The Silmarillion Review!

 Alright! Today I'm breaking form quite a bit and reviewing a book! Shoot, last time I did this was back when A Wrinkle In Time came out nearly four years ago... I swear I've read books since then, I just haven't reviewed them. 

But today's book review is the legendary Silmarillion. The Silmarillion is a "prequel" to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books and details the extensive history of Middle-Earth. And when I say extensive, I mean extensive. I feel like I just read an exceedingly dense textbook of facts on ancient religion. 

The Silmarillion is so solidly thought out, so familiar yet new, such an epically scaled novel that I'm surprised people don't legitimately pray to Illuvatar and believe in Middle-Earth theory. It's like the Bible, but... less preachy... 

The Silmarillion is so epic in scale it's just about my favorite book of all time, between this and Dune. I have a lot of grievances, but I admire the book greatly. How do I best put this? It's like if human history had a single defining villain and a single item that drove it. 

There are, like, 13 incredible movies to be made out of this. Or maybe 13 seasons of television. Adapting The Silmarillion is my new favorite mind game because of how the ambition of the world-building places most of the characters in the background. 

I'm going to break The Silmarillion into several smaller, easier to digest sections to review and briefly explain the plot of, both to inform you and to help me digest the behemoth I have just read: 

Ilúvatar and the Ainur

The Silmarillion starts out with the creation story, this one being pretty familiar to most creation stories (Be they Greek mythology, the Quran, Bible, Torah, etc.). Eru Ilúvatar is basically god and creates a group of beings called the Ainur, who in turn helped create Arda (Earth) through a song. He gives the Ainur the option to go to Eä (The universe), a new creation. Those who do this first are called the Valar, while those who do it later are called the Maiar. Eä is also where dwarves are created. 

The main conflict here comes from Melkor, one of the Ainur who strays from the music of the Ainur, creating discord in the creation of Arda (The heat and great cold). After being chastened by Ilúvatar, Melkor begins to stray. 

This section was really hard to read. It lasted, like, 20-ish pages and was a major slog. Because of the familiarity of the creation story and the diving in head-first nature of Tolkien's work, it took a while to get through. A mental image was also extremely hard to create, as music isn't something you can easily conceptualize. But it laid the groundwork for: 

Noldor, Teleri, and Fëanor

I was really lost for a little bit on this section. Ilúvatar's the god, check. Cue creation story, fallen angel, new mortal realm, etcetera. Once they started doing all of the "These Elves are called (X), but the ones that left Valinor are called (Y), and they further branched into group (Z), and they're all known by their alternate names (A, B, C)." It got a bit out of hand. 

Things really started to pick up with Fëanor, though. Once The Silmarillion eschewed the familiar creation and began to focus on the unique plot, that Fëanor created the Silmarils out of the essence of the Two Trees of Valinor (Which you can see in the promo image for Amazon's Middle-Earth show). The Silmarils are such an incredibly cool concept that I can't help but love every scene they're in. 

And luckily this section has them in a lot of scenes! This was my second favorite part of the book, it was like "What if the angels lived amongst the devil on Earth?" The tale of the Silmarils continues as Morgoth teams up with Ungoliant (Ancestor of Shelob) to devour the trees of life and steal the Silmarils, both of which are done successfully. Then you get this awesome ending where Ungoliant is sent into the mountains and eats herself to satiate her hunger! Dang, that's a cool ending for a giant spider!

This section about the creation of the Silmarils and Morgoth's wrath, the curse of Fëanor, the destruction of the Two Trees, was my second favorite section of the entire book. This was the type of thing that makes you finish the book even after the first 50 pages bored you to death. 

The Sons of Fëanor, Fingolfin, Fingon, and Finrod

After such a cool story about Fëanor, I was ready for some exciting stuff to happen. Unfortunately, that doesn't happen. Instead, we get the descendants of Fëanor, some of his brothers, nephews, and other offshoots of his bloodline, all of which whose names begin with "F." We got Fëanor, Fingolfin, Fingon, and Finrod, all which run around and cause chaos. It made it very hard to keep track of things. 

But hey! This still had a pretty dope section where Maedhros is captured by Morgoth, strung up by his right hand, and then rescued by his BFF who cuts off his hand to save him. Now that's a cool story. 

Beren and Lúthien

Beren and Lúthien was my favorite part of The Silmarillion by a long shot. You had the epic worldbuilding for the first 100 pages followed by 50 pages of teetering around, but then the book finally comes to an action-packed midseason finale where Beren, a mortal man, is given the impossible task of taking a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown to win the hand of Lúthien by her father Thingol.

This was my favorite section because it, like the tale of Fëanor before it, actually has narrative consistency and a single tale and main character. It's a tale of romance with tons of action and stakes and, most importantly, relates back to the Silmarils. I can't explain it, but anything connected to the Silmarils instantly became cooler. 

And this has the most epic battle in all of Middle-Earth (Not a Tolkien scholar, can't verify that, but it's certainly up there). This was such an epic battle, I couldn't put the book down during it, after struggling to read a single page for months. 

Túrin Turambar

After such a cool tale about Beren and Lúthien, I was hyped for what The Silmarillion had next? Is it the rings of power? The rise of Sauron? What happened to the other two Silmarils? Where's Mithrandir? 

Psych, time to settle in for, like, 30 pages of boring human stuff about some minor character's son who accidentally marries his sister... that sucks... especially after such an intense battle with 200 pages leading up to it. Túrin felt like watching the first two seasons of Avatar: The Last Airbender, the first episode of The Legend of Korra, and then going back to Avatar. 

Eärendil and Elwing

Don't worry though, we're back on track! After that detour, we're back to the bloodline of Beren and Lúthien with their grandchild Elwing and her husband Eärendil, who then give birth to our favorite half-elf Elrond. These guys were some of my favorite characters because, you know, Elrond was already a dope character and these chapters ran with it, it has a lot of set-up for important events you see in The Lord of the Rings. 

I also loved how it connected back to the Undying lands. At this point, the story had gotten a bit convoluted so a return to the basics was very refreshing. 

The Downfall of Morgoth

For all the hyping The Silmarillion did for Morgoth, his defeat is disappointingly less epic than the first attempt at his defeat in Beren and Lúthien. It's still cool to see what happens to him, the eternal chains to which he's bound. That's cool. And I really liked the conclusion of the Silmarils, all the tragic ends that went into creating such a sad conclusion to that arc. 

Ooh, everything about the Silmarils was so awesome. They were the breakout characters here, I was always hooked whenever the book was focused on them. The Silmarillion needs a movie trilogy focused on their creation, the theft of one by Beren, and then their destruction. 

Númenor and the Dúnedain

I was really into the tale of Númenor. My knowledge about him and his line was fairly surface level, so getting this deep dive into that history was super interesting. It's interesting, I always love learning about foreign cultures and their histories and religions, The Silmarillion is like a giant history book and so thoroughly grounded in the linguistic rules of our world that it feels plausible. 

I love that. 

The Rings of Power

I really liked the section about the Rings of Power. The entire book I kept expecting Gandalf to show up, and then he finally does. I loved that it treated the Lord of the Rings story so indifferently, giving it the same broad treatment the rest of Middle-Earth history had been getting. It's literally "Frodo and his servant" or something like that, Samwise isn't even named. That was a lot of fun to see play out. 

Overall, I give The Silmarillion a 9/10. "The Silmarillion may be the densest book ever written, but its epic plot and millennia-sprawling mythos make up for it."

Alright Amazon, the ball is in your court, don't disappoint.