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‘The Silmarillion’ Is a Dense Yet Highly Engaging Origin Story for J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle-Earth
As Game of Thrones draws to a close, and a new Amazon Lord of the Rings TV series awaits, J.R.R. Tolkien is sure to return as the king of fantasy (if he ever even left). Despite being dead now for nearly 46 years, Tolkien created, in Middle-Earth and the stories that take place there, a rich, vivid mythology that has ensured his immortality.
Many people first came to appreciate Tolkien’s work because of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy in the early 2000s. I was one of them. Only eight years old when The Fellowship of the Ring came out, I was not allowed to see either it or its sequel in theaters (though I did catch them later on DVD). But when my parents said they would let me see The Return of the King in theaters, I decided to read all of the books in the trilogy before the movie came out so that I would appreciate it properly. Even at age 10, I recall getting lost–in the best possible way–in the epic and fully realized world of heroism and mysticism that Tolkien had created. Seeing the last movie in theaters remains one of my best-ever theatrical experiences, and it confirmed my status as a Tolkien fan.
Looking for more ways to deepen my fanhood at the time, I came upon The Silmarillion, which I have now had the chance to discuss on an episode of the Legendarium Podcast. Described to me as the ‘Old Testament’ of The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion gave the backstory to which the more famous trilogy is the culmination: the creation of the world, the early struggles between its gods, the plight of the elves, the coming of men and dwarves (and their own trials), etc. Delighted that there was more material to read, I dove right in…only to crash on a rocky shoal of confusing names, excessive detail, and quasi-poetic prose that seemed straight out of some ancient tome. I got only a few dozen pages in before giving up on The Silmarillion.
Only recently, as the excessive cultural cachet of Game of Thrones has turned me into a rabid anti-Game of Thrones reactionary, did I make myself go back and finish The Silmarillion as part of my first full rereading of all of Tolkien’s most popular work, also including The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Rereading The Silmarillion, I could understand why, as a 10-year-old, I found it so daunting. The names were still myriad, and often confusing; the stories abounded, intersecting in ways sometimes unclear to me; and the prose had the same ancient tome quality that I recalled from my youth.
Yet these were far more minor complaints this time around. While 15 years ago, they kept me from getting lost in the work as I did in Lord of the Rings, now they could barely restrain my enjoyment of it. For The Silmarillion is a true epic, the product of a single mind (two if you want to count his son Christopher, who compiled and edited what his father never completely finished). Usually, epic traditions are the products of entire cultures and many authors, assembled over centuries or more. But in preparing a backstory for The Lord of the Rings (which–importantly–was never the focus of Tolkien’s writing, but rather the bulky bottom of the iceberg that allowed him to tell the tiny top of his most famous story), Tolkien just decided to create such a mythology of his own accord within a discrete period–a stunning achievement. Sure, others have followed his lead since. Yet many of them have gotten too lost in their creations, too high on playing god, to produce a work that also contained transcendent themes (or ended!).
For though The Silmarillion is an epic, of gigantic scope and scale, it is also strongly driven by individual actors and choices. Pride, arrogance, fate, hubris, irony, mortality–those all-too-human forces–play out among a cast of often larger-than-life characters nonetheless subject to them.
Indeed, it is hard for me to explain how, exactly, but The Silmarillion seems not merely like the mythic creation of its author, but rather like a window into an entire other tradition, heretofore unknown. Something about the way it was written strongly suggests that what we have is actually a translation from another language, now long forgotten, and that what we are reading pales in comparison to the actual story, now long disappeared. This is not to say The Silmarillion is a bad work; rather, that in depicting its own rich mythology, it successfully conveys a sense that what actually happened was somehow even grander than what we are reading. It is, at times, hard to believe all of this came from the imagination of one man. Tolkien himself felt similarly. He wrote that, in creating his legends, he “…always I had the sense of recording what was already ‘there,’ somewhere: not of ‘inventing.’”
