There is a central topic of my blog it seems; writing about Tolkien, because I read an awful lot of Tolkien's works. For those who do not know, please allow me to fill you in on what I have been doing as of late. I recently finished reading The Silmarillion; The Silmarillion being the prequel to the trilogy The Lord of the Rings and coming before The Hobbit as well. It is a literary masterpiece of J.R.R. Tolkien's and a prime example of his creative nature. He is known for creating Middle Earth and The Silmarillion is a good reference to his creation. The book fleshes out the world of Middle Earth even more so than the trilogy and its singular predecessor did.
I began reading the book with two different points of view. The first, knowing that the book should be read like a history book, and not all at once (Johanna, I am incredibly sorry for not heeding your advice). The second point of view is that it would be similar to all of Tolkien's other works that I have read; full of allegory, even though Tolkien himself said that there was none. I realized, after a time, that I could not read The Silmarillion like a history textbook and I could certainly not read it like The Bible. The book is a series of stories, telling one whole story. It is most certainly like a history book, but different in the way that it reads. I could not read the book as if it were The Bible either, because there was a great deal of differences between the two, that I will note later on in this post.
To be painfully honest, I was rather nervous before beginning this post. "Why?" you may ask. It is because The Silmarillion is such a masterpiece that I cannot let it down with a simple misuse of a word. Everything I write about it has to be perfect and that is what I am setting out to do. That is the prime objective of the post and I will commence to tell you about The Silmarillion.
The book revolves around the Valar and Ilùvatar. The Valar are the beings that come to Arda, later on known as Middle Earth, and take part in a song that Ilùvatar creates and they bring order to Arda. Belonging to the Valar are the Queens of the Valar and the Lords of the Valar. The Lords of the Valar include Manwë Sùlimo (King of the Valar), Ulmo (King of the Sea), Aulë (the Smith), Oromë Aldaron (the Great Rider), Mandos (Judge of the Dead), Irmo (also known as Lorien and who is Master of Dreams and Desires), and Tulkas Astaldo (Champion of Valinor). The Queens of the Valar include Varda Elentári (Queen of the Stars, wife of Manwë), Yavanna Kementári (also known as Palùrien, Giver of Fruits, wife of Aulë), Nienna (Lady of Mercy), Estë (the Gentle), Vairë (the Weaver), Vána (the Ever-young), and Nessa (the Dancer). There are many names that one cannot keep track of on their own and I am ever thankful to the Tolkien Gateway, which I will cite at the end of this post.
The greatest threat to the Valar is Melkor. He is the mightiest of the Valar but is not included among the Lords of the Valar, for he was evil and brought destruction instead of life wherever he went. He made it his personal job to destroy whatever the Valar created in the stories that Tolkien told. Melkor is the original enemy, and after him comes Sauron.
Ilùvatar is the god figure of the entire story. He creates the Valar, they are created out of his thoughts. They are known as the thoughts of Ilùvatar. Ilùvatar also creates the races of Elves and Men out of his thoughts and they are the most important races in all of Arda. The dwarves are created later on, but they are a thought of the Aulë and were not immediately accepted by Ilùvatar. The Ents were created by Yavanna. The Elven race were the first to live in Arda. The race of Men was put into a deep sleep, to bloom at a later time in the world. Because of this, I realized that I could not read The Silmarillion as if it were The Bible because of a tremendous difference.
The difference between The Silmarillion and The Bible are that man was created at the beginning in the latter book where in the former, they were created early on but were not allowed to exist in the world until a later time. The men of The Bible came into a land that was perfect and were sent out from it after a time due to their sinfulness where in The Silmarillion, men were born into a land of ruin but not due to their sinfulness. It also does not help them that Ilùvatar becomes a distant deity, unlike the god of The Bible.
Besides the fact, there are many enjoyable stories in The Silmarillion, my favorite being "Of Beren and Luthien", the tale of an Elven girl named Luthien and a man by the name of Beren. Beren falls in love with Luthien, and Luthien likewise Beren; but her father does not approve and he is disgusted. He sends Beren to retrieve a silmaril.
The moral of the whole history of Middle Earth, is to not get too worked up about gems because they will ruin your life and the lives of others.
http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Valar
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