Site Presented By
Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
It's not a complete downer though. "The Ainulindalë" offers many beautiful moments -- the idea that the world was created out of themes given to the Ainur by Eru, out of which they made "a great music ... of endless interchanging melodies woven into harmony that passed beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights ... and the music and echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void" -- and others more sinister.
Here appears Tolkien's great villain, Melkor, later called Morgoth. The most powerful (power was always close kin to evil in Tolkien's world) of the Ainur -- the fallen Angel greedy for glory -- Melkor began singing his own song, clashing with the harmony of the other Ainur, thinking himself greater than the rest. Eru responds by laying down the ultimate corrective: "And thou, Melkor, shalt see that no theme may be played that hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music in my despite. For he that attempteth this shall prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined."
Tolkien's greatest gifts to us in "The Silmarillion" are his villains. Melkor/Morgoth, who ever opposes the immortal Valar, sets forth the cyclical making and unmaking of the world by destroying the beacons of light that the Valar construct to illuminate the world for the coming of Elves and Men. The most dramatic scene of bold destruction comes in "The Silmarillion" proper, when Morgoth and the monstrous, never sated spider Ungoliant -- in my view the vilest, most sickening, and best-named character in the book -- poison and kill the Two Trees of Valinor that had lit the world before the coming of the Sun and the Moon, while also stealing the Silmarils and darkening the world again.
Thus the epic is set forth. The Noldor Elves -- the central figures of Tolkien's tale and those in whom we might recognize a bit of the author in their "love of words," who "sought ever to find names more fit for all things that they knew or imagined" -- are doomed to desire possession of the Silmarils.
"The Silmarillion's" most fully realized and emotionally invested fairy tale is the story of Beren and Lúthien. Beren (which if it isn't, should be Elvish for "badass") is an outlaw wanderer (a man) who falls in love with the Elf Lúthien Tinûviel -- "the most beautiful of all the Children of Ilúvatar" -- after watching her dance and sing alone in woods lit by moonlight. She returns his love, but the two are parted by Lúthien's father, King Thingol, who challenges Beren to win the hand of his daughter with a task he knows will seal the man's doom: "Bring to me in your hand a Silmaril from Morgoth's crown; and then, if she will, Lúthien may set her hand in yours." Beren responds, laughing, "It is for little price ... do Elven-kings sell their daughters: for gems and things made by craft. But if this be your will, Thingol, I will perform it. And when we meet again my hand shall hold a Silmaril from the Iron Crown; for you have not looked the last upon Beren son of Barahir." (I told you he was a badass.) It is an incredible story, long, exquisitely detailed, and poignant, so I am loath to give away its truly gripping ending, but I may already have said too much. (The story is invested with even more meaning by the knowledge that Tolkien had "Beren" inscribed on his headstone and "Lúthien" on that of the love of his life, Edith Bratt.)
Had I but world enough and time, I'd tell you about the unluckiest man in the book, Túrin Turambar, whose life resembles that of Oedipus and other doomed figures, and of Dior, one of Tolkien's few "multicultural" heroes (being part Man, part Elf, and part Maia -- a lesser Ainur), the Elf-on-Elf crimes that forever doom the Noldor, and of the origin of the Orcs (corrupted Elves in a sense, bred in envy and mockery of them, and perhaps the vilest deed of Morgoth, for they hate all, but hate their creator most for birthing them), but I don't, so I'll leave those for you to discover.
As is often the case, the greatest pleasures are the small ones: Reading a familiar description or seeing a familiar place name will, for the Tolkien fan, set off a flood of memories of what will come to pass in later "years." And of course, revisiting "The Lord of the Rings" becomes all the richer with all of this new-old knowledge, throwing various elements of the story into fuller light. (When Aragorn recounts the love story of Beren and Lúthien to his enthralled hobbit band on Weathertop before the Nazgûl attack, you realize how close their tale is to his and Arwen's.)
Reading Tolkien's "Silmarillion" is like looking at a frayed and faded picture of your grandfather and all of a sudden recognizing why your nose is shaped just the way it is. "The Silmarillion" is both profoundly satisfying and profoundly warming, even despite those who think its prose cold and unfeeling. It answers -- at least for Tolkien fans always desirous of more -- the fundamental question, why? If Tolkien knew (and he probably did) why the sky is blue, the answer would be in "The Silmarillion."
"The Silmarillion" is a special work because it offers what few other books of Tolkien's do: a true beginning, a fresh start. It is the beginning, of all things. For those willing to surrender themselves to his bookish universe, watch the films, or at least make a valiant attempt at penetrating the veil of scholarly geekdom surrounding most Tolkieniana, the opportunity exists here to start from scratch, from the One, Eru, "who in Arda is called Ilúvatar." Both the Tolkien arriviste and the scholar -- for once on a level playing field -- are presented with the clean slate of creation time where myth can be made and remade within the mind of the reader. A final word is always difficult, so perhaps it's best to leave you with the Oxford philologist's opening lines in his letter to Milton Waldman, lines that are quintessential Tolkien:
"My dear Milton, you asked for a brief sketch of my stuff that is connected with my imaginary world. It is difficult to say anything without saying too much: the attempt to say a few words opens a floodgate of excitement, the egoist and artist at once desires to say how the stuff has grown, what it is like, and what (he thinks) he means or is trying to represent by it all. I shall inflict some of this on you; but I will append a mere resume of its contents: which is (may be) all that you want or will have use or time for."