The most compelling reason for the more casual Lord of the Rings fan to read The Silmarillion, however, is that it puts everything in Tolkien’s more famous work in context. It deepens one’s understanding of what happens there, and answer some questions about where some things came from. It also instills an appreciation for how, in Tolkien’s understanding, everything in The Lord of the Rings is merely a less impressive imitation or centuries-old echo of the ancient struggles depicted in The Silmarillion, a sort of “there were giants, in those days” aesthetic that often goes underappreciated in Tolkien’s immortal work.
At any rate, if you want to hear more from me (and others more qualified) about Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, check out my appearance on the Legendarium Podcast.
Published in Literature
It’s weird. I have somewhere A Tolkien Reader that has Farmer Giles, Niggle, and the essay on fairy stories. I think it leaves out Smith.
No, wait. I think it’s called The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
That I think is the one I have. Maybe Smith was in a different volume then. I’ll have to check.
Error fixed. See above!
I may also have Tolkien Reader. I think there’s one I haven’t properly read. Alas–I think it’s in a box in a storage unit on the other side of the world.
Thanks. These seem quite consistent with Protestantism too.
I don’t think that all Protestants celebrate the Feast of the Annunciation, though it looks like Episcopals do. But we certainly agree that the Annunciation was a big deal. It is a very strange coincidence (?) that this thread happened to lead to this discussion, on the very day (March 25).
On the lembas bread, Protestants also celebrate the Lord’s Supper, though there are doctrinal differences in its precise significance.
I see your point about Galadriel, although I’m not sure if she really fits the Mary role, as she is not the mother of any of the (partial) Christ figures (Galdalf, Aragorn, Frodo). She could also represent the Church generally, as she gives both lembas bread and light.
I was constructing various arguments about Sam being a St. Peter figure, which is partially true, except he doesn’t seem to represent St. Peter specifically. Sam, Merry, and Pippin represent all of the disciples. Sam is the most important, and he finishes the book, but this doesn’t perfectly correspond to St. Peter either, as he wrote relatively little of the New Testament.
They write books against this stuff. Robert Wood’s book is the only one I’ve actually read, and probably the only one I need to read.
I suspect it was deliberate by the author. 3/25 is International Read Tolkien Day.
Yesterday, I happened upon this project
It sounds great and clearly created by someone who adores everything Tolkien.
Engaging?
While trying to read The Silmarillion, it quickly occurred to me that I could be reading a real history textbook book instead of reading a work of fiction structured like a history textbook. At least that way I’d be learning something about the real world.
I respect that perspective. But I like vanilla ice cream and I also like strawberry ice cream. I can read both kinds of books.
May I just say that I am loving this post? And the diverse and civil discussion that it’s prompted? I have not read TS, although I’ve read almost everything else by JRRT, most of it more than once. But perhaps I will assay it. (On a personal note, my Uncle Arthur met the great man a few times at “Old Boys’ Reunions” for King Edward’s School in Birmingham, which Tolkien, who was about fifteen years old than Arthur, attended for a few years after moving to England, so feel a bit of proprietary interest.)
That podcast looks fascinating.
I agree that Tolkien has not been surpassed. I think that he has been roughly equaled by Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant series, and George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones).
Rather distant runners-up include Piers Anthony’s Chameleon (Xanth) series, Ann McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern, David Eddings’s Belgariad, and Julian May’s Many-Colored Land. Most of these are more geared toward young adults (less so for Julian May).
You may indeed. I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I did not actually realize yesterday was International Read Tolkien Day until I started writing this. Then, I had to finish.
Tolkien disagrees. He actually said, “The Lord of the Rings is a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” You may be missing a lot by not “seeing” that.
Tolkien despised formal allegory (he spoke of “applicability”) and was a critic of Lewis’s work because he used it so much (Aslan as Christ, the White Witch as Satan…). So we shouldn’t expect to find a perfect alignment in the LOTR characters and the figures of salvation history. For example, Jesus as priest, prophet, and king is applicable to three different characters: Frodo as priest (offering the sacrifice), Gandalf as prophet, and Aragorn as king.
“The Fellowship’s mission to join with the Ringbearer to overcome evil is like that of the Church.” — from my notes.
Tolkien’s work is organic, as you might expect from a subcreator in the Body.
