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The Silmarillion reads like AN ADULT BOOK! I got used to ADULT BOOKS in my late teens by reading War and Peace and The Portrait of a Lady, not to mention Trollope's 3 volume novels, all long before going over to Tolkien. If you want to accomplish Adult Things you have to act like an Adult! Try reading some Francis Bacon 'mere' essays if you need to get into the mood for style. BTW, I was a STEM student, not a liberal arts major, so it can't be that hard, can it?

My thoughts: 1. These are decent but not great editions given the price point. They're currently too expensive because the quality doesn't live up up the price. 2. If anyone wants an excellent quality edition of The Hobbit, then it'd be better to put that money toward the edition published by the Folio Society. That's the best quality edition of The Hobbit, but also the most expensive by far. 3. If anyone wants a good but (relatively) affordable edition of The Hobbit, I'd recommend either the Alan Lee illustrated edition or the Jemima Catlin illustrated edition. Both are available in hardback. Lee is more realistic looking art, whereas Catlin is more cartoon-like art. Just depends what you prefer. I have and love both. They're not super high quality like the Folio Society but I find they're better quality than the editions featured in this video (such as in terms of the paper quality, gsm, ink quality, font and text type, text block in general, binding, cover art, and of course the artwork, etc.). 4. The facsimile reprint editions of the original The Hobbit, which includes artwork by Tolkien himself, are pretty good too. Alhough I personally prefer Lee and Catlin. Still, any of these three editions of The Hobbit will serve one well as a higher quality edition that's likewise comparatively affordable.

I forced myself to read it so I can say I did it! But, I love the audio book version!

I’d say writers like Tanith Lee, Gene Wolfe and Roger Zelazny have some very interesting prose styles.

I'd recommend starting with the Akallabeth. This gives the significant events of the Second Age and serves as an extensive prologue to LOTR. It's relatively short but very condensed so take your time and don't get too bogged down, just follow the overall sweep. It's like reading the entire history of Rome in which significant events such as the Punic Wars, rise of Caesar Augustus and career of Marcus Aurelius flash past. It often involves differing theories about what happened, stressing that nobody knows which is correct - very a propos for a fictional history. What follows this section is a brief summary of the Third Age including the events of LOTR, which you probably won't need but does fill in some minor details. What precedes it (the bulk of the book) is a lengthy mystical creation myth and an exhaustive history of the time of the elves which you may find interesting but won't enhance your enjoyment or understanding of LOTR. Although some elves from this period survive into the Third Age they rarely speak at all about the events of the time, and present more as "living legends". The First Age is measured by years as beginning 1,600 years before the Second but who's to say what a year meant during the early formation of creation? Bear in mind that the founding of Numenor and the events of LOTR are 6,000 years apart - as historically removed from each other as early Mesopotamian civilisation is from us. As Aragorn puts it "For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time" - the elves appear to respect that it should be so. Galadriel is unworthy of passage to the West due to her past deeds millennia ago. Her line to Frodo "I pass the test, I shall diminish and go into the West and remain Galadriel" in part refers to her redemption for these deeds but her fortitude in resisting the temptation of the Ring is all we need to know. She and the other elves only remain in Middle Earth as guardians but with the bulk of their power usurped by Sauron's rings. Melkur/Morgoth was the great ancient evil overcome and banished long ago but leaving many evils behind, including his lieutenant Sauron, but that's really all we need to know about him. The few that remain in the Third Age of Numenorean descent (including Aragorn) are treated by mortal men as lords and kings and the Akalabeth explains their superhuman longevity and the ruination of their great civilisation as they succumbed to envy of the elves' true immortality. LOTR summarises this merely in that "the men of the West" are the noblest but diminished survivors of a once great race. And Numenor itself is ancient history to them as well.

