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Comment by bovermyer | Hacker News Reader

Well .

I'm going to start reading the Silmarillion again tonight. Maybe this time I can finish it.

It's so dry but so good. I read it on my vacation this summer (after Huckleberry Finn). What made it interesting for me was to understand the work itself and the context JRR was working in. There are references to Saxon and Finnish mythology in many of the stories. I recommend reading it alongside his collected letters; some of the explanations he made for things are enriched by his correspondences.

I honestly think it's one of the greatest works of English language literature and think it will come to be recognized more widely as such in the coming century. Academics really didn't take it seriously because it's a work of fantasy, but the use of the English language is up there with the best I've ever seen in the history of literature.

My way of ingesting it has always been to make it about the language itself, the word-music. It feels dry if you're trying to read it like a novel, because then some sections are just descriptions of geography or deities. It should be approached sort of like Shakespeare. Who today can really parse Early Modern English in real-time without having studied it beforehand? Very few. But that doesn't take away the beauty of the words.

I believe that is what he was going for: the Beowulf of the English cannon. That's what I mean by, "so dry but so good." If you don't understand the form of heroic epics and that he'd written such huge epics himself, it can pass the casual reader by.

Isn't Beowulf the 'Beowulf of the English canon?'

Perhaps he meant modern English canon. Beowulf isn't understandable to modern speakers.

Precisely, thank you.

Here's a quick version: The Silmarillion in 1000 words. http://lotrspoofs.net/parodies-and-more/the-silmarillion-in-...

One of the gems of the early net.

I'll also recommend Evan Palmer's Ainulindalë comic: https://www.evanpalmercomics.com/ainulindale

Thanks for sharing; I hadn't seen this before and I loved it. The link to the mentioned podcast conversation with the artist was broken; I tracked it down and wanted to share: https://overcast.fm/+EIubFP3G8

And the Myths Retold version, aka "The Jam Session that Creates the Universe"!

http://bettermyths.com/the-jam-session-that-created-the-univ...

I read it recently. The best advice I can give is to allow yourself to read it slowly. I spent a lot of time flipping to the back to get a clearer picture of who someone or something is. And it was worth it.

There's more world-building in some paragraphs of the Silmarillion than there is in whole novels of some modern scifi/fantasy fiction.

Skip the first 50 pages or so. The rest is golden.

Oh man, I have to disagree. I love the Ainulindalë. Plus, without it, I imagine you'd have a difficult time figuring out who exactly the Valar are or what their role is.

That said, my advice would be to not get too caught up on the names and places and details — just let the story sort of wash over you. Many, many, many names are only said exactly once in The Silmarillion; if you try to remember them all, you'll go crazy. If you see a name 3+ times, that's when it's time to track them down on the family tree, probably.

I'd also recommend making sure you reference the map when a place keeps being mentioned. It's helpful to know the vague locations of Doriath, Nargothrond, Gondolin, etc.

It’s easy to say “don’t get caught up in the names and places” but there’s literally chapter devoted to geography.

I highly recommend the Atlas of Middle-Earth.

I've tried to read it 3 times and have always given up after about 30 pages. Gonna give this a shot tonight, thanks for the advice.

If I can offer some advice and plug my own work, I did a blog that breaks it into tiny pieces, helping put them into the Lord of the Rings context, and clarifying what you actually need to remember and what you can just let wash over you. The book is a slog for everybody the first try, and I was trying to help people through that.

https://www.quora.com/q/cowpyhwvlbspffvw?sort=top

The blog is a rough draft of what I'd hoped would some day be a completed work, so it's not everything I'd like it to be. But I do think people will find it helpful nonetheless.

Don't try to read it in book order/chronological order. Instead, start with "Of the Rings of Power and the Third Age" (which has a brilliant short retelling of LOTR), then "Akallabêth", then "Quenta Silmarillion" and only then "Ainulindalë".

They are all largely self contained, and it's much easier to go through in quasi-reverse order. Just use the Wikipedia synopsis to get up to speed on the chronologically preceding section first. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Silmarillion#Synopsis)

It gets really really good in the middle and the end. But that beginning is quite a slog.

I loved LoTR, but Silmarillion is an higher level of epicness.

I understand that later in life Christopher Tolkien regretted having published it as he felt he had done too much editing, but I'm glad he did anyway.

I remember picking it up after LotR because I loved Blind Guardians concept album masterpiece “Nightfall in Middle-Earth” about it. I ended up enjoying the Silmarillion quite a bit more than the main trilogy (and am not alone in that). What was crucial for me was printing the family trees and maps and putting them somewhere closeby (e.g. a wall) for quick reference.

It only really starts kicking off at "the unchaining of Melkor". From then on the mayhem builds fairly steadily.

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