the idea of JRRT's ever getting The Silmarillion ready for publication
in his lifetime is too large a leap even for my active imagination. But if I
was forced to guess, I'd say it wouldn't be hugely different from what we have
now, given that JRRT's revisions of big themes like the souls of orcs and the
backgrounds of Galadriel and Celeborn came after the publication of LOTR. A
finished Sil might have been longer than the version we have, if he'd finished
more of what we now have in UT.
As an aside, I like to see a self-portrait of the author of The
Silmarillion in Bilbo's handing over of his disorganised mass of papers to
Frodo, who represents Christopher in this fancy of mine, and who steadily works
away to make a coherent, publishable whole.
As for LOTR: perhaps JRRT would have felt free to put even more back-story in,
maybe including references to things that weren't fully developed in this
hypothetical Sil.
At first I thought that a post-Sil LOTR might be more affected by the sadness
of the Sil, but now I'm thinking perhaps the opposite would be true. The
contrast between the Sil, which is predominantly about Elves, and LOTR, which
chronicles the beginning of the Ages of Men, would be drawn more starkly into
contrast.
An interesting question,
Curious!
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It was luxuries like air conditioning that brought down the Roman Empire. With air conditioning their windows were shut, they couldn’t hear the barbarians coming.
- Lake Wobegon Days
