Quote:
Originally Posted by Galadriel55
I agree with the above-said. The first read-through for me was just plodding on through the confusion and constantly cross-referencing the family trees to keep the relationships straight, especially for the F's. (Side question - is there anyone in The Sil who begins with F and is not related to Finwe? Hmm, maybe moot question, as most Elves in The Sil are related to Finwe.) I would advise to bear with it through the first half, because once you reach the half-way point it becomes a lot more linear and a lot more intense: you find yourself in the realm of epic tales and lose the descriptive but plotless air of the early chapters. On repeated reads it makes a lot more sense, because you then know who is who, and which place is where, and what approximately happened when. Though - and I'd like to think I know The Sil fairly well - I wouldn't be able to tell you how much time passes between X and Y. The actual timeline makes no sense to me, it's a background of Elvishly-long periods of nothing punctuated by bursts of rapid plot development. But you get a clear sense of the order of things, if not the proportion of the time intervals, once you become a bit more familiar with it. My advice, if I can give any - press on! It will come eventually. And in the meantime, you can always post questions here as they arise.  |
Judging by the page count I think I'm nearly halfway, so that's very good news! "Descriptive but plotless" is definitely accurate. Though not in a bad way--I've enjoyed it despite my complete confusion. I think my problem has been that I keep expecting it to be similar to the LOTR, which of course it isn't, and then worrying that I can't make heads or tails of anything! But your (and all the other's) comments have very much reconceptualized it for me from "advanced level textbook on a subject I love but am not good at" to "collection of stories", which is both far less intimidating and far more inviting. So thank you for that !
05-06-2021, 12:21 PM
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