Book Review - The Silmarillon

For reviews to come, I will post a synopsis of the book here first, and then continue on with my review. But with this book, the synopsis is so long, it's rather... boring. Basically, this is the history of Tolkien's Elves in Middle-Earth, along with some basic history of Men. The first quarter or so of the book is dedicated to the making of Earth and explaining how it was created and by whom.

Overall, I was very impressed with the amount of detail and thought that went into this history. You really see how this world was created, unfortunately, it really does read like a history book, written by Shakespeare. The language is at times, very difficult to translate what he means, but once you get rolling and get the grasp of the difficult names it's a great read. I was disappointed that almost all of the names, especially the Valar and Elvish names were very similar. That does through you off sometimes. Same thing goes with when he bounces back and forth between their "true names" and what men or elves call them, like in the case of the Valar.

I was in love with the story of Beren and Luthien. I'll have to go back and read it again, it was that good. I love the idea of a mortal man risking his life so that he may marry the elvish woman of his dreams. It's just so classically romantic. If you haven't read this story, it's basically what Aragorn and Arwen followed. Except, Aragorn just had to become King of Gondor and finish off Mordor and all that, instead of stealing a jewel from the crown of a God...

If you love/are obsessed with LOTR, and haven't read this yet, I would recommend it. If for nothing else other than the cool little Aha! moments that abound in it.