It is Tolkien Reading Day, after all.
ThreeHobbitmovies later, it is also the only major work of Tolkiens legendarium that remains unfilmed.
All we have is the book, and the book is very much worth reading.
Inter-movie continuity has grown beyond Marvel superheroes to everything fromGhostbusterstoold Universal monster movies.
Tolkien actually wrote most of it before startingLOTR, which gives it a unique resonance.
The characters inLOTRare shadows ofThe Silmarillion, not the other way around.
At the same time, there are some inconsistencies in continuity.
This left his son with the unenviable task of patching together notes and writings from over decades.
This work was reaching for something a little grander and more ineffable thanLOTR.
Here we get back toThe Silmarillionbeing unfilmable.
Nothing lasts forever except that the same old battle against the eternal darkness.
The war ofLOTRmay seem apocalyptic, but Middle-Earth has gone through several such convulsions before.
One of those elves, Feanor, leads his own rebellion and escape from the land of the Valar.
He ends up killing some fellow elves.
For this blood crime, he and his kindred are cursed like Cain.
The only rule is that they can never visit the land of the Valar.
The tale of Beren and Luthiens forbidden romance, for one, is riveting.
In more philosophical passages, Tolkien refers to the weariness of the world.
All you might hope for are brief respites.
This is what makes human mortality so special in Middle-Earth.
They dont have to witness the same struggles over and over, like the immortal elves.
They get their time, and then theyre done.
Like the rest ofThe Silmarillion, it makes Tolkiens other work even richer.
