The Silmarillion is the densest source of Middle-earth related information any fanatic could stumble upon. However, any but the most die-hard fans will soon be wallowing through a mire of too much information to process. What about this incredible book deters so many readers?
The most common reason fans of J.R.R. Tolkien’s other works will simply put down The Silmarillion after the first chapter is that they are expecting a story like The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Although it includes adventures, battles, and voyages across uncharted lands, The Silmarillion does not contain many of the elements that draw people to The Lord of the Rings. For example, there is little direct dialogue in the book. Therefore, it can often seem like it is being told in summary mode and that the reader is only hearing the action recounted, not witnessing the battles unfold.
For another thing, though it can be classified as a collection of epic tales, much of the book is focused on describing the landscape and relationships between parts of Middle-earth. Here is one such passage:
“South of Ard-galen the great highland named Dorthonion stretched for sixty leagues from west to east; great pine forests it bore, especially on its northern and western sides. By gentle slopes from the plain it rose to a bleak and lofty land, where lay many tarns at the feet of bare tors whose heads were higher than the peaks of Ered Wethrin; but southward where it looked towards Doriath it fell suddenly in dreadful precipices. From the northern slopes of Dorthonion Angrod and Aegnor, sons of Finarfin, looked out over the fields of Ard-galen, and were the vassals of their brother Finrod, lord of Nargothond; their people were few, for the land was barren, and the great highlands behind were deemed to be a bulwark that Morgoth would not lightly seek to cross.”
This chapter (Of Beleriand and Its Realms) continues on in this fashion, and by the end of it, a reader will have utterly forgotten the associations with all the names they’ve tried to commit to memory in the chapter before. The fact that many of the names sound alike or even rhyme doesn’t help matters. And even if the purpose of the chapter is to give readers a sense of where each group of Elves was in respect to each other, it is so densely packed with this information that it leaves readers with no better an idea of the land than when they started. Furthermore, with all the history and background attached to each name, it may seem like one is reading a passage twice the length of the actual block of text.
Another challenge of The Silmarillion is the unfamiliar vocabulary: the work is written with many archaic or uncommon words, such as ‘tarns’, ‘tors’, and ‘bulwark’ in the passage above. There is also a somewhat unfamiliar syntax in this passage. For example, in the first sentence, it says, “great pine forests it bore”, which we can understand to mean that it had great pine forests. However, when reading sentence after sentence of text formatted like this, a reader may find that they have read an entire paragraph without comprehending much of it.
But are these obstacles enough to make determined fans turn away? It depends. If your love for Middle-earth is primarily based on the action-filled films of Peter Jackson, The Silmarillion may not prove to be your cup of tea. Even many die-hard fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings find that The Silmarillion isn’t what they’re looking for. But many do end up enjoying the novel, if just to explore another piece of Middle-earth. I, for one, love and appreciate this work, and even if my eye still skids over some sections of it, or I read a passage without realizing how little I’m taking in, I will read it again and again. Just because The Silmarillion can be a challenging read, that should not deter any fan from pursuing the book. It provides a much more complete history of Middle-earth and delights the reader in epic tales of love, battles, and times of peace, as only Tolkien can..
The Valinor Journal 