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The Silmarillion: by J. R. R. Tolkien (Author, Illustrator)

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These five parts were initially separate works, but it was J.R.R. Tolkien's express wish that they be published together. Because Tolkien died before he could complete a full rewrite of the various legends, his son Christopher used material from his father's older drafts to fill out the book. The Silmarilli were three perfect jewels, fashioned by Feanor, most gifted of the Elves, and within them was imprisoned the last Light of the Two Trees of Valinor. But the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, stole the jewels and set them within his iron crown, guarded in the impenetrable fortress of Angband in the north of Middle-earth.

Many years after the war, encouraged by the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien submitted an incomplete but more fully developed version (see: Quenta Silmarillion (Lost Road)) to Allen and Unwin, but they rejected the work as being obscure and "too Celtic". The publisher instead asked Tolkien to write a sequel to The Hobbit, which became his significant novel The Lord of the Rings. The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún · The Fall of Arthur · The Story of Kullervo · The Lay of Aotrou and Itroun Tolkien tells the story of the beginning of Middle Earth and has provided us with a very cool mythology for his creation. We learn about the Valar, the Maiar (of whom Gandolf and Suaron are both members) the tribes of the elves and the fall of the great cities of the Elves in Middle Earth. Silmarillion tells the tale of the making of the world by Eru, the God of Middle-Earth and all that followed through the first two ages of creation, up until the events described in The Hobbit and LOTR. Christopher Tolkien did a great job of connecting his father’s writings on the subject, so we have a nice and chronological story. But it is not a novel exactly, for it covers countless years. Silmarillion is Quenya plural genitive of the word "Silmaril", therefore it means "of the Silmarils".

I had read The Hobbit twice before and the Lord of the Rings once (and a half). As I've stated, I dipped my toes in The Silmarillion, but never let myself dive in. This time, in the interest of reading something other than required reading, I jumped in with both feet. The detail is so rich and its history so compelling that it so easily comes alive for me. If you want to know more about Middle Earth, the info is there. You just have to find the book that tells it. If you're looking for more beyond The Lord of the Rings, this is that book. En esto creo que también tiene mucho que ver el transfondo social, histórico y moral del propio Tolkien, del cual toda su obra es también deudora, bebiendo ampliamente de estas circunstancias. Nada del otro mundo, estos contextos influyen, para bien o para mal, en todos los escritores. La gracia está en ver en cómo lo hace. En el caso de Tolkien no solo vemos una historia que habla sobre la humanidad. También podemos comprobar la forma en que la Primera Guerra Mundial influyó en él, ya que de joven estuvo en el frente (Por cierto, hay un libro que habla de las experiencias en este conflicto junto a las de su amigo C. S. Lewis, creador de “Las Crónicas de Narnia”, y de como les influyo a ambos en sus celebres obras. Libro que tengo, desde hace mucho, ganas de leer también, como no). El sinsentido de la guerra y la capacidad inherente de las personas para realizarla a sangre fría, y para matar a sus semejantes es algo muy presente en todo este libro de una forma descorazonadora. Otro aspecto que también me ha parecido muy interesante es la preocupación del escritor por la ecología y el medio ambiente, la forma en que habla de cómo la industrialización y la falta de cuidado están destrozando los espacios naturales y la tierra. Ideas muy avanzadas para la época en que Tolkien vivió y que demuestran la gran sensibilidad y perspicacia de este autor.

The one had leaves of dark green that beneath were as shining as silver, and from each of his countless flowers a dew of silver light was ever falling, and the earth beneath was dappled with the shadows of his fluttering leaves. The other bore leaves of a young green like the new-opened beech; their edges were of glittering gold. Flowers swung upon her branches in clusters of yellow flame, formed each to a glowing horn that spilled a golden rain upon the ground; and from the blossom of that tree there came forth warmth and a great light. The world of The Silmarillionis the world created out of the music of the angelic Ainur, before The Lord of the Rings, before even The Hobbit. The Silmarilliontells of the coming of the elves and men, and of Melkor, the greatest of the Ainur, who fell from grace and in doing so planted the seeds of evil. These are the stories by which the inhabitants of Middle-earth live, offering the reader a deeper insight into Tolkien’s magical world. These annals, with their brilliantly-etched admixtures of beauty and short-lived heroic triumphs set against an overpowering sense of futility and tragic defeat at the hands of an enemy whose cunning is as deep as the infernal pits of his cavernous dungeons and whose malice engirds the star-kissed world, whose very corruption has been bled into the core of creation itself, were just what were needed to spark a young imagination; Tolkien's private amusements and delights mirrored my own in their fledgling form, and inspired me to tributary tasks of creation that nobody else could understand or appreciate but which gave me immense personal satisfaction. They awoke within me the powerful demiurgical desire to craft worlds, populate them, endow them with their own gods and mythologies, formulate a history, laden it with political systems, the whole works, all in the service of a time-bound fate that culminates in an apocalyptic showdown betwixt the dark and the light. At that point in a person's life, when the complex and inscrutable mathematical rituals and hierarchical causality of all-powerful modern science have immense appeal but few handholds, the prismatic and primal allure of myth and magic, the intuitive interconnectedness of nature with the sorcerously creative will of man, even at that tender age a force struggling to avoid restraint and desperately endeavoring to draw power from those spiritual furnaces deep within, the font of dreams, such tales of heroism and fortitude in the face of the supernatural are, for many, very hard to resist. What's more, the channeling of natural phenomenon into organic spirits with anthropomorphic features and forms offers another intuitively-appealing means to understanding a vast material world that otherwise seems awesomely inexplicable and frighteningly unpredictable. Stories that tap into our innate desire both to be entertained and be edified by human theatre set within the panoramic vistas of a horizon-hid past—Tolkien delivered in spades. Before 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).Todo empieza con una canción, la de Ilúvatar, por medio de la cual se crea Eä (el universo) y, con ella Arda (la tierra). Y el resto de historias y cuentos se encadenan como notas de una larga y hermosa canción que se da durante siglos. La canción de como la Tierra Media se convirtió en el escenario de las aventuras de Frodo, Gandalf, Aragorn y el resto de la Compañía del Anillo y demás personajes de ESDLA, punto al que termina por desembocar en su final. Y es más que eso. Es la canción de un mundo entero, y en ella tienen cabida todo tipo de notas y acordes. La lucha eterna de las fuerzas del bien contra el mal, de la luz contra la oscuridad; se alterna con historias sobre guerras y luchas, ambiciones, muerte, amores más fuertes que la muerte, amistades, perdidas, sagas familiares malditas, traiciones y heroísmo. Y todo esto tiene algo tanto de épico como de humano que logra conectar con el lector. Más allá de que las páginas de “El Silmarillion” estén pobladas de héroes, dioses, magos y elfos, hay en todos estos personajes y en sus vivencias algo profundamente reconocible y que forma parte de lo más hondo del bagaje humano y de su forma de ser. even tho the paper don’t agree with me on this… it was self mutilation!!! She has no idea how “attached”

