[Morthoron]

Who peed on your lembas, Jallanite? Here you have a poster, TheLostPilgrim, who I will assume is young (if that is not the case, please excuse me), and who has just read The Silmarillion for the first time within the last year (and I believe I remember Pilgrim saying so). The poster is excited, as excited as I was when I first read The Silmarillion, a far different book than The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings. When Pilgrim said:

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

Those works, while beautiful, are shallow compared to The Silmarillion and his other writings. … He created more than simply "fantasy" works--He created a universe, which I believe he on some level himself believed in.

You, Jallanite, tried to find a Tolkien quote to disprove a noble sentiment of a reader in the first blush of love for an author and his great work. What a way to quash enthusiasm (and conversation for that matter)! But Tolkien certainly did not disagree with the poster's sentiment, and the quote you provided has literally nothing to do with what the poster was saying. In a long letter circa late 1951 (Letter 131, to Milton Waldman of the Collins Publishing House). Tolkien stated:

They [the stories of The Sil] arose in my mind as 'given' things, and as they came, separately, so too the links grew. An absorbing, though continually interrupted labor (especially since, even apart from the necessities of life, the mind would wing to the other pole and spend itself on the linguistics): yet always I had the sense of recording what was already 'there', somewhere: not of 'inventing'.

This, to me, sounds like someone believing, on some level, what was written. The greatest danger in quoting Tolkien is finding how often he disagreed with himself.

For instance, in the same letter to Waldman, Tolkien makes no reference to the cosmological mythos as a "mannish affair"; on the contrary, he states the early myths are literally devoid of mannish thought and intention:

As the high Legends of the beginning are supposed to look at things through Elvish minds, so the middle tale of the Hobbit takes a virtually human point of view - and the last tale blends them.

and later in the same letter:

As I say, the legendary Silmarillion is peculiar, and differs from all similar things that I know in not being anthropocentric. Its centre of view and interest is not Men but 'Elves'. Men came inevitably: after all the author is a man, and if he has an audience they will be Men and Men must come into our tales, and not merely transfigured or partially represented as Elves, Dwarfs [sic for Tolkien], Hobbits, etc. But they remain peripheral - late comers, and however growingly important, not principals.

This way of thinking is at odds with the quote from Morgoth's Ring, and, as is often the case, Tolkien seems to rebut his own beliefs. Whether the belief quoted in Morgoth's Ring is the final say, who knows? Tolkien changed opinions on his cosmos like other men change underwear. But the first section of The Silmarillion is certainly written in an Eldarcentric and not anthropocentric tone and point of view, which is at odds with a retelling with the usual conceits, flaws and historiographical integration of later mannish political and sociological creeds and concerns.

When TheLostPilgrim said:

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

If Tolkien had lived and had written The Silmarillion and his other works in ancient times, we'd probably consider them holy scripture today. That's how beautiful it is, and how much of a brilliant, insightful, gifted man he was.

You again decided to attack, presumably in regards to the use of the "Royal We" . When Pilgrim refers to "we" he is speaking of mankind, a greater part of which seeks the supernatural as a means to systematize and make sense out of the world.

Taken in context with that Pilgrim actually said, if Tolkien's work was written during the time of the writing of the Mosaic Laws in the Babylonian exilic period, why wouldn't his cosmology be taken as scripture now? It certainly not as boring as the Bible or the Quran. The breathtaking description of Creation in the Ainulindalë is more stirring than Yahweh plopping down cows on the Fifth Day.

The stories in The Silmarillion are far-fetched, certainly, but then so is most scripture from the Bible, Quran or the Vedas. In its mode of storytelling, The Silmarillion is a unique synthesis of biblical, Icelandic, Norse and Finnish legends with a bit of the Greek Pantheon sprinkled on top, and I don't see Snorri Sturluson or the writer of Beowulf being at odds with what was presented. And as far as a synthesis, it is less dependent on source material than the huge amount Mohammed lifted from the Torah when he cobbled together the Quran (amounting to plagiarism in the current litigious climate).

When you made the comment (with the finality of a patriarch):

Originally Posted by jallanite

I do not think it does the works of Tolkien or any of these writers any favours to compare them with numerous books that disagree with one another: the Qurʼan, the Book of Mormon, the Mahabharata, the Gathas of Zarathusta, any of the Christian Bibles, Jewish scriptures, Buddhist scriptures, the Norse Eddas and so on.

Who are you to demand such prohibitions? One fairy tale is as good as the next, or better depending on the writer. Posters here can discuss what they damn well please. A collegiate comparative religion course is replete with varying viewpoints. To make a comparative analysis of Tolkien's creation as opposed to the biblical version is a decent way to waste time posting on a forum such as this.

But I do love Tolkien's ironic quote:

I don't mind it, as long as it doesn't become obsessive. It doesn't obsess me.

If Tolkien were honest with himself, he would have to admit he was perhaps the most obsessive writer that ever lived. And he expects his fans to be different?

So, TheLostPilgrim, revel in The Silmarillion. Enjoy the reading. Just remember, a wet blanket will never keep you warm.