When do i read the silmarillion

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Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Email Address:. Start the Journey! Click Here! Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable. A Pilgrim in Narnia. Lewis, J. Tolkien, and the Inklings. Skip to content. Home About C. Lewis and the Love of Words. Read the Books before Middle Earth Among the difficulties of reading The Silmarillion , one of the key ones is that the language is so strange.

Arthuriana : Tolkien spent a good part of his life reading and working in Arthurian literature, including his own translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Pearl , and Sir Orfeo.

There are new translations of many of these pieces, including an excellent Poetic Edda by Jeramy Dodds see my review here. Begin at Chapter 3 : It sounds strange, but beginning at chapter 3 gets the reader right into the adventure of the elves and heroes of Middle Earth. It is a gorgeous sad tale of fidelity, courage, and the great deeds of the heroes and heroines of the past.

It is also a great way to get a sense of the storytelling in The Silmarillion. If you love it, why not begin there? The Silmarillion as Read-Along Book Audiobooks are one of the fastest growing segments of the book world. Here are some tips to get into The Silmarillion the way we get into any hard good thing: Bedside Friend : Have your copy of The Silmarillion at the bedside, reading a section pages each night before turning to your favourite novel.

Daily Habit : With eBook readers and phone apps—not to mention mass market paperbacks—reading is portable. Perhaps taking your minute break at work to enjoy a coffee and a few pages of Tolkien is the kind of daily habit that would work.

The weekend might break this up, but if you are sharp on Monday the habit will soon be easy to you. Accountability Partners : Anyone who has done something difficult will know how embarrassing it is to fail. That is why we anticipate that experience by inviting others to hold us accountable to our tasks.

Do you have someone you can trust to ask you the hard question: Have you picked up your Silmarillion today? If so, enlist him or her to hold your feet to the flame. Reading Challenges : Take that concept of accountability to a new level by making The Silmarillion part of your Goodreads challenge. Even better, announce on your blog or Facebook page that you are going to read The Silmarillion , through hell or high water—or, more likely, too many emails and dishes that need to get done.

If you are a step counter or run your books on Excel sheets, a reading challenge could help you not that I know anyone like that. Suffer With Others : Why not set up a reading group in your local community—online or in real life? There is no need to suffer alone.

And when it comes together or you are puzzled, there is someone else to talk about it with you. Read with Resources There are a tonne of resources to support your reading of The Silmarillion. Here are just a few: Appendices : Make sure you take advantage of the family trees, pronunciation guides, Elven dictionaries, and maps that are part of your copy.

The ones I have found most helpful are the Tolkien Gateway and the LOTR Project —the former for basic information including histories and kin connections, and the latter for its interactive maps, timelines, and cool apps.

Beyond that, becoming a member of the Tolkien Society opens you up to a wealth of resources. Higher Education : While some schools are still closed to the idea that fantastic literature is worthy of exploration, you may find a Tolkien class at your local college. Beyond that, I want to suggest Signum University as a key resource. Olsen, President at SignumU, believe it or not has done lectures on every section of The Silmarillion and given them away for free here the mp3s work, I believe.

I believe in open access scholarship. Because of this, since I have made A Pilgrim in Narnia free with nearly 1, posts on faith, fiction, and fantasy. Please consider sharing my work so others can enjoy it. Like this: Like Loading Tolkien, and the worlds they touched. This blog includes my thoughts as I read through Lewis and Tolkien and reflect on my own life and culture. I am often peeking inside of wardrobes, looking for magic bricks in urban alleys, or rooting through yard sale boxes for old rings.

Brenton Dickieson is a father, husband, friend, university lecturer, and freelance writer from Prince Edward Island, Canada. You can follow him on Twitter, BrentonDana.

Lewis , David Lindsay , Douglas A. Anderson , E. Nesbit , George MacDonald , H. There is no further mention of the wings as it plunges down into the abyss, or later when Gandalf describes his long fight with the Balrog.

Overall it is impossible to categorically say if Balrogs have wings or not, so it is up to each individual reader to decide. However, this apparent clear statement was contradicted by the publication of The Book of Lost Tales in According to a passage in there the facial and dark hair characteristics were assigned to the Noldor. Tom first came to life in an oral tale before appearing in a poem published in the Oxford Magazine. Although Tolkien is on record as stating he heartily disliked allegory, there is evidence that he could write allegorically when the occasion arose — e.

Leaf by Niggle. This probably indicates that Tom entered the world at the same time as the Ainur, when they arrived to begin shaping the world in accord with the vision they had witnessed in the Music of the Creation.