I mentioned once before in a separate thread that the feature of the First Age that seemed most significant to me was that the source of evil lived and walked on Earth. He wasn’t some spiritual being in some unimaginable realm. He had a physical existence. He even had a fortress near the Thangorodrim mountain range. One could, if he had the courage, ride up to the fortress, knock on the door, and challenge this being to a duel as one of the Elven kings did. Gave a certain clarity to discussions of good and evil.
The problems (as I see it) with these other works is that the worlds therein are either under developed, or (worse still) overdeveloped, and very often the stories themselves have a bolted-together feel about them (at least with Jordan, Eddings, Martin, and say Terry Brooks – not read McCaffrey or Anthony). With some rare exceptions, the worlds are certainly busy and full, but not as rich or deeply developed, and they are ultimately earth-bound. What Tolkien could do was reveal the transcendent and the eternal – that deep backstory of LOTR already existed, and Tolkien himself felt that even as he was creating that world (from a young age too), he was really just trying to reveal to us what was, in fact, already there.
This isn’t to say that all such other works are all bad, far from it, but they’re awfully self-contained and defined. Tolkien’s tales left the boundaries of the maps and the histories open, for his world never could be finished, just unmasked in part.
^This.
He can say it. That doesn’t make it true. It’s a very large stretch to associate a world of dwarves and elves and hobbits and strange gods and angels with a christian and Catholic view point. There are certainly times in history that to suggest such a thing would have gotten you killed.
Since everyone on this thread seems to be a LOTR nerd, I have a suggestion for you:
The Atlas of Middle-Earth (Revised Edition) by Karen Wynn Fonstad
It is well worth the $21. It has maps of all three ages, detail maps of LOTR “scenes”, day-by-day routes taken by the fellowship during their journeys, and more. I wish I had bought it 20 years ago instead of last year, but better late than never.
You have a reference for that? I’ve read a lot of Tolkien and Tolkien history/criticism and I was under the impression that he said exactly the opposite, just as he said LoTR wasn’t about the World Wars. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention in Sunday School, but I don’t think Christians have a pantheon or different ranks of gods. And I don’t think Christianity sees any race as irredeemable (orcs). Middle Earth has all of that.
I believe what Tolkien said, that his intent was to create a Catholic work. I’m just not sure if he put anything specifically Catholic in LOTR — meaning Catholic but not other Christian.
Tolkien himself wrote in one of his letters: ‘The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.’[1]
Google-provided source. But, I heard it from Professor Pearce’s course linked above.
OK, thanks. I was aware of the letters, but not this specific one. Sounds to me, though, from the summary, that he’s saying that because he’s a faithful Catholic that the LoTR couldn’t help but be affected by that, not that he deliberately imposed Catholic themes into his work.
But Frodo is definitely not Jesus the way Aslan is. Frodo was driven to Mount Doom at the end solely by Sam’s will (Frodo was never alone in his quest), but in the end succumbed to the Ring. Only because Gollum had equally succumbed, Gollum’s greed for the Ring caused it to be destroyed accidentally (neither Gollum or Frodo wanted that), and the mission was fulfilled. Jesus submitted to his Father’s will, died, and rose again. Frodo didn’t want to part with the Ring, and never died, but he was so wounded by the Ring and the events surrounding the quest that he could no longer bear to live in the Shire or Middle Earth and was given the great gift by the Valar of leaving Middle Earth forever to live the remainder of his life in the Undying Lands. Jesus didn’t abandon the Earth and lives here still in a sense. So I just don’t see it.
Yeah, me neither. If you dilute christianity down to people who just have some sort of heroic ethic, then it’s hard to call it christianity.
…because you’re going for formal allegory, which Tolkien rejected. Frodo is not one-to-one a Christ figure. He is a type in that he suffers for the mission of defeating evil.
So every story where someone suffers trying to defeat evil is Christian? Avengers: Infinity War is Christian?
Gilgamesh and Enkidu was a Christian story? Imagine that. Not even the Jews were around yet.
Sorry if it ruins LOTR for you if you acknowledge it’s a Christian/Catholic work, but that is what Tolkien said and thought about it. You’ll get no further argument from me.