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4.46 AVERAGE
4.46 AVERAGE
This is going to be a very, very long review, and I’m sorry in advance! I’ve been reading this behemoth since September (and holding onto it since mid-July), so bear with me if I have a lot to say.
I’ve had so many roadblocks from starting LotR before I ever even picked it up, and anyone who’s actually read it as an adult can attest that finding time for a book that’s really not easy to read (the reading level on this guy felt way above me, at times) can make it really tempting to turn away. I really am proud of myself for finishing this, and I’m so glad I got to accompany Frodo and Sam and Merry and Pippin and Aragorn while they went on such a devastating and wonderful journey.
In the fictional introduction to The Princess Bride, William Goldman describes his justification for abridging (the fictional) S. Morgenstern’s original epic:
“The more I flipped on, the more I knew: Morgenstern wasn't writing any children's book; he was writing a kind of satiric history of his country and the decline of the monarchy in Western civilization. But my father only read me the action stuff, the good parts. He never bothered with the serious side at all.”
In a similar vein, I don’t want to treat Lord of the Rings as a fantastical meditation on morality and existence, or a giant Roman Catholic allusion. Those purely academic reflections on LotR don’t do it justice. People don’t swamp to a nearly seventy-one year old work like this because it’s supposed to be important, and in trying to force granduer on the story, this literary mindset becomes reductionist.
In my review of The Hobbit, I closed by mentioning I probably won’t read LotR, but a couple friends, including Dr. Meg Amstutz at UGA, pretty concretely convinced me to change my mind. Plus, I’ve been meaning to watch all the movies, but my first try at Two Towers was predominantly spent lost in the plot without the ability to reread a page or paragraph if I missed a name or indosyncricity. The biggest credit goes to Stephen King; namely, his memoir, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft:
“A thousand pages of hobbits hasn’t been enough for three generations of post–World War II fantasy fans; even when you add in that clumsy, galumphing dirigible of an epilogue, The Silmarillion, it hasn’t been enough. Hence Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, Robert Jordan, the questing rabbits of Watership Down, and half a hundred others […] are creating the hobbits they still love and pine for; they are trying to bring Frodo and Sam back from the Grey Havens because Tolkien is no longer around to do it for them.”
And I remembered my own experience reading The Hobbit. I don’t count picking it up at thirteen as a true read, because I was doing the same academic bullshit that Goldman discourages. I’m not an English major, so it’s not my job to enjoy a story just for what it means in the zeitgeist. I should just go on vacation and read it, and that’s exactly what I did, treating the entire “series” as one giant novel to work through. I put everything else on my TBR and lost the nine-books-a-month momentum I’d cultivated over the summer.
Where people treasure Books 1, 3, and 4 for their fast-paced action and plot development… I understand it, but that’s not what makes these books special. I’m sympathetic to the appreciation people have for Tolkien’s world building and orientation towards detail, but what I loved was the humanity in these characters. I loved hanging out in the Shire, I enjoyed staying in Tom Bombadill’s house, I liked how excited Frodo was to meet Strider (let me not swoon about him too much, but if I find a man like him in real life and he goes missing, just know he’s in my basement), and I especially loved the Elves and Rivendell. And while I spent most of Two Towers worried sick about the breakup of the Fellowship, I was so happy to spend time with the Ents and the hobbits.
The most obvious example of this is with the chapter Minas Tirath. The detailed description of Gondor, or Theoden’s introduction, and the many highly political interactions are cool and all, but what moved me so much about starting Return of the King was the descriptions of Pippin inquiring about meal customs, or Beregond commenting on Pippin’s swinging feet off the high stool, or Pippin saving food for Shadowfax. The goodness of the hobbits (which I took to symbolize the innocence of children) were such beacons of light throughout the story for me. It’s why I’d knock open this 1,029-page behemoth so happily over the past several months.
My favorite chapters from each book: Strider, The Council of Elrond (surprisingly enough), Treebeard, Shelob’s Lair, Grey Havens.
I took up this huge word count to say, what makes these books good is that despite the vastness of the world Tolkien’s made, and the impending sense of doom at every step and decision these characters have to make, they’re ultimately pure and innocent. Every person we follow is good, even when they make mistakes, and they get fair and just treatment from a writer looking not to shock his readers, but genuinely tell a tale we want to follow. I’ve spent nearly 1,500 pages in Middle Earth, and I’d gladly spend 1,500 more.