If "The Hobbit" is a lesser work than the Ring trilogy because it lacks the trilogy's high seriousness, the collection that makes up "The Silmarillion" stands below the trilogy because much of it contains only high seriousness; that is, here Tolkien cares more about the meaning and coherence of his myth than he does about these glories of the trilogy: rich characterization, imagistic brillance, powerfully imagined and detailed sense of place, and thrilling adventure. Not that those qualities are entirely lacking here. The central tale, "The Silmarillion"—though not the others—has a wealth of vivid and interesting characters, and all the tales are lifted above the ordinary by Tolkien's devil figures, Melkor, later called Morgoth, his great dragon Glaurung, and Morgoth's successor Sauron. Numerous characters here have interest, almost always because they work under some dark fate, struggling against destiny and trapping themselves; but none of them smokes a pipe, none wears a vest, and though each important character has his fascinating quirks, the compression of the narrative and the fierce thematic focus give Tolkien no room to develop and explore those quirks as he does in the trilogy.

Character is at the heart of the Ring trilogy: the individual's voluntary service of good or evil within an unfated universe. The subject of "The Silmarillion" is older, more heroic; the effect on individuals of the struggle of two great forces, the divine order and rebellious individualism that flows through Morgoth. (p. 1)

Music is the central symbol and the total myth of "The Silmarillion," a symbol that becomes interchangeable with light (music's projection). The double symbol is introduced at once in the creation of myth, "Ainulindale."…

Tolkien's vision in this book is a curious blend of things modern and things medieval. What is modern is for the most part the tawdriest of the modern—not that one cares, since Tolkien's vision transforms and redeems it. Walt Disney is everywhere, though his work may have had less influence on Tolkien than did that of equally childlike artists, such as Aubrey Beardsley. Tolkien's language is the same phony Prince Valiant language of the worst Everyman translations and modernizations—things like: "Death you have earned with these words; and death you should find suddenly, had I not sworn an oath in haste; of which I repent, baseborn mortal, who in the realm of Morgoth has learnt to creep in secret as his spies and thralls." But one pushes aside all such objections, because the fact is that Tolkien's vision is philosophically and morally powerful, and if some of the fabric in which he clothes the vision is bargain-basement, he has greatly elevated it by his art.

What is medieval in Tolkien's vision is his set of organizing principles, his symbolism and his pattern of legends and events. (p. 39)

As he borrows the organizing principles and symbols of medieval poets and philosophers, Tolkien borrows the standard legends of characters tricked by fate, characters damned by their own best (or worst) intentions, characters who found proper atonement. His characters are of course new, but their problems are standard, archetypal…. In all these stories there are splendid moments, luminous descriptions of the kind that enrich the Ring trilogy, moments of tenderness, though rarely moments of humor.

But in "The Silmarillion" what is finally most moving is not the individual legends but the total vision, the eccentric heroism of Tolkien's attempt. What Tolkien lacks that his medieval model possessed is serene Christian confidence. Despite the affirmation of his creation legend, Tolkien's universe is never safe like Chaucer's. The Providential plan seems again and again to hang by a thread above bottom-less pits of disaster. Tolkien, in other words, has taken on the incredible task of seeking to rejuvenate the medieval Christian way of seeing and feeling, although—as all his legends reiterate—we can no longer see clearly (the songs of the elves are now all but forgotten, as was the First Age in the Ring trilogy) and our main feeling is now tragic dread.

Strange man! Strange mind! Why would anyone do it, we keep asking as we read. Why create a whole Christianlike religion, a whole new creation myth to set beside those of the Greeks, the Jews, the Northmen and the rest? Why write a mythic history, a Bible? Nevertheless, he has tried to do just that…. (pp. 39-40)

Art, of course, is a way of thinking, a way of mining reality. In the Ring trilogy, Tolkien went after reality through philosophy-laden adventure. In "The Silmarillion," for better or worse, he has sought to mine deeper. (p. 40)