And I couldn’t make it through it. I love Tolkien and I love world building. There was just too much. I think a big part of it was that I had to keep going back to the reference pages for names, lineage, and map locations. Like, 5-6 times per page. That happen to anyone else or am I the only one who couldn’t remember all three elvish dialects?
by VonnegutsPallMalls
6 Comments
As someone who loves Tolkien but also ended up with a PhD in the stuff Tolkien studied: the Silmarilion is like reading a primary source from 13th century Iceland. It’s understandable to struggle.
It was tough but I did make it through. Once I realized it wasn’t anything like LotR and was more like a bible of Tolkien’s universe, it helped me. There are some really cool stories in it.
The Silmarilion has broken better men than any of us will ever be. I gave up two chapters in.
They should convince Amazon to make it into a series, the number of unemployed actors in Hollywood would be cut by massive number.
I grew up having to read the whole Bible. It was great practice!
I attacked it like I attacked the Bible and Mahabharata. Some stories were really interesting. Some were a slog.
I found it a lot more digestable via audiobook.