“Then, through the Calacirya, the Pass of Light, the radiance of the Blessed Realm streamed forth, kindling the dark waves to silver and gold, and it touched the Lonely Isle, and its western shores grew green and fair."

“Upon the tower of Túna the city of the Elves was built, the white walls and terraces of Tirion; and the highest of the towers of that city was the Tower of Ingwe, Mindon Eldaliéva, whose silver lamp shone far out into the mists of the sea. Few are the ships of mortal men who have seen its slender beam.”

It strikes me that Tolkien idealizes his settings, and the physical attributes of his characters, but their motivations and actions are closer to the human condition. Do you agree? Other thoughts on these musings?

Is the divine being acting in human ways found in other mythologies? What about in fairy stories, Faerie stories, or fantasy tales?

Do you like the imagery here? I find these passages very moving in some ways – do you?

Tolkien will refer to Tuna and Tirion many times in the Sil -- does he give us enough to go on here to be able to recall these places or have some kind of emotional resonance with them when he does bring them up again?

What about the reference to mortal men in connection with Tirion – does it make you curious as to who those lucky guys will be? Does the introduction of the human element impact your perceptions of this place in any way?

In this section, we get the introduction of the White Tree of Numenor…for me, when I first read the Sil, the references to people, places and things I’d encountered in LOTR were very helpful because they gave me a place to land in the middle of all of the new things Tolkien was pouring out at me. Anyone else find this helpful?

And of course, if I found something in the Sil that I remembered being mentioned in LOTR, I went back and looked it up and had a lot of “aha” moments, when I realized, for example, what the heck Galadriel was singing about in her lament. That added a new level of delight, as a reader, which I appreciated. Would you say this is one of the key things that sets LOTR apart from other fantasy tales?

On the other hand, an author can get too carried away by trying to connect all the dots between past and future, and the story becomes an explanation and not a story, if I can put it that way (“cough” Star Wars prequels). Does Tolkien manage to avoid this trap, for you? Any comments on the way Tolkien weaves the Sil into LOTR and LOTR into the Sil?