Quite enjoyable
 

I just wanted to post my current thoughts while reading the Silmarillion...
First of all, I am really starting to love this book. I found it very difficult at first, but now I find myself getting into the stories even more.
I just have one question...
Are the older areas of Beleriand and Angbad places from LOTR that were renamed? Or does it get into this later & I am just being impatient?
Also, does anyone know where I could find full maps of both to compare?
OK, that was more like three questions, sorry.

Yes. http://www.plauder-smilies.de/spin2.gif
All will be explained in the course of your reading.

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: Bruce MacCulloch ]

Thank you. I am going to have to hurry up and read then, cause I am interested.

This reminded me of the first time I read the Silmarillion. I picked up an old Book Club Associates copy with the red-and-white fold-out map in the back. Delighted with the largeness of the map I spent half an hour trying to find Utumno on it. It baffles me that someone with Tolkien's attention to detail should have left the placement of this feature to other cartographers. Any thoughts?

Maybe the map depicted M.E. after the first war, when Utumno was destroyed.

I started reading the Sil a little while ago, but I did not find it that confusing...I think it is REALLY good. I love how the wording is. It reminds me of a *don't kill me Jews/Christians* more interesting Bible. If only there was a real religion exactly like this...hmmm...Tolkeinism...anyone wanna join? hehe

I have to be honest and say that I don't find the Silmarillion as wonderful as many of the people here, certainly not in comparison to LotR. I appreciate that there is a certain stately and sweeping granduer to the vision, the trademark attentiveness, and what I would call "careful" lyricism in the descriptions of landscape. But the primacy of 'fate'(or predetermination), and the archetypal (ie. also somewhat one-dimensional) nature of the most powerful characters just gives it a more distant and detached feeling for me.

In some ways it does remind me of the major myth cycles I have read, which are impressive or ingenious rather than engaging. Whereas the vulnerability and quirkiness of some of the characters in LotR - in combination with the epic storytelling - are arguably what gives the trilogy its enduring modernity and pre-eminence among Tolkien's works ... along with the fact that it is clearly a "finished" artefact, unlike the Silm.

The title of this thread - "Quite enjoyable" - sums up my reaction to the Silm. But by contrast, I found (and still find) LotR truly compelling.

'Unfinished Tales' is a mixed bag. There are some stories that really provide that intense and personal involvement - and therefore utter frustration when I reached the inconclusive ending (should have read the title of the book - duh [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]). And there are other parts which are all about the painstaking cosmology which leaves me a little cold.

But that is the joy and tragedy of art and literature. It is our own personal and unique experience, through our imaginations we participate in the creative fulfilment of the artists' vision ... and therefore, necessarily, few will share our precise perceptions or interpretation of a work. However, where consensus does appear, it is significant. Hence the triumph of LotR.

Vanima, I am confused by your post! Tolkienism as a religion sounds like a non-sequitor ... or at least strange [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Do tell!

Peace

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]