Well, it has it's moments, but even most fans of the LOTR whom I know haven't make it through (of course, most of them don't read Chaucer for fun either). The Silmarillion is a collection of stories about Middle Earth before the Third Age (when LOTR takes place), which Tolkien wrote starting in 1917 and continued revising and appending until his death. He submitted it for publication (in a different form than the published work) before he published the Hobbit in the late 1930s, but you are correct that it was his son / literary executor who compiled, edited, and published it after his father's death. Tolkien did write the bulk of it, though.
I found it dull and confusing at parts, but I pressed on. Because I did enjoy The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings (which is what Tolkien called LOTR in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Poems"), I found it helpful to better understand the historical references to the Valar, Beren and Luthien (which names are engraved on Professor and Mrs. Tolkien's tombstones), the Numenoreans, etc. I thought you might like it because it is definitely not Freudian.
I found it dull and confusing at parts, but I pressed on. Because I did enjoy The Downfall of the Lord of the Rings (which is what Tolkien called LOTR in "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and Other Poems"), I found it helpful to better understand the historical references to the Valar, Beren and Luthien (which names are engraved on Professor and Mrs. Tolkien's tombstones), the Numenoreans, etc. I thought you might like it because it is definitely not Freudian.
