What's /lit/'s opinion on the silmarillion? I'm

>>8903249
Sorry I had a stroke
Meant to say
"it seems like a new location is named every other sentence"

>>8903249
it's utterly impenetrable and also totally unenjoyable give up while you still have time

>>8903260
Don't forget that places are often named after characters.

>>8903297
also important to keep in mind that characters are often named after places!

I mean some of the lote is so rich and interesting. But at other points it seemed. Like characters Tolkien spent chapters building up on are killed off in one page and are overall insignificant.

I'm just having a hard time figuring this book out

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There's just so many characters introduced in such a short amount of time I couldn't believe it.
I recall this ine point where one of the valar had 7 children. And they're names and characteristics are listed lile a god damned shopping list.
I'm skimming through some of the boring parts is that ok? Is it worth the read for a lotr fan?

>>8903321
>>8903366
Sounds like you're missing the point by actual miles. It's supposed to be a chronicle, not a novel. Hardly surprising that characters appear and die a lot- that's what happens in history.

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>>8903366
It sounds like you just don't fucking get it.

>>8903397
This

You don't read the Slimdogmillionaire for plot, you read it, as you said, for the interesting lore.

Honestly i see everywhere people complaining about this book.

I read it when i was a kid maybe 13, following lotr and the hobbit. Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Can't seem to understand what the fuss is all about. Is everyone else so fucking pedestrian?

>>8903853
People read it thinking that it's going to be LOTR, the prequel, when it's nothing like that. Tolkien never organised it for publication, and it's more like you're reading a compendium of some interesting myths he thought up in his spare time to act as world-building material. People who go in looking for a conventional plot and characters are going to be dissapointed. You've got to expect it to be the Middle Earth version of Hesiod.

Just read Children of Hurin instead and you'll get the basic idea.

>>8904102
Wow anon thanks
I'm gonna keep up with the silmarillon and just finish it.
But I'll start that one next

>>8903249
It's top-tier.

Judging by the comments, most people had a hard time with it, but I loved it and found it easy to follow.

Tolkien was always attempting to create his own set of modern myths, and The Silmarillion is his Magnum Opus - his final attempt to pay homage to the Norse and Celtic myths as well as to the Bible.

It's full of nuggets of literary gold.

>>8904259
I agree its very rich in lore and amazing
I loved the myth of how iluvatar created the vala and how they in turn created the world with a song

I would love to see how these plebs would handle the Poetic Edda or Beowulf

It's really enjoyable if you accept it as an overachieving epic. Like a mixture of Biblical lore, Anglo-Saxon poems, Greek/Roman pantheons and Atlantis to boot. Tolkien deserves all the praise he gets just for taking escapism so seriously

lol just read the bible

>>8907658
Or the Old Testament.

>guys I thought they were setting this Abraham guy up to be super-important to the plot and he suddenly just died wtf?

>>8903249
>>8903249
great if you're into LOTR and are interested in the lore.

Tolkien's best book.

If I cared about writing speculative fiction I would probably make a similar book: an in-universe collection of myths.

But genre fiction and the writers thereof sustain themselves by means of sales, which I now realize it not too many of Martin's fans would be willing to read The Seven-Pointed Star, the holy book of the Faith of the Seven, they'd rather read banter, backstabbings, and buggery.

>>8907801
So how come the World of Ice and Fire sold so well? I mean, regardless of author, worldbuilding is interesting to most people purely for the escapist fun it provides. It's unfair to compare the Silmarillion (an in-universe historical text) to the Seven Pointed Star (an in-universe religious text). I'm sure many people will be interested in reading Grand Maester Kaeth’s Lives of Four Kings (that tyrion gifted to joffrey)

>>8907801
>banter, backstabbings and buggery

I don't think alliterations should be used seriously anymore outside of kiddie literature

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>>8903249
Why are you reading it?

Seriously, it's like reading an encyclopedia of Truscan gods and creation myths. Why are you doing it? Normies constantly try to and then feel rewarded for their efforts when they share how esoteric and unapproachable it is, like this faggot
>>8903296

If you can't easily recognize the characters and places involved, the book is not for you. It has no value for the layman and the casual Tolkien fan. I regularly recite passages and quotes from the Silmarillion as one might something more typical like the The Iliad because I am maladjusted and have an almost fetishized need for the escapism of Tolkien's world. Can you? Do you? Then this book is not for you.

>>8903249
The only people who should read the Silmarillion are those who have already read it.

>>8908121
>So how come the World of Ice and Fire sold so well?
>Martin said he had wanted the book to be a fully illustrated volume with art from "the top fantasy illustrators in the world

>the Seven Pointed Star (an in-universe religious text)
But there's nothing that says it doesn't contain historical records, a creation myth, etc.

Especially since it's the not-Bible of the setting.

>>8908121
>So how come the World of Ice and Fire sold so well?
Yes, because that's a meaningful metric. Anything LotR related and even Martin related thanks to HBO will sell well, regardless of the content.

The creation story is very beautiful. It's essentially Genesis but told in a very different way. Beren and Luthien and the Children of Hurin in particular are amazing stories. I think the people complaining about there too many names are reading it the wrong way. You have to treat it like you're reading the bible. Read the names but don't fuss over remembering genealogies and stuff like that. They're really not that important to the overall narrative.

>>8909840
Half the book is about how one elf family hates another elf family so genealogy is kind of important

>>8909814
So will people read the Seven Pointed Star if it was published?

>>8910860
You bet your ass.