The Silmarillion – J.R.R. Tolkien

Title: The Silmarillion Genre: Fantasy Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

I really do believe that to truly appreciate the stories of The Hobbit as well as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, one must read The Simarillion. The breadth and scope of Tolkien’s creativity truly begins to be seen within the Simarillion. I heard or read somewhere that Tolkien thought of his writings and such as a creation within creation, that he was most glorifying God when he was being as creative as possible, in effect creating a world just as God had.

Well, I think the fact that any man could have such breadth of vision and conceptualization as is evident in the Simarillion, that fact in and of itself, brings glory to God. And I think the fact that Tolkien painted the unfolding history of his world in the colors of not only love, trust and triumph (as well as many other ‘virtues’), but greed, selfishness, pride, and many more aspects of a fallen nature is reflective of the Bible in many respects, for Tolkien does not seem to be trying to tell us a story as we want to hear it, but rather just acting as a purveyor of events that were.

At times I found myself dragging through sections, through certain stories.And at other points I found myself reading pages breathlessly, impatient to know and experience what was to come next. But, overall, I found that my pace reading this book was akin to the pace I take reading through a non-fiction book – Tolkien’s writing is so rich, and his style so strong that I couldn’t just consume it as I do other non-fiction works.

So do I recommend it? Absolutely – but don’t expect a Robert Jordan, Stephen Lawhead, Anne McCaffrey or the like. Tolkien’s books have been proven by time, not by the bestsellers list. This is different – this is what most fantasy writers of the present are striving to approach.

Worldview: Monotheistic

Suggested Age: Due to the “weight” of the reading, I think few children under the middle-school age would be able to make it through, though there is nothing really objectionable about the content.

Additional links:
Silmarillion on the Wikipedia
Official Website of the Tolkien Estate
TheOneRing.com – The home of Tolkien Online, or so the site claims.
The Tolkien Society
The Tolkien Timeline – not too sure exactly what this is, but it looks interesting…