Y es que la influencia de lo religioso y de la Biblia es innegable en este computo de leyendas al igual que la de otras mitologías como la nórdica. Pero creo que una de las cosas más interesantes en Tolkien es la forma en que, de alguna manera, humaniza a sus seres más poderosos. Sus errores o los pecados que cometen no se deben tanto a un error de cálculos o a que algo más poderoso que se interponga en sus planes (que también) como a la forma en que caen en algunos de los defectos más intrínsicamente humanos. Porque los dioses en Tolkien tienen sus propias personalidades, perfectamente diferenciadas de las del resto. Los elfos, a los que tan sabios y poderosos tenemos en nuestras cabezas, fácilmente podrían ser humanos, ya que se equivocan muchas veces y son presas del odio y las ambiciones humanas como cualquier otro de los terceros hijos. Y también son capaces de conocer el amor y la amistad, y de valorarlos en su justa medida. Los magos, enviados para proteger a la humanidad de la llegada de la oscuridad, pueden acabar siendo partícipes de la misma. Los héroes no son infalibles. Hay en todo esto algo más grande que todos estos personajes, un destino que les mueve a actuar y les supera, pero que aún así les de margen para ser ellos mismos, un libre albedrío que les hace profundamente cercanos para el lector. When the Valar entered into Eä they were at first astounded and at a loss, for it was as if naught was yet made which they had seen in vision, and all was but on point to begin and yet unshaped, and it was dark. For the Great Music had been but the growth and flowering of thought in the Timeless Halls, and the Vision only a foreshowing; but now they had entered in at the beginning of Time, and the Valar perceived that the World had been but foreshadowed and foresung, and they must achieve it. So began their great labours in wastes unmeasured and unexplored, and in ages uncounted and forgotten, until in the Deeps of Time and in the midst of the vast halls of Eä there came to be that hour and that place where was made the habitation of the Children of Ilúvatar.You also probably shouldn't read this if you didn't like either of the aforementioned books. You need to care for Middle-earth and its history to properly enjoy and appreciate this one. 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. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien: writer, artist, scholar, linguist. Known to millions around the world as the author of The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien spent most of his life teaching at the University of Oxford where he was a distinguished academic in the fields of Old and Middle English and Old Norse. His creativity, confined to his spare time, found its outlet in fantasy works, stories for children, poetry, illustration and invented languages and alphabets. Epic Lore: The stories within "The Silmarillion" are grand in scale, from the creation of the world by Eru Ilúvatar to the struggles of the Elves, Men, Dwarves, and the dark powers of Morgoth. Regular flat paper, not glossy. More standard book-shaped, whereas the 2004 version is more square, like a coffee table book. Mine was used and did NOT include a fold-out map, but the colorized Christopher Tolkien Beleriand map is in the front plate and endplate (inside the cover, both ends).

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. This deluxe slipcased edition contains the complete text, which is printed in two colours and features, for the very first time, more than 50 colour paintings, illustrations and designs drawn by J.R.R. Tolkien himself as he composed this epic work. J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Silmarillion" is a timeless and majestic epic that stands as a cornerstone of high fantasy literature. Here's why it deserves a five-star rating: But, as said, be aware, these stories are disguised nerdgasms so full of the language Tolkien adapted from originals and invented himself, such a celebrating of OCD perfectionism, a planning close to no modern nowadays author would invest in her/ his work, the work of a lifetime, that it´s truly no easy read. 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).

illustrations by Tolkien himself – BUT more than half of these are “devices,” neat little square symbols at the start of a chapter and so on—not big full color paintings or drawings. In addition to the source material and earlier drafts of several portions of The Lord of the Rings, these books greatly expand on the original material published in The Silmarillion, and in many cases diverge from it. There is much that Tolkien intended to revise but only sketched out in notes, and some new texts surfaced after the publication of The Silmarillion.

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