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I feel like they actually sewn them and then cover them with a thin layer of fabric on the spine and the extra "stitched" edges on top and bottom of the spine to look aesthetically nice.. I could get by that, however for the deluxe edition, the aesthetic choice is just overstays it's welcome and just downright felt like a scam.. The reason many old bound books have horizontal lines on their spine like that are because of the bindings. They were bound curved and tight that when it's covered in the leather covers, the parallel binding lines pops out hence why it looks like that.. The Deluxe editions aren't bound like that, it's pretty much the same as the regular illustrated version, so the parallel lines at the cover spine are just pretty much there for nostalgic and aesthetic reason... Almost makes it look like it's tricking the reader that it's bound like the old ways... 😢

Im not sure if you would find it helpful, but if it were me, I'd put them Hobbit | LOTR | Silmarillion. That way the lighter green book wouldnt stand out as much. Would just look like a book next to it on the shelf

the hardest part to read this book is.... how to read when ENGLISH IS YOUR SECOND LANGUAGE😭😭😭 i don't even know half of the words that i found in the book😅

This was really enlightening. I just finished Soule's Light of the Jedi and while I the plot and world-building were good, I found the prose wanting. le Guin's prose is utterly brilliant - check her out!

It's glued and costs what? &*&%$!!

I listened to the audio book while working. I’m a mail carrier so I listen to a lot of books. The first part of this book was not the greatest, but once it picks up, I loved it. I’m on the second book now and it’s still really good. Superior Glokta is my favorite character to love and hate.

To not have jordan or grr martin as other contenders is preposterous. sanderson's world setup owes much to jordan anyway. tolkien's mythology and back history is in a class of its own as is his philology. sanderson probably owes also a debt to wells and frank herbert for the weird monsters and harsh terrains.

7:38 could use ’seat’ instead of chair

I personally think rothfuss has the best prose out of any author ive ever read, and ive read a LOT. Im also a native english speaker with a proclivity towards words and how they convey ideas or images, so my bias is 100% there

I don’t know how old the “Put your soul in an inanimate object to stay alive forever” story is but when I read this as a child I thought it was such a devious/incredibe idea.

@27:30 you missed the chance to call the Cauldron black!

I learned about The-up-and-under from this interview! Much appreciated.

A good prose style is recognizable due to it being unique. This why Hemingway, Nabokov, Woolf, etc. all stand out as they have recognizable, individual prose styles that are unique but also poetic.

Tolkien is my favorite; so, I like longer sentences, a higher number of adjective/adverbs, and fewer Latinate words. It would be interesting to see how these numbers compare to some non-fantasy great writers (like Dickens, Fitzgerald, Steinbeck, Austen, etc.).

haven't read any of Tolkien's other books yet, but I just started reading the silmarillion today. this video definitely helped reset my expectations, so thank you!

Dead Cities alum here. I remember those days with fondness and miss them in earnest. It was always fun to see new Stover readers come on and start exploring their...own attempts and use of creative invective. 😎

Definitely agree with Craig's assessment of Raithe as the embodiment of "human nature" in the book, insofar as it relates to how a real, single person would react to all of this. While the Blind God and Kollberg are the embodiment of humanity itself, that's more of a collective thing, and it isn't actually necessarily evil either. The Blind God and the mass of humanity does what it can to survive and thrive. Raithe is completely driven by his human emotions.

Posted this on Twitter(X) but decided to comment here too: Within the span of 30 minutes we get a reference to one of the best quotes Tommy Lee Jones uttered in MIB(of all things) a comparison between Caine's and Cersei Lannister's not-dissimilar motivations and a contrasting of libertarianism and Scottish Enlightenment values. Wow!

My theory, the Valar misinterpreted the visions of Arda. They saw that Arda must be a garden paradise for the Ainur and the Elves. However, they failed to see that Men and Dwarves have the affinity to create, invent, and develop their society compared to the happy go lucky immortal elves. So, my guess is, everytime a human or dwarf manages to discover a life changing invention, like steam, gunpowder, or whatever it is that pushed society to the industrial age, they secretly assassinate that person. There's a reason they decided to intervene against Morgoth and Sauron even if the Valar allowed them to increase their strength... Morgoth and Sauron was on the brink of industrialization and thus had to either commit genocide again or do it strategically without destroying the landscape.

You'd think there would be because of all the wars that go on through the ages. Sauron is in hiding for a while and orcs are generally abit stupid so I think they wouldn't advance much. Elves live forever so I'd think they would advance as they have the same elves working on things for a long period of time and information isn't passed on like with humans and no need to learn new things because you've known it for thousands of years. Men I think they would have the most reason because they don't live as long and are usually the ones that are under attack the most. And lastly we forget it's a fiction book/films and it would totally ruin everything. Imagine reading about the 1st age or even before where they're fighting with swords and bow and arrows then in the 3rd age it's tanks and rocket launchers 😂 also in real life let's just say we were at the same stage in the year 0 as the first age. It's over 10,000 years later at the end of the 3rd age so they'd be 8000 years further into civilisation as us which would be crazy.

