Let's Talk January: The Silmarillion

[mithen]

starsandsea asked me to talk about the Silmarillion a little bit, and I was happy to oblige!

When I first read Lord of the Rings as a kid, I tried to read it something like four times and every time I stalled out at the Council of Elrond, where everyone sits around talking about history and myth. I finally could only get through the series by skipping that chapter entirely. So it's odd that the Silmarillion--which is basically pure distilled essence of Council of Elrond in book form--is a book I love so passionately. And yet I do!

Part of it is that I've always loved formal, archaic language for its own sake: I've been known to read the King James Bible for fun, and I adore The Worm Oroboros, which has passages like:

So the Silmarillion, which is entirely Tolkien at his most formal, with no hobbits to keep things grounded, has an immediate linguistic appeal. That said, the lack of hobbits (or any other character who isn't Fulfilling Their High and Glorious Destiny) is obviously the book's weakest point as well. Everything is Epic and Overwhelming, and one yearns sometimes for Pippin to show up and tell Turin that maybe he should stop and smoke some pipeweed and chill out. And in my copy of the book, the spine is cracked at the family trees, because I never did fully grasp the difference between Maglor and Maedhros and Maeglin or Finrod and Fingon and Fingolfin.

But oh, the stories! They're beautiful on their own, but part of what's so amazing about them is the depth and richness they give to the rest of Tolkien's work. Hobbit and LOTR do stand on their own, but once you've absorbed the greater world...well, knowing the story of Beren and Luthien in full adds so much depth and sadness to Aragorn and Arwen's story. Knowing that the White Tree of Gondor comes from a cutting from the tree that grew in Numenor, which was a sapling of Telperion, one of the two Trees hallowed by the Valar--it adds so much bittersweetness when you're more aware of the depth of history, the way things play out over and over in ever-diminishing yet still beautiful ripples. Or, to tie into my essay on Thorin, if you know what Gondolin was and what it means to the elves, then the moment when Thorin lifts Orcrist and Gandalf says it was "forged in Gondolin before the Fall" will give you an extra shiver. And if you know what dwarves did to Thingol, King of the Sindarin elves, then the fact that Thranduil allows Orcrist--a sword probably wielded by Ecthelion, one of the greatest of elf-lords; a sword that probably slew a balrog--to be buried along with Thorin is an absolutely staggering show of respect.

I actually love the Silmarillion so much that I've read and enjoyed much of the series Tolkien's son put together collecting his reams of notebooks and tracing the development of the themes and stories and characters in his work. It's some pretty amazingly dry stuff, but worth it for things like discovering Tolkien fretted over the fact that his origins of the Sun and Moon didn't match actual cosmology--for a while he even toyed with the possibility of having the moon be an orbiting fortess of Morgoth's. And he wanted to find a way to change the fact that there were trees in eastern Middle Earth before there was a sun and moon, because it wasn't realistic to have trees growing without light. Thank goodness his son kept to the older drafts, otherwise we might never have had the beautiful passage of the rising of the first moon as the Noldor leave Valinor in exile: "The servants of Morgoth were filled with amazement, but the Elves of the Outer Lands looked up in delight; and even as the Moon rose above the darkness in the west, Fingolfin let blow his silver trumpets and began his march into Middle-earth, and the shadows of his host went long and black before them." The moon as a fortress of Morgoth, blasphemy!

So, uh, yeah. I might have a lot of thoughts about the Silmarillion! It's not an easy read, but I've found it to be incredibly rewarding and I've re-read it countless times.

Comments

[mekare]

I have unfortunately never finished the Silmarillion but what I've read was awesome. I loved the Valar and the trees in Valinor and it all fueled my imagination to no end! In a way I am quite happy that there hasn't been a movie/movies yet because I can imagine it all for myself.
The Lord of the Rings films completely erased all the mental images which had been formed while reading which is sad, in a way. I have only one page of sketches from before I saw the films and my mental hobbits looked very very different!

I've read and enjoyed much of the series Tolkien's son put together

I own volume V The Lost Road but have unfortunately not yet gotten round to reading it (bought it on a whim second hand). There just are way too many unread books waiting in my shelves...

I love all your posts this month and am looking forward to the 22nd so much!

[mithen]

In a way I am quite happy that there hasn't been a movie/movies yet because I can imagine it all for myself.

You know, I can totally see that? What CG could ever do justice to the way I imagine the Two Trees? What actor could ever sell the characters enough without seeming cheesy and melodramatic? (It is pretty melodramatic writing!)

I love the take Jackson has on Tolkien and I think it's very close to mine but like you say, it's difficult to remember! His vision reaches backwards and rewrites everything...

[mekare]

YES! The Trees especially! I think with the Silmarillion, which deals so heavily in myth, it would even take away that sort of blurriness that mental images have, but which works really really well for mythical landscapes, things, people. And I imagine everything in Valinor being suffused with light and this sort of inner glow cannot easily be transferred to the screen (and would be taxing on the eyes for longer periods of time). Jackson got quite close to what I mean when he showed Arwen as Frodo saw her in the depths of his delirium in Fellowship of the Ring.