The Silmarillion has a reputation for being a bit impenetrable, and even though The Lord of the Rings is my favourite book series, I’d never picked it up. When I finally did I was surprised.
Reading The Lord of the Rings is a rite of passage for many young readers. My dad read The Hobbit to my brother and me when we were little, and I knew there was a much larger, more grown-up world only suggested by Bilbo Baggins’ light-hearted jaunt with Gandalf and the Dwarves ready for me to experience when I was a bit older.
When I finally opened The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time as a teenager, not long before Peter Jackson’s wonderful film adaptations hit the screens, it did not disappoint. The beauty of Tolkien’s trilogy is how it takes place in a fully-realised world with a rich history, most of which we only get hints at.
The abandoned underground ruins of Moria, the few remaining Ents still hiding in Fangorn Forest, and the decaying civilisation of men at Minas Tirith – it all tells us there are centuries of history informing everything leading up to the quest to destroy The One Ring.
Most writers would be content to leave it at that. JRR Tolkien was not most writers.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were just part of a far larger world he spent his life creating and developing, with a creation story, cosmology, history, and languages. Tolkien died in 1973, and his son Christopher took up the work of collating and publishing his father’s remaining work.
In 1977 The Silmarillion was published, and soon gained a reputation as being, to put it charitably, a challenging read. Even now a quick look at an internet forum will show many readers saying they’d given up before the end, with others wearing having made it all the way through as a badge of honour.
I’d long had a faint notion I’d try and read it, but it wasn’t until I found a beautiful hardcover edition during a visit to the wonderful Bath bookshop Topping & Company that I decided now, 25 years or so after reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time, was the time.
I was surprised by how engaging I found it, and blasted through it relatively quickly. It’s true that it’s very dense and certainly isn’t a straightforward adventure story like The Lord of the Rings, more akin in scope to epics of the ancient world, or even religious texts. But the constant feed of interesting details kept me reading and keen to pick it back up to learn more.
Highlights for me included the tale of Beren and Lúthien, a man and an Elf princess who embark on an epic, romantic, and tragic adventure, as well as the constant threat of Melkor, the closest thing Tolkien’s world has to the Devil.
It’s true it demands the readers’ full attention – this is not a book to flick through with the TV on in the background, and keeping track of who is related to who can be a struggle, especially when a lot of the major players happen to be immortal Elves. Major battles which could easily fill chapters of a regular book are dismissed in a line or two, and figures who could form major characters of their own epics are often mentioned only fleetingly.
But experiencing the full scope of Tolkien’s vision enriches the world of The Lord of the Rings to an incredible degree. Shelob is scary enough, but learning she’s not just a giant spider, but the spawn of the demonic Ungoliant, makes her so much more terrifying – and the fact that Samwise Gamgee fought her off that much more heroic.
Understanding the link between Gandalf and Durin’s Bane, the Balrog he battles in Moria, gives that moment far greater significance, and appreciating the torrid history of the world of men makes Aragorn’s return to the throne of Gondor that much more of a triumph
A few familiar faces do show up – Elrond and Galadriel appear, as do Sauron, Gandalf, and Saruman make an appearance very late on, but don’t expect to see many of your favourites. Frodo is mentioned once in passing in one of the closing pages, and Bilbo doesn’t even warrant being named.
And lest you worry it takes away some of the mystery of Tolkien’s work, rest assured there’s still much left unsaid. Of the five wizards to walk Middle Earth, two aren’t even named, and if you’re looking for an answer to who or what Tom Bombadil is, there’s nothing to be found here.
The bottom line is, don’t let yourself be put off by its reputation – if you’re hungry for more Middle Earth, The Silmarillion is a must-read. There’s also an audiobook version narrated by none other than Andy Serkis, who memorably played Gollum in the film trilogy, which has rave reviews online.