This hypothesis leads to the possibility that Bombadil may be one of the Maiar, but he decided to remain in Middle-earth rather than to take up his abode in Valinor. However, Christopher Tolkien with ample justification has said on other matters that his father was fond of making hyperbolic statements, and this may be the case here.

There can be no doubt that Treebeard is old, but even he admits there are trees in Fangorn older than himself. However, when Tolkien refers to him as eldest he must mean that he is the oldest walking and talking sentient being in Fangorn.

At one point Treebeard says that there are only three Ents left of those who walked in the woods before the Darkness. This must refer to the Darkness which entered into the world with Morgoth. However, Bombadil was present before the first acorn, which must predate the woods before the Darkness. The answer to this question was hotly debated by fans for nearly two decades, but when the Peoples of Middle-earth was published in it became possible to give a definitive answer.

When writing The Lord of the Rings Tolkien simply reused the name, and the characteristics, of the earlier character from the as-yet-unpublished narrative. Much later in life Tolkien wrote two essays on Glorfindel: in these he came to the conclusion that the two Glorfindels were indeed one and the same.

In one text Glorfindel is even said to have returned at a similar time to the Blue Wizards, however, unlike them, he was sent to aid Elrond in the war in Eriador.

Interested fans had to wait for the publication of Unfinished Tales in Tolkien went on to say that they went East with Saruman, but they never returned and their ultimate fate is not known. They came to Middle-earth in the Second Age, possibly with Glorfindel, but unlike him their mission was to stir up rebellion amongst men against Sauron in the dark East.

Apparently, in contradiction to what is written elsewhere that they failed in their mission, in this note they were successful in the Second and Third Ages in diluting the forces which would have supported Sauron. Yes, they do. However, in a letter No. This was confirmed when The Lost Road was published in Proudfoot and no doubt his family has large feet for a Hobbit and both were on the table but no other Hobbit is described as having big feet.

The idea that Hobbits have big feet seems to have begun with the Brothers Hildebrant, who did numerous popular illustrations in the s and s. They also showed Dwarves with very large feet. Tolkien did not. Their height is variable, ranging between two and four feet of our measure … Bandobras Took … was four foot five and able to ride a horse. He was surpassed in all Hobbit records only by two famous characters of old. That story is told in The Lord of the Rings.

No: it was the Entdraught that did it, and Pippin grew too. The four Hobbits of the Fellowship appear to have been Harfoots with in the case of Merry, Pippin and Frodo at least some Fallohide ancestry. Humans who go barefoot all their lives often develop feet wider and stronger than modern feet, but not feet which are abnormally long or rubber.

As for being stout, Tolkien says often that the Hobbits enjoyed eating and drinking. People who do hard physical work like farming can eat lots without becoming fat. The average Hobbit however appears to have been at least well-covered. But they were not always stout. Like humans, they were inclined to expand as they got older.

And running. He was wrong about growing upwards, though see above, Entdraught. It is a tradition among film-makers and some illustrators to make Sam Gamgee fat. In the story, Sam is never called fat, and as a young Hobbit and a hard worker is probably fitter than any of them. In the book, Gollum calls Sam cross, rude, nasty, suspicious, not nice and Nasssty. But never fat. Why make Sam fat? In Sherlock Holmes movies not in the books , Dr.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. First, what is The Silmarillion? Why has it been criticized?

Why should you read it? It provides the stories of numerous histories and characters mentioned in The Lord of the Rings. The women are epic. Everything is ten times more epic than in The Lord of the Rings. You can also learn more about life and death in Arda. It contains the story of the fall of Gondolin.

The religious aspects underlying The Lord of the Rings become more clear because you can learn about the supernatural beings who guard and guide Middle-earth. Get all your Middle-earth trivia! Ungoliant, the ancestor of Shelob, who literally eats everything and spews darkness.

The Silmarillion is seriously just cool, no matter what you may have heard about it. Like this: Like Loading Tolkien Talk: Seraphina from Seraphina Reads.

Tolkien Talk: Stephanie from Chasm of Books. Love this post! One of my students just read The Silmarillion and loved it. This is a true testimonial Russ Like Like. Why should you read The Lord of the Rings first? Tolkien's world is mostly centered around Hobbits The Lord of the Rings is centered around the adventures of Hobbits and their companions.

Christopher himself notes in the Foreword of The Silmarillion : As the years passed the changes and variants, both in detail and in larger perspectives, became so complex, so pervasive, and so many-layered that a final and definitive version seemed unattainable. Seriously major spoilers There's this one chapter at the end of The Silmarillion that completely summarises the events of the Third Age, which also includes a nice summary of the War of the Ring.

