Like many other fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s work, whether you discovered it before watching The Lord of the Rings films or not, you eventually find out about The Silmarillion. There are varying opinions about this work but one of the prevailing comments made about it is that The Silmarillion is a difficult book to read. Having been forewarn of the challenges I put off reading it for years even though I really wanted to know more about the history of Middle-earth. For now, I’ll simply say that it was unfortunate to not have read it earlier. I wilfully deprived myself of a wonderful and satisfyingly challenging reading experience.
As most
fans of Tolkien’s body of work will know, The
Silmarillion was published posthumously. Tolkien’s son, Christopher
Tolkien, assembled the book from multiple manuscripts into a cohesive narrative.
In doing so he had a lot of difficulty as many of the stories told in the book
existed in multiple versions while other texts were incomplete or only
fragments remained in the possession of the Tolkien Estate. In order to
reconstruct certain texts as well as create original material to bridge certain
passages together, the young Tolkien enlisted the help of Guy Gavriel Kay, a
Canadian who became a renowned fantasy novelist in his own right a few years
after the publication of the text. Much can and has been said about Christopher
Tolkien’s efforts but I will not be discussing them here as I would like to
focus on the published work, not on the editing of the book nor its merits as
something wholly or only partially attributed to J.R.R. Tolkien. I must admit
that I personally find that sort of discussion interesting though I don’t think
it’s entirely consequential. One thing is clear, I’m very grateful that he and
Kay took on the challenge.