You skipped over a synonym for prosaic that I like... "straightforward".

My favourite by far is Cormac McCarthy. I wish he wrote some fantasy stories too.

Just ordered my ultra deluxe on the barnes and noble site so they still have them

English isn't my first language - and I struggled to read Middlemarch before giving it up - but the sentence you gave at 7:22 seems pretty straightforward to me. What's difficult to understand for native English speakers in it?

I got into lord of the rings because of the films I tryed to read the books I found the hard to read 📚 lots of names that hard hard to pronounce

I strongly dislike modern covers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with liking well made timeless looking and feeling anything. Books are one of the highest levels of human achievement. Along with art, architecture etc. There is something holy about a library with beautiful books floor to ceiling. The same as a beautiful church or building, the same as a beautiful painting, poem or song. I seriously don’t understand how publishers don’t capitalize on the fact that readers LOVE their libraries and many if not most want the best quality book they can buy for their shelf. I understand hard backs but they even feel and look underwhelming and cheap on the shelf. I would buy an expensive over built book 100% of the time if it were an option.

It's not where the words came from that makes Sanderson so bad. It's what he does with them. Look at your example passages. Tolkien's adjective laden description expresses the characters' impressions and experience of their surroundings. Sanderson's narration, on the other hand, is an omniscient info-dump. He's not so much telling a story as telling us *_about_* a story. Also, good story tellers illuminate characters through interactions, while Sanderson resorts to internal monologues instead. When his characters do speak, they tend to spit out character notes. "He's the kind of guy who ..." "You're changing." "She would never ..." "He's a good man."

What some people may or may not know is the fact that whether which copy you buy the text block is exactly the same , the only difference is the sprayed edges , in this case either blue or gold , and then put them in their prospective boards , cloth and leather for the super deluxe version and standard paper boards for the dust jacket standard edition

you are great at speaking on camera.

Which one holds out better for continuous reading?

Tolkien probably had a bad taste about new technology due to his experiences in WWI. That said, the economy of his country depended on industry, making him a bit elitist. So, in many ways, another fictional aspect of the Legendarium is that technology either doesn't progress or else only beings of greater-than-human ability can advance it.

Great job, Prof Craig. Where Tolkien is proposing the usefulness of history runs parallel to the Catholic thought towards the Bible, where it is as much a library of stories - a history of salvation - rather than a dictated ‘word of God’ with a specific message ‘the author wants to say’. Intermingled therein, are the wills, woes and wilfulness of people, and much more. I found the Silmarillion best read beginning with whichever prose or verse draws one in.

4:26 I think of Stephen King as simple but I like him, and people often think older is automatically harder to read but Three Musketeers is fantastic and just about anyone with an 8th grade reading level could get through it w a dictionary, which would barely have to be used

I absolutely love Erikson’s prose.

Not every world has to follow the same direction of development as ours. Technology and science are replacing the lack of magic and supernatural abilities in our world. So, as there is magic and sorcery in the world, they follow a different direction of development...

I read your book Kaikeyi. Such a shame. Worst portrayal of Shree Ram. Hated it! May Ram give you more wisdom, and help you come out of this poor mindset. Jai Shree Ram

This is fantastic! Exactly my kind of nerdy, rigorously intelligent, book-bound thinking aloud.

my most precious edition is the green 1995 paperback edition from 1995. Was the cheapest available, the print smudges when you rub overit. My exs rat from back in early 2000‘s gnawed it, it’s covered in notes from 30 years of reading and the pages are yellow brown, some fixed with tape. Wouldn’t give it away for anything.

Sanderson. I like understanding what i'm reading. Life is complex enough. "Apes together strong"

I’ve just got it and it’s amazing Ive just started to collect books now and this one was a grate start I’m going to get the lot of the rings deluxe Edition Next and after that I will be getting the silmarillion deluxe edition as well

I wonder if these sample sizes were long enough to derive meaningful results.

First time I read it, I read the first three chapters and had to take a nap. Sooooo many names, locations, concepts. I love it. The worldbuilding is second to none. Setting the stage for the entire Tolkien Legendarium.

ah you remind me of the first choose your own adventure book, The Cave Of Time.

Pros before Poes.