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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1725 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 20, 2026

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The Silmarillion is my favorite book, bar none. I think there are a couple of reasons why. One is that when I was a teenager reading LOTR, I picked up on all the references Tolkien made to the wider history of the world (as he intended, of course). I was super curious to learn more about who Fëanor was, who was Elbereth, what was "the West that is forgotten", and so on. So when I finally did read the Silmarillion, it scratched an itch that I had for quite a while and was very satisfying.

The second reason I like it so much is because of the way it's written. Honestly, that's surprising to me, because normally I care nothing for prose and view the words as simply a vehicle to communicate the story to me. But something about the way Tolkien writes the Silmarillion (and also LOTR, though not as much) really moves me. I suspect it's because he was intentionally modeling his work on the real life epics he knew so well, but either way it gets my blood pumping. One of my favorite passages:

Then Fingolfin beheld the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him. He passed over Dor-nu-Fauglith like a wind amid the dust, and all that beheld his onset fled in amaze, thinking that Oromë himself was come: for a great madness of rage was upon him, so that his eyes shone like the eyes of the Valar. Thus he came alone to Angband's gates, and he sounded his horn, and smote once more upon the brazen doors, and challenged Morgoth to come forth to single combat.

And Morgoth came.

It's so majestic (the whole passage, not just the bit I quoted). It really does elevate the story beyond what it would otherwise be, and make it something special.

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