I recently re-read The Silmarillion, written by J.R.R Tolkien and edited by his son Christopher. It will come as no surprise to many of you when I say that The Silmarillion is one of my favorite books, but I’d like to dedicate this blogpost to explaining a few of the reasons why I’ve come to love this book so much. I believe that Tolkien has accomplished that to which all storytellers aspire: he has created a true mythology.
I don’t think that the pantheon of the Valar is Tolkien’s greatest achievement, though that is probably what we would first think of as mythology. I think true mythology are those stories which remain with us at all times. Tolkien’s characters take their places beside the greatest figures to ever stride across our imaginations: Achilles and Odysseus, Cú Chulainn and Queen Méabh, Sigurd and Brynhild, Beren and Luthien. The Silmarillion has changed the very way that I look at the stars. When I look into the sky at night, I think of Varda the Star-Kindler and the Sickle of the Valar that she set in the heavens as a warning of doom to Morgoth. When I see the sun setting in the west, I think of the Garden of the Hesperides, but also of the straight road to Aman. Tolkien’s mythology is not based in a world that is recognizably earth, but it colors my experience of the world as surely as if I were to stand before the ruined walls of Troy.
Another aspect of Tolkiens mythology as presented in The Silmarillion is the diversity of human experience. Tolkien captures a broad swathe of the human experience in a relatively small book, and with characters that are often not human themselves. We can identify with the rash oath of Feanor and his sons, the undying love of Beren and Luthien, and the bitterness that haunts the steps of the Noldor. We have known men like craven Mim and treacherous Maeglin. We have seen lies multiply and destroy, we have seen friends turn on one another, and we have seen courage in the face of evil. All that is good in Tolkien’s characters, we have seen in one another, along with all that is broken. In few other places have I found a book that spoke so truly of human experience.
The most common criticism of The Silmarillion is that it is dry, or dense. I prefer to use the word dense. To me, there is nothing dry in The Silmarillion; it is packed with action and some of the most beautiful language in modern English. However, the book is assuredly dense. Tolkien mastery of language was such that there are few sentences that are not important, and each is so expertly packed as to contain ample food for thought. The result is that his work is not conducive to skimming or speed reading. You must take time with the book in the same way you would not fast forward through one of Mozart’s concertos.
Many people, whether they are conscious of it or not, are upset that The Silmarillion is not a novel. I have heard people complain of The Lord of the Rings that it is not the sort of fantasy novel which is published today, and this is more fully true of The Silmarillion. I am sympathetic to this complaint. If one began reading The Silmarillion with all the expectations of a traditional novel format, they would quickly become befuddled and possibly a bit frustrated. The Silmarillion does not have a protagonist. That in and of itself is offensive to some, and there are more discrepancies between it and the standard fantasy novel. Of course, once one realizes that Tolkien did not intend for The Silmarillion to be a novel, much of this friction evaporates. One must read The Silmarillion as one reads a book of mythology, an epic, or a saga because that is the kind of literature that Tolkien sought to emulate. Once one has the proper lens, the brilliance of his work becomes more readily apparent.
The Sensiahd word of the day is “oster”, meaning “star”. Example sentence: Eth ostera ys exsret sonoc. The stars are out tonight.