The Silmarillion: Deluxe Edition Hardcover – Special Edition, 1 Feb. 2024

If you had told me when I was a teenager struggling to get through The Lord of the Rings and bouncing off the Entmoot that I would one day not only gleefully smash through the whole trilogy but then follow it up by reading The Silmarillion in just one week, I’d have laughed in your face. But inexplicably, here we are. And as personal reading achievements go, this one is something of which I am exceedingly proud of myself for. I really enjoyed the experience, and it has deepened not only my understanding, but also my love, for the lore of Middle Earth.The Silmarillion is renowned for being an extremely difficult book to read for all manner of reasons from its stark difference in style to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, to its grandiose and tricky (somewhat Biblical) prose, to the parts which are—dare I say it—very boring. But for those who can endure (or even revel in) the difficulties, in equal measure this is a masterpiece. The tales contained within go beyond storytelling, beyond worldbuilding. The Silmarillion is firmly planted in the realm of the finest mythmaking.Within, Tolkien gives us his take on a creation myth. There are tales of gods, the history of the elves and the doom of the Silmarils, the great deeds of the heroes of old, the stories behind the songs referenced in The Lord of the Rings, and the rise and fall of the first Dark Lord of whom Sauron was only a servant. It weaves in interpretations of other myths, like Arthurian legend, and the destruction of Atlantis in tales like the Fall of Númenor, and locations like the island of Avalónnë. And finally, it gives us a glimpse into the making of the Rings of Power and the events behind The Lord of the Rings from the perspective of the high and mighty.Many of the Great Tales are here in condensed form, such as the iconic and beautiful love story of the tale of Beren & Lúthien, the surprisingly dark tragedy of the Children of Húrin, the Fall of Gondolin, the victorious Voyage of Eärendil, and the Akallabêth (or Atalantë). They were all so good. I’ve heard that people really struggle with the opening two chapters of the book with the creation myth, but I revelled in all of that as well. The only bit which I felt really dragged was where the tales paused and the book instead took me through the map in excruciating detail for one single chapter (Of Beleriand and its Realms). Honestly that’s where I could have crashed out if I hadn’t had the maps to follow.A note on this edition of the book: I have got the 2021 hardback containing paintings from Ted Nasmith (the one with The Ships of the Faithful painting as the front cover). It’s incredible. The illustrations alone are worth it, but reading the tales with the pictures just elevated the whole experience. Like I said above, I read The Silmarillion in full in one week. Absolutely devoured it.I’ve seen one or two people say that getting so much backstory diminished the mystery and wonder they felt when reading The Lord of the Rings. I can’t relate to this, or even understand the sentiment. There are a lot of tales and a lot of names in The Silmarillion, but it never felt like it gave too much detail (with the exception of the map chapter). Everything was told in a very high level manner, removed from the characters, and oftentimes simply says stuff like “and they did many other great deeds” without elaboration. I was actually surprised, because I wanted more detail about the Fall of Númenor and the creation of the Rings of Power, and the coming of the Istari, but… It’s simply not here—at least not any moreso than in the Appendices at the back of The Lord of the Rings. It turns out that a lot of those kinds of details are in other writings such as Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle Earth (which I also now have on my shelf, though in paperback form—a cheap and fortuitous find from a charity shop!) So no, reading The Silmarillion has not diminished anything for me, but to the contrary has increased my wonder at the world that Tolkien created.If you’ve read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and are hungry for more in the world of Middle Earth, you could consider The Silmarillion. But you really need to be prepared for what you’re getting into before you start. There are plenty of resources online to help with a first read of this remarkable text. But if you think you can tackle it, the rewards are great indeed, and I really recommend it.

Book Review: The SilmarillionThis will constitute two sections. The first being The Prologue to me reading this book in order to provide context, and the second being The Review itself. You can skip the first part if you want; it's not part of the review, but simply showing my build-up to reading this book and my reading "background" (if you like).My PrologueBefore I get to my review of the book itself, I would like to provide some context to my reading of this book. Personally I am not anything even remotely close to being what’s known as a “bookworm”; the only book I had read since my days in school was George Orwell’s 1984 which was recommended to me (and which I quite enjoyed).Many years later, I guess by destiny, I ended up watching Peter Jackson’s rendition of The Lord of the Rings. At this time I had not even heard of The Lord of the Rings, much less knew who J.R.R. Tolkien was. Eventually I ended up watching all three parts in the cinema. I became quite the fan and to date have marathoned the extended cuts about a dozen times! I became the guy who would make random references to the trilogy and quote something perhaps slightly related (sometimes to irritate others, often for the sheer enjoyment of it).Then I discovered The Hobbit was being made into a movie by Peter Jackson. I was quite excited at the prospect of another Lord of the Rings-esque trilogy, however I only watched the last part in the cinema. I had read the book before watching the second and third parts and I was awfully disappointed with Peter Jackson’s rendition of the movie (I won’t digress into this here).But after watching the first part of The Hobbit I became aware of this booked titled The Silmarillion and was very intrigued by it. I had read that it tells of the origins of things and people like Sauron – who he was and how he came about. All these things just captivated me and I felt I just had to read this book (since there was no movie counterpart).I firmly decided to venture into reading this book. So I looked into it online to see if there was anything I should watch/read before getting into this book, and it was quite widely recommended to first read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings before reading The Silmarillion (one person even recommended reading them