Sil Readalong
Summary:
In The (proverbial) Beginning, there was Eru Ilúvatar, who dwelt in the Timeless Halls amidst the Void with the Flame Imperishable. He created the Ainur, the “children of his thought.” The Ainur sang a great song for Ilúvatar, at his direction. At first it was harmonious, but Melkor, the mightiest of the Ainur, wanted to change the music according to his own desires, rather than the will of Ilúvatar. Many of the Ainur who were near to Melkor began to harmonize with him instead of the rest of the Ainur, and there was discord. Three themes were sung, and at the conclusion of them Ilúvatar rebuked Melkor, telling him that there was nothing he could do that didn’t have its ultimate origin in Ilúvatar, and whatever he did would in the end only increase the beauty and glory of what Ilúvatar had wrought.
And Ilúvatar showed the Ainur what their Music had created: the world, Eä, and the Children of Ilúvatar (Elves and Men), and Arda, the place for them to dwell within Eä. And they saw many of the Ages of the World, but it was only a vision of what was to come, for the world was unformed. And Ilúvatar pointed out the futility of Melkor, and the truth of his words. It was because of Melkor that the world has afflicted with great heat and extreme cold, but the result of this was the vast beauty of the clouds and the tiny intricacy of the snowflake - things that had been beyond the conception of the Ainur.
Many of the mightiest of the Ainur descended to Eä and set about shaping it in fulfilment of the vision they had seen, to prepare for the coming of the Children of Ilúvatar. But again there was strife, for Melkor still wanted to shape the world to his own desires, and what the Ainur wrought, he destroyed. But slowly, gradually, the world took shape, though no where was it as originally intended, thanks to the working of Melkor.
Commentary:
This is such a very Biblical opening. So like to the Book of Genesis, but also so very different. It’s not God that makes the world, it’s his angels. It doesn’t begin with light, but with song. And the central theme is one that is at the heart of pretty much everything Tolkien ever wrote, and indeed at the heart of human existence: out of grief and strife come wisdom and beauty. A story without conflict is no story at all.
It’s a common shorthand to think of the Valar as small-g gods (in contrast to Eru the big-G God), and the Maiar as angels. It’s certainly one I’ve used often enough, and this chapter does mention that Men often considered the Valar to be gods. But really, the Ainur as a whole are very analogous to angels, especially when one factors in the various choirs of angels (Seraphim, Cherubim, Powers, Thrones, Archangels, etc.).
Melkor. The inspiration from Lucifer is pretty clear - Lucifer himself, in some versions of the story, walked the void alone before creation as well. But at this stage of things, he doesn’t seem so bad, really. He wants to make music of his own - is that really evil? But selfishness is at the root of all evil, in the end.
Interesting that Tolkien brings gender into things right at the beginning. By modern standards one might call it a bit transphobic, and a bit sexist in assigning inherent “differences of temper” to the genders, but I’m not going to ding Tolkien for that one.
Administrative Matters
So this is going to be the general form of the read-along: a summary, and some commentary from me. If anyone has any suggestions on ways to improve things or make it work better, let’s hear it.
I’m going to aim again for twice-weekly, Mondays and Fridays, as long as life doesn’t get in the way.
I ultimately decided not to talk about the meta-history of The Silmarillion, but you can get a good summary of it if you read Christopher’s intro. One thing of particular interest to /r/Fantasy-ians that I want to draw attention to that Christopher said in that intro:
In the difficult and doubtful task of preparing the text of the book I was very greatly assisted by Guy Kay, who worked with me in 1974–1975.
Yes, it’s that Guy Kay.
I’m planning to approach this as a work of literature first and foremost - I’ll only bring in the history of the creation if I feel it’s really necessary. I want to focus on the stories as stories and not their development. My audience here is people who want to read The Silmarillion, but not necessarily delve into the Histories. All of this is fair game in the comments, I’m just not going to go into it during the posts.
Art is from Chinese artist Jian Guo, and here’s the One Mike to Read Them All index.
Next up, the Valaquenta.
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