Synopsis:
The Silmarillion is an account of the Elder Days, of the First Age of Tolkien’s world. It is the ancient drama to which the characters in The Lord of the Rings look back, and in whose events some of them such as Elrond and Galadriel took part. The tales of The Silmarillion are set in an age when Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, dwelt in Middle-Earth, and the High Elves made war upon him for the recovery of the Silmarils, the jewels containing the pure light of Valinor.
Review:
Writing a review of the Silmarillion is like trying to review the Bible. Where do you even start? There’s just so much story in here. Any attempt to convey it in a review would be to do the book a massive disservice. There would only ever be enough space to talk about one or a few elements of the work. So instead I thought I’d give my reasoning as to why every Tolkien enthusiast needs to read this in order to fully understand Tolkien: the sheer depth of the work. “It is said by the Eldar that in water their lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen.”
The history of middle-earth is very rich, and it stretches a very long way. Much further than the time of Sauron and the Ring. And this sense of history is only very briefly glimpsed within The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit if at all. The Silmarillion is the entire picture; it is the entire vison of Tolkien’s fantasy world. It’s a huge piece of world building, and there really is nothing else quite like it. In here he relays a huge amount of history, a truly staggering amount for a fictional world to possess. I often talk about the need for world building in fantasy, and here it is in full force. It’s astonishing. It’s beyond imaginative. It goes further than anything before it and since. And this is why Tolkien is the master of the genre. He wasn’t the first, and he certainly won't be the last to write such fiction, but he was the best writer to ever attempt it. He more than set the benchmark when he wrote this. So, if you’re thinking about reading this, but find the task at hand a little bit too daunting, then stop thinking. Pick this book and lose yourself in the history of the greatest fantasy universe ever created. You won't regret it.
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