The Silmarillion: J.R.R Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien

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The Silmarillion

Authors: J.R.R Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien

Genre: Mythopoeia and Fantasy

To anyone who loves The Lord of the Ring and The Hobbit here is a book you must read for sure. It was complex, I am not going to lie, perhaps, it was the most complex book in the world of fantasy that I've read before. When I found out that The Silmarillion was the most beloved work that Tolkien wrote, I was surprise because how can any work surpass the glory of The Lord of the Rings? So naturally, I bought the book and devour it. It is not a big book but you will take a long time to memorize every single bit of it, after all we are reading the formation of an entire world. I see why many people stop reading the book and gave it a second or a third chance, this is a book for die hard fans.

There are some theories on how u should read Tolkien's book. In chronological order is what makes more sense to me, The Silmarillion, The Hobbit and then The Lord of the Rings. However other way to do it without losing the magic is reading it after you read LOTR. If you read it before all his works, you will enter in LOTR era with full knowledge of what is going on, and if you read it after it will be more complementary. I will let you guys decide, in the end this book is still magical.

In the Silmarillion we will see the very beginning of middle earth, before the ring, before the hobbits, before the almighty elves and the toughs dwarves, and most important before Pippin's Second Breakfast. 

 

Like I said before, The Silmarillion tells the story of the beginning of the first age of middle earth, where the Gods and the first elves and the first men appear. Eru was the name of the God who created the Valar and Maiar, the Gods responsable for the creations of the world, from the moon, the sun, the trees, the mountains and the creation of the first evil. Melkor will be the antagonist here, he is the god who rebeld against the other Gods, and his name as the Dark Lord is Morgoth. 

 

The creation of 3 precious stones called Silmarils, as pure as something can be, are the reason why there will be so many troubles, those stones will shake both Gods as Elves and Men, for those are the reason why the elves rebelled against the Gods and mainly where Morgoth oppression started in full force.

The first house of elves are spoken here, specially because is one Elf who created the Silmarils, the 3 stones embed in the powerful dark crown of Morgoth, and this books talks specially about the quest of the elves in getting those Silmarils and the following disasters. We can also find out about the creation of dragons and balrogs which is super interesting and loved when they entered in action!

 

The first house of men also appear here, the humans who created all the houses, and the importance they had together with the elves on getting those Silmarils. We can read about the first love between a human and a elf, how that love shake the world, the outcome of that love, the sons and daughters, the Silmarils, the halls of Mandos.

 

Not only them of course, but we can say that that couple shook Morgoth world in a very unexpected way, and from there it came a lineage that will end up in Elrond's blood, which was surprising in a very positive way. 

 

One thing I really appreciated in this book is how organized it is, there are many topics, all of them related to the Silmarils, directly or indirectly, we can read about war, love and death, loss, about the poor Túrin Turambar (no, really, poor POOR Túrin Turambar), the fall of Morgoth and a bit about the second and third age. I must refer again that this book is mainly about the first age, but some characters here are in the second age and of course in the third age where the entire plot of The Lord of the Rings take place. Some familiar names like Sauron, Galadriel, Gandalf and Elrond are included here, specially Sauron who in this book is only a serve of Morgoth. It is surprisingly funny to see the back stories of these characters who seem mystical in the LOTR. 

 

I must confess it is quite hard to write a review that seems fairly complete, because no matter what I write, there will be always that feeling that I miss so much about the book and I do not wish to write a resume telling the entire story, because I don't want to spoil the story for my readers, but it is like I said before, The Silmarillion is the Bible of middle earth it is quite impossible to write a review without slipping some extra information here and there. 

My opinion about The Silmarillion?

In the beginning it was very confusing to read, the names, are sooooo many but if you keep reading you will see they are repeated many times so you end up memorizing everything. The chapters telling diferent stories end up crossing all the characters path so we can see how everything is connected and that is how we end up remembering every name and places. It is hard to read but when you finish it, it is quite fullfilling.

Do I recommend it?

Absolutely! For any person who enjoys LOTR or The Hobbit and wants to know a bit more about Middle Earth, this book is a must! It is for sure for DIE HARD fans because it takes alot of commitment to finish the books. It is small but is complex. 

 

My favorite character(s)?

Well, I must confess that I loved the story about Feanor, and his Silmarils. Luthien and Beren are also one of my favourite stories, and Túrin Turambar.

 

Rating: my rating for this book will be 7 out of 10. It may be surprising and not many people will agree with my rating which is okey, but even though I loved the book it really took alot of commitment to read it, it worked for me because I was interested to know more about this world, but for someone who wants to know it as well and doesn't want to waste too many time frying the brain over names and houses and plots, it is way easier to go to the internet where everything is resumed and find out- The grammar is excelent, but it is alot of information in a small book compared to the LOTR which is 3 big books. Not many people will want to buy it and I understand a bit why they did not wanted to release it at first. However for those who LOVE middle earth as I do, I highly recommend this book and if you commit to read untill the end, you will want to re read it again because it is super interesting, highly surprising, it has the WOW factor, you will find out things that you didn't got it at the first time you read it and it is book created with utterly love by its writter. 

 

 

I hope you liked my Review!

Feel free to comment your opinion, we are very interested in knowing more points of views,

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