all at least three times before getting into The Silmarillion!). So I invested in the hard copies of these four books first and decided that if I get through these then I would invest in a copy of The Silmarillion, too. I had heard even before this that the LOTR books were quite slow and somewhat difficult reading, so in the back of my mind I did feel a little daunted by this, but went ahead despite this.By the end of these four books (The Hobbit and LOTR) I was absolutely in love with the whole Middle Earth world and absolutely amazed by it all. I never at all expected to come out of this loving the books more than I did the movies, but it happened exactly like that! It was now finally time to begin my reading of The Silmarillion.Initially I felt hesitant to actually do it because by this point I had read about people who tried reading this book but would only get so far and then lose interest or find it too tedious to read any further. Even a colleague of mine, who is more of an avid reader than me, had previously tried to read this book but only got as far as page 64 (or thereabouts). But then I remembered why I started this whole thing; why I had read through The Hobbit and then The LOTR books; it was all to build up to this final reading. So I went online and ordered a copy of the book and thought to myself, I’m gonna give it a go, and if I find I just can’t get into it then at least I tried.The ReviewWhen I finally got the book, and started reading. I decided to also read the prologue and also a letter by J.R.R. Tolkien to the publisher about the book. I thought it might help give me a better feel to the book when I would eventually start the first chapter. In hindsight, I’m not sure if they did help or not, but they are worth reading through nonetheless.I had heard and read that this book is basically The Bible as it talks about the start of creation and things of that nature. For example, the antagonist is compared to being Satan (fallen angel and all that). I’ve never read The Bible so I can’t really compare them but I can see where these POVs come from.The first few chapters of the book seemed to move quite slow, but they really helped set the scene and backdrop of things that were to come. Before long I was absolutely loving this book. I just wanted to keep reading it through.The thing which I guess could be something which puts people off reading this book through are the many hard-to-pronounce names of places and characters. In fact, there are characters who share names which can often feel too close to one another. To help remedy this, I found referring to the appendices for the map of the world and the name charts/family trees was very useful. In fact, I had two bookmarks set; one to mark my progression of the story itself and the other to quickly get to the right page for the maps and name charts/family trees at the back (just to avoid faffing around with the pages as I literally wanted a quick access to these pages so this really helped).There is even a chapter titled ‘Of Beleriand’ which has absolutely no story or character progression. It pretty much just goes through the map of the world and talks about which set of characters reside in which parts of the lands. But despite not having any story or character progression, this chapter still proved useful to read as the rest of the book felt easier to go through as I had a better image of the world in which this story takes place in.This is an amazing piece of work by Tolkien which showcases a battle of good versus evil spanning across the three ages. It has a certain richness to it which almost makes it seems as though it could very well be a real piece of history (though we all know it isn’t).The Lord of the Rings shows Tolkien setting the scene for the quest to destroy the One Ring; The Silmarillion shows us how we got to this point and the history and origins of things. We find out things like who Sauron really is and how he became so evil (it even shows us that he wasn’t always a bad guy). In The Lord of the Rings we find out how Orcs came about, but in The Silmarillion we look into this in more detail. We even see the birth of Balrogs and Dragons. Ever wondered what or where the kindom of Númenor? This book tells us all about it.You will learn of the story of Beren and Lúthien, which is very briefly mentioned by Aragorn in LOTR. We see much of heroism, strength and courage. We also see the weaknesses of the Elves – something which we don’t really see in LOTR. You see how the Elves became different factions and their relationship with Men and even Dwarves. Things which are only briefly mentioned in LOTR are fully detailed in this book.The only thing which I feel perhaps should also have been mentioned, even if briefly, is where and how the Hobbits came about. The reason I say this is because we learn where the Elves, Men, Dwarves, Orcs, Balrogs, Dragons and just about everyone else all came from, except Hobbits. We see familiar characters from LOTR such as Elrond and Galadriel.The character building in this book is just absolutely amazing. It really gives so much density and depth within it. You begin to really feel the emotions of everything that happens throughout the story. Why Sauron was such an evil character and where this stemmed from in the beginning of things. You even find out the origin of Aragorn’s ring and its origins (the ring with the two serpents, one devouring the other). Seeing the relationships between characters build and even fall apart is executed so well by Tolkien. The way Tolkien has merged the three books into one overall story really is just nothing short of incredible.I don’t want to get into the story too much at all nor spoil anything, but I found myself coming out of this book having thoroughly enjoying it more than I did reading The LOTR books. But I also came out thinking to myself, I really don’t understand why people can’t finish reading this book (aside from the names thing I mentioned previously). I felt this book was not given justice by people abandoning it so easily. Anyone who has read The LOTR SHOULD read this book, too. Knowing where everyone came from and how everything built up to the destroying of the One Ring came about is something EVERY LOTR fan should experience and know.The book can feel like a lot of hard work and effort at times, but when you get to the end of it, you'll hopefully feel it was all worth it. This book will definitely reward those who endure it.I would recommend this book to any LOTR fan and I rate it 10/10. Yes, the names can become somewhat confusing and difficult to pronounce and, in turn, remember, but the appendices are there for a reason. They should be regularly used as a reference point. When reading this book, I would not recommend rushing it, but to read it to enjoy and savour it.