley rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: worldbuilding-sf, fantasy, 2019-shelf

This is actually my third time reading and I feel kinda bad because I keep picking up big new details I missed the first couple of times I read it.

Well, maybe I don't feel *THAT* bad. I mean, it is DAMN full of names and genealogies and it's probably a bit worse than having to slog through the Iliad for all that.

BUT. And here comes the huge, fire-belching butt of Melkor...

The Silmarillion is likely the best book of mythology I've ever read.
Better than any rendition of the Greeks or the Nordic. ...more

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Aug 07, 2015 Paul E. McPaulface rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-read-in-2019, books-read-in-2017

For the uninitiated, The Silmarillion is a history book of Tolkien's Middle-Earth, the land in which The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place (as well as many other works by Tolkien, most of them unfinished).

It's written in a very different style from his more famous works and I think a lot of people are put off by that. I have to say that, as big a Tolkien fan as I am, even I find The Silmarillion a bit dry and repetitive at times. For anybody who loves The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rin ...more

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Aug 05, 2016 leynes rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

OKAY THIS IS MY FAVORITE THING RIGHT NOW AND I'M ACTUALLY IN TEARS THAT I ALREADY FORGOT HALF THE NAMES (I'M WRITING THIS REVIEW ONE MONTH LATE) BUT I'M ALSO FULL OF JOY BECAUSE I KNOW THAT I WILL RE-READ THIS FRIGGIN' MASTERPIECE MANY TIMES THROUGHOUT MY LIFE.

This is my favorite work of Tolkien so far... I have only read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings BUT WHILST THESE ARE FANTASTIC ALREADY, THE SILMARILLION IS 10 TIMES BETTER!

In my opinion Tolkien is really brilliant at shaping a world an ...more

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Aug 04, 2014 Duane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: reviewed-books, rated-books, english-calssics, fantasy

The Silmarillion is difficult to read and I don't think it is even meant to be read straight through like a novel. Another reviewer put it best when he said "The Silmarillion is like the Bible, it's the Bible of Middle Earth". It's the magical setting of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and it tells the history of the place, the inhabitants, the languages, and the legends that came before Bilbo and Frodo. For you Ring fanatics, you haven't finished the story until you've read the history. ...more

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May 05, 2019 Juho Pohjalainen rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

"The Shadow that bred them can only mock; it cannot make: not real, new things of its own."

Imagine if instead of throwing a tantrum and trying to destroy everything, Melkor had discovered his hidden talent for satire? ...more

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Jun 07, 2019 Trish rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I was quite apprehensive going into this. I needn't have been.

This isn't exactly a story like LOTR itself but an account of the beginning of the Tolkien universe until the events at the end of LOTR, all written in an almost novel-like fashion.

Want to know Galadriel's family tree? Or where the White Tree of Gondor comes from (the Tree of the King)? Or how the Orks were made? If Sauron was the worst and most powerful bad guy ever? What the difference between Elves, dwarves and men are? Why the elv I was quite apprehensive going into this. I needn't have been.

This isn't exactly a story like LOTR itself but an account of the beginning of the Tolkien universe until the events at the end of LOTR, all written in an almost novel-like fashion.

Want to know Galadriel's family tree? Or where the White Tree of Gondor comes from (the Tree of the King)? Or how the Orks were made? If Sauron was the worst and most powerful bad guy ever? What the difference between Elves, dwarves and men are? Why the elves in the LOTR book(s) didn't fight alongside humans anymore? Then this book is for you.

There are some names that I recognized early on (simply because certain elves are that old) but most was completely new. However, that didn't hinder my enjoyment one bit. I might not be able to quote the history of this universe after this first read but that's also not necessary. I simply enjoyed the hell out of the writing style and depth of the history. Tolkien not only came up with some interesting kingdoms, not even only with a fascinating planet, but with an entire vast universe. He combined typical mythological figures with Christian elements and made it more about the actual events than single characters.
Not to mention that there is one hell of a lot of magic here, and magic of a few very specific kinds that worked perfectly together. Thus, we not only get the creator of the universe, his immediate children, their offspring and eventually elves and dwarves and men, but also magical trees and giant always-hungry spiders, special jewels and more.

There is a lot of information packed into this. However, thanks to Tolkien's wonderful writing style, it read like a very well-crafted mythology book. Well, and it is. But here's the kicker: while it's true that every mythology is made up, though "real" mythology is grounded in humanity's history, Tolkien took elements from the Norse and Greek mythology (and, possibly, some others) and created a completely new one that is just as vivid, interesting and engaging. In short: it's realistic as hell. What I mean is that if there's a WW3 and all knowledge gets destroyed along with every human except for small children and if those children were then to find only a copy of this book left in the ruins, there was no way for them to know that this isn't actually our history/mythology but fantasy (well, except for this one having orks, monstruous spiders and giant eagles *lol*). It's THAT good.

If we look at it objectively, it doesn't matter if we read the Edda or the Iliad/Odyssey or Tolkien's work. They are all made-up stories and they are all insanely entertaining. What was most funny was having read LOTR last month and now reading the same story in such a condensed way as it is only one part of a very vast history.

Telperion and Laurelin, the two Trees of Valinor

I'm seriously enarmoured with this and am very likely going to read it again. ...more

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Sep 08, 2018 William Gwynne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, favourite-series, fantasy

A beautiful edition of The Silmarillion arrived today. It is immediately taking a prized spot on my bookcase. I'm feeling an irresistible desire to pick it up and read again, so I will be doing so in the coming months, following it with The Hobbit and then LOTR. Can't wait!

A video discussing why you should read The Silmarillion. Many have said it better than myself, but I hope my passion for this collection of wonderful stories can be seen.

Why You Should Read The Silmarillion ...more

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About J.R.R. Tolkien

J.R.R. Tolkien

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John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, p John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets.

Tolkien’s most popular works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are set in Middle-earth, an imagined world with strangely familiar settings inhabited by ancient and extraordinary peoples. Through this secondary world Tolkien writes perceptively of universal human concerns – love and loss, courage and betrayal, humility and pride – giving his books a wide and enduring appeal.

Tolkien was an accomplished amateur artist who painted for pleasure and relaxation. He excelled at landscapes and often drew inspiration from his own stories. He illustrated many scenes from The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, sometimes drawing or painting as he was writing in order to visualize the imagined scene more clearly.

Tolkien was a professor at the Universities of Leeds and Oxford for almost forty years, teaching Old and Middle English, as well as Old Norse and Gothic. His illuminating lectures on works such as the Old English epic poem, Beowulf, illustrate his deep knowledge of ancient languages and at the same time provide new insights into peoples and legends from a remote past.

Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 to English parents. He came to England aged three and was brought up in and around Birmingham. He graduated from the University of Oxford in 1915 and saw active service in France during the First World War before being invalided home. After the war he pursued an academic career teaching Old and Middle English. Alongside his professional work, he invented his own languages and began to create what he called a mythology for England; it was this ‘legendarium’ that he would work on throughout his life. But his literary work did not start and end with Middle-earth, he also wrote poetry, children’s stories and fairy tales for adults. He died in 1973 and is buried in Oxford where he spent most of his adult life. ...more

Books by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)

The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)

The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings, #3)

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Dragons, demons, kings, queens, and the occasional farm boy (with a special destiny, of course): Fantasy literature has it all! To celebrate...

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Quotes from The Silmarillion

“It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.” — 310 likes

“Many are the strange chances of the world,' said Mithrandir, 'and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the Wise falter.” — 212 likes

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