I read it in High School. It sated any desire to read translations of bronze and iron age holy texts, so that was a benefit. As far as its being an enjoyable read, however...
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this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Looks like you tried to read it without a notebook. That's a rookie mistake.
A pin board and a lot of red thread helps too.
translations of bronze and iron age holy texts
Wait, what do you mean by that? I know Tolkien borrowed a lot from old texts like the Norse and Icelandic sagas, but I have read only the four popular Middle Earth books, and have dipped up to my ankles in Icelandic sagas, so that's as much as I can say for certain.
There's also Beowulf - of which I have read a version, a translation - and the myth of Arthur and Camelot, what I know is what I've seen in Excalibur, which is one of my all-time favorite movies, in my personal Top Twenty to be sure.
But Bronze Age and Iron Age? To put the history of Middle Earth in these terms is blowing my mind a little bit over here, as I have only recently understood the differences between these two surprisingly different eras.
Ancient was ancient and it was all one blurry smudge of names and land and years counted in negative numbers. Then I started to delve a little bit, particularly on YouTube, and it's like the past popped into 3D and in color, in my mind, to suddenly understand the difference between Sumerian and Akkadian, or between the Medic and the Punic wars.
And frankly, I find the Bronze Age to be much more fascinating and compelling, the first great spurt of civilization, suddenly finding itself with time for organized contemplation for the first time, as well as that most astonishing of inventions - writing, allowing the arts, engineering, infrastructure, sciences, etc. to flourish.
The old Greeks themselves codified this concept into their mythologies:
Kronos (Time) + Mnemosyne (Memory) = The Muses (the inspirations of man).
When that memory got transferred to clay tablets or papyrus scrolls, the curve of knowledge started going exponential, more knowledge in ever shorter cycles.
To now realize that there is a similar level of depth perspective in the Silmarillion, is making Middle Earth pop a bit in 3D and in color in my head.
The Silmarillion is definitely the "Bible" of Middle Earth, and its structure, content, and style all reflect that. I was mostly just cracking wise about the similarities.
Silmarillion was never meant to be a book, Tolkien's son who compiled and organized it to create the work, which is why chronological reading is so difficult
I just finished listening to the audiobook, it's really good, I highly recommend it.
I wanted to do a reread, and settled on the audiobook. If you don't already know the stories, the audiobook is completely incomprehensible. The language is intentionally obtuse and the names all sound alike and you can't even browse back a bit or check the massive lists at the back.
So a good audiobook to fall asleep to?
Honestly yes. You kinda got to let it go and stop worrying about the specifics. All the places and people blend together. I was listening to it driving and Serkis's delivery is just beautiful, but I still had to turn it off because I was zoning out
I honestly seek out audiobooks to fall asleep to. I will have portions of songs on repeat in my head otherwise and it used to take me an hour to fall asleep. Now I can tell how long it took me to fall asleep because of how far in the book I need to rewind before I can remember something happening. Lately it's been tough to get through a book because I keep falling asleep within 5 minutes.
For long drives it's definitely necessary to have a book you can really get into. I loved the Stormlight Archives done by GraphicAudio because there was music and background noises and each character had a unique actor (or at least an actor playing with different accents). Helped a couple of 11 hours drives pass by.
Now try Gravity’s Rainbow.
No one's read it. But a hell of a title.
Then as it turns out, a current tech challenge in astronomy concerning gravitational waves, is to parse them through a detector analogous to a prism, to break these waves up into component parts, not unlike a gravitational rainbow.
So it turns out to be not just a poetic flight of fancy, it may describe something that might actually exist. The Universe is always stranger and more wondrous that we can imagine at any given point in time.
I'm working through it right now and it has been a real slog. Although it's gotten easier around 1/3 of the way through.
I shall not mention "Feersum Endjinn" ¹ to them, because it exists and might hurt people. Oops.
¹ Iain M. Banks was in a funny mood. :)
Fuck that fucking book. Fucking love Banks, but fuck him for that fucking mind ripping thing.
Any Pynchon really. Or David Foster Wallace
"A screaming comes across the sky..."
Oh yeah, this is gonna be good!
"bananas [...] bananas [...] bananas [...] bananas [...]"
WTF?
Highly highly highly recommend the Andy Serkis reading.
That might make it possible.
As someone with severe ADHD, this is every book for me.
Oh it's so epic.
For those of you who don't have time to read it there is an audiobook version read by Andy Serkis that is pretty great. Is indeed epic.
Does he read it in his gollum voice?
He does fun voices from time to time, I don't think gollum is one of them.
Seconding the Andy Serkis audiobook, it's fantastic.
It's dryyyyyy
Read it along with “The Prancing Pony Podcast”, it makes a world of difference.
It's better than the bible.
It's so bad. It reads like the Bible.
It was my first Tolkien book as a kid.
The Hobbit was a bit of a disappointment after that.
I think it takes at least two reads. It was difficult the first time trying to keep track of everything in my head. I reckon its not worth feeling inferior about it and just give it a go. I recommend treating it like episodes.
Children of Hurin (the standalone book) is definitely worth a read once you have the context. The audiobook with Christopher Lee's narration is an excellent choice.
I've never understood how people can read the LotR trilogy and think the Silmarillian is hard going. It's a fun and quick read.
i suspect it's people that only watched the movies and were NOT prepared for Tolkien's KJVesque style
It’s the only book I’ve enjoyed reading from Tolkien. He’s a good world builder and not a great writer.