The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is actually my third time reading and I feel kinda bad because I keep picking up big new details I missed the first couple of times I read it.

Well, maybe I don't feel *THAT* bad. I mean, it is DAMN full of names and genealogies and it's probably a bit worse than having to slog through the Iliad for all that.

BUT. And here comes the huge, fire-belching butt of Melkor...

The Silmarillion is likely the best book of mythology I've ever read.
Better than any rendition of the Greeks or the Nordic... or anything.

I get the MOST out of this, get the most thrilled by this, and become an utter, raving fanboy. The more I learn, the more I imagine, and the more I imagine, the better the HUGE FREAKING EPIC BATTLES of the First Age of Arda (Also known as our Earth, with us living during the Fourth Age).

I mean, come on. Gods, all the creation myths, Melkor the corruptor, the jealous, among them. Epic battles that change whole lands, erupting volcanoes, armies full of balrogs and dragons and orcs. The full might of the Valar (gods tied to Arda) arrayed with the first Elves in the height of their craftsmanship, battling, and sometimes being defeated by, the dark god.

Let's not forget the glittering lamps that reach up like space elevators bathing the whole flat earth in light or their destruction. Or the gigantic trees that took their place, or the fruit and leaf of the destroyed trees that later became the sun and the moon, finally out of reach of the great corruptor.

Come on! This is GREAT stuff. :) And we even get to the ending of the First age, the ending of the Second age, getting the full story of Sauron's corrupting the Kings of Men, inflaming their desire to be immortal just like the Elves and ending with the utter destruction of their kingdom, their island, their Atlantis. :)

So much glory. So much tragedy. So much power, magic, and TIME. It's the full history of Earth, after all. And even the LoTR is encapsulated in a very cool cliff-notes version, no more than 30 or so pages out of all the other, even more glorious past. :)


Am I wrong to want such a full history to arrive on the big screen, or even on the little screen? Am I wrong to hope and NOT be disappointed in the new TV series coming up, Middle-Earth? AM I WRONG NOT TO WANT BEREN AND LUTHIEN trick and ensorcell a GOD in his own fortress of Angmar, cutting the jewel that houses the very spirit of Arda's FIRE from his crown? Doing what no other immortal or mortal had been able to do for hundreds upon hundreds of years of strife? Out of love??? :)

*BIG SIGH*

I can only hope and pray and pray and hope to Illuvatar that they do it right.


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