By reading The Lord of the Rings first Easy reads to hard reads. To once again cite the analogy I read to reinterate my points: The Silmarillion starts on such a gigantic scale that if you begin with it everything else is going to seem confusing, petty, or irrelevant. Adams To summarise: By reading all about the War of Wrath, the resultant sinking of Beleriand and the imprisonment of the Dark Lord Morgoth in the First Age first, you'll realise how insignificant the defeats of the Third Age is in comparison to the First Age.

Notes: Much credit goes to this website and its users, whose relevant points helped me write this answer. Improve this answer. Mithrandir Further down in the answer it's attributed to Ernest W. Just a minor issue - I absolutely read the appendices before getting much into the Fellowship of the Ring; it brings the world to life and gives you a lot of things to wonder about while reading. Only one thing; we know Hobbits are a late addition to Tolkien's world.

In fact the first two tales were the sailing of Earendel and the fall of Numenor. This would only be an issue if you are the kind of person who would get confused with stuff like: "The armies met at midday? What's a day? What's the Sun? What's a star? How does it work?

What's heat? Where do all this stuff comes from, anyways? And why? Show 3 more comments. The Hobbit is more of a book for children.

Of course it's interesting and analysable in its own right, but the writing style is easy for people of almost any age to engage with. LotR is written in more of a "high fantasy" style, but it's still an exciting enough story, laced with occasional humour. The hobbits, as well as often serving as audience surrogates, are sympathetic characters whom it's easy to identify with. The Silmarillion is more like an ancient saga, written in a sort of High Chant and focusing on gods and kings and heroes rather than relatable characters.

It needs not only stamina but also a deep existing engagement with the world in order to get through it. Starting with the Silmarillion may even turn you off Tolkien altogether.

Works in the latest Windows too, I'm sure. Joined just to upvote this answer. LotR is a different book altogether before and after the Silmarillion, much like The Sixth Sense is a different movie altogether the second time you see it.

If you read Sil before LotR, you are missing out on one of those books. BoredBsee BoredBsee 1 1 silver badge 2 2 bronze badges. But not in your specific case. To help put the films aside, and as you already know the gist of LotR: I recommend you now read the Silmarillion, and afterwards you will be able to reward yourself by reading the Lord of the Rings, and enjoy all its beauty and sadness, with a mind less occupied by Jackson's films and more by that fantastic backdrop of the Silmarillion which is taken from decades of writing by Tolkien before and also after the writing of the Hobbit and of LotR.

Olivier Dulac Olivier Dulac 1 1 silver badge 6 6 bronze badges. I'm not sure if I necessarily agree with this, but you have my upvote anyway for a nicely explained answer, and for proposing a possible remedy for the dreadful malady of having seen the Jackson films before reading LotR. Randal'Thor : thanks. It is actually the same for me : I am not sure it would work for many, but I'm sure it can work for some persons such as Peter , especially if they won't be put off easily by the first chapters of the Silmarillion and some others within.

And having seen the films means the few lines about LotR in the Silmarillion won't be a spoiler at all. Then reading it in all its glory will be good.

And from there - onward into the world of Tolkien! Auden Young Auden Young 4, 19 19 silver badges 40 40 bronze badges. The good points of this order are: When reading the Hobbit and the LotR, you know the settings.

Others have pointed that LotR focuses on hobbits and they nearly aren't mentioned in the Silmarillion. Hovever, the LotR has a prologue about hobbits but it doesn't have an introduction to men, elves and dwarfs.

By reading the Silmarillion you start the other books knowing what they are, and knowing a lot about the Middle Earth. This way of reading makes the three books appear as parts of the same story, that is mostly contained in the Silmarillion. If you enjoy that bigger story, it flows more naturally if read in chronological order that than if you have to make a thousands of years flashback. Pere Pere 4 4 bronze badges.

I believe you should read Lord Of The Rings 1st, 3rd, and 5th. Tolkien is very deep. Samantha Wiggens Samantha Wiggens 45 1 1 bronze badge. Shokhet 5, 2 2 gold badges 19 19 silver badges 55 55 bronze badges. Can you expand on that? By this logic, it sounds like The Silmarillion has questionable literary merit on its own. How does one approach something that is both "horribly edited" and full of "amazing stories"?

The editing is actually quite good, considering what Christopher Tolkien had to start with, and that he could not ask his late father for clarifications. The root problem is that J.