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A review by mafiabadgers
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
3.0
First read 03/2021, reread 09/2024
The prologue hits you over the head with a whole load of lore, just to make sure you get the point. Alright. Fair play. Don't say you weren't warned.
Book 1. Everything in the Shire is slow, but homely and immensely worthwhile, because this is what Frodo and the other hobbits are fighting for, though I do have to raise an eyebrow at the way the hobbits' constant xenophobia is passed off as an endearing quirk. They escape through a spooky forest. Very good. They then pass into another spooky forest which is full of Tom Bombadil (who is old as the world but doesn't have anything useful to say), and have an adventure with some barrow-wights which achieves nothing except to give the hobbits some swords. Eventually they get to Bree and meet Strider. O joyous day! Things feel like they're happening. We then get lots of trekking around, with close attention paid to ongoing demands of provisioning and navigation, which makes it all feel very down to earth. The end of the book is a really intriguing scenario because it's so reliant on a lack of information (meaning it could easily have be shunted sideways into the horror genre, if Tolkien had felt like it), about the positioning of the protagonists and everyone else. I love the idea of all these agents—Strider and the Ring-bearer, the Nazgul, Gandalf, Glorfindel—roving back and forth across the land between Bree and Rivendell, all desperately trying to find or avoid each other as the case may be. Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure Tolkien quite does it justice.
Book 2. Kicks off with the Council of Elrond, which is hands down the best bit of Fellowship. Fifty-one pages of dudes talking, and it's somehow better than duelling Balrogs beneath the Misty Mountains. This is our first glimpse of the wider world, and it's a busy place, which fully conveys the sense of a vast and ancient battle being fought on many fronts by many disparate groups. Afterwards, Caradhras, which is everything Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs should have been: an adventure showcasing a non-Sauron-affiliated antagonist, an old and malignant enemy of the sort this world contains, that meaningfully affects their quest, helps establish the Mines of Moria as a real threat, and doesn't take up too much space. The Mines, of course, are excellent, but I couldn't help but feel a little bored in Lóthlorien. Things picked up again once the Fellowship were on the move, and the final scenes of Boromir, and Frodo on the Seat of Seeing on Amon Hen, were superb.
The prologue hits you over the head with a whole load of lore, just to make sure you get the point. Alright. Fair play. Don't say you weren't warned.
Book 1. Everything in the Shire is slow, but homely and immensely worthwhile, because this is what Frodo and the other hobbits are fighting for, though I do have to raise an eyebrow at the way the hobbits' constant xenophobia is passed off as an endearing quirk. They escape through a spooky forest. Very good. They then pass into another spooky forest which is full of Tom Bombadil (who is old as the world but doesn't have anything useful to say), and have an adventure with some barrow-wights which achieves nothing except to give the hobbits some swords. Eventually they get to Bree and meet Strider. O joyous day! Things feel like they're happening. We then get lots of trekking around, with close attention paid to ongoing demands of provisioning and navigation, which makes it all feel very down to earth. The end of the book is a really intriguing scenario because it's so reliant on a lack of information (meaning it could easily have be shunted sideways into the horror genre, if Tolkien had felt like it), about the positioning of the protagonists and everyone else. I love the idea of all these agents—Strider and the Ring-bearer, the Nazgul, Gandalf, Glorfindel—roving back and forth across the land between Bree and Rivendell, all desperately trying to find or avoid each other as the case may be. Unfortunately I'm not entirely sure Tolkien quite does it justice.
Book 2. Kicks off with the Council of Elrond, which is hands down the best bit of Fellowship. Fifty-one pages of dudes talking, and it's somehow better than duelling Balrogs beneath the Misty Mountains. This is our first glimpse of the wider world, and it's a busy place, which fully conveys the sense of a vast and ancient battle being fought on many fronts by many disparate groups. Afterwards, Caradhras, which is everything Tom Bombadil and the Barrow-downs should have been: an adventure showcasing a non-Sauron-affiliated antagonist, an old and malignant enemy of the sort this world contains, that meaningfully affects their quest, helps establish the Mines of Moria as a real threat, and doesn't take up too much space. The Mines, of course, are excellent, but I couldn't help but feel a little bored in Lóthlorien. Things picked up again once the Fellowship were on the move, and the final scenes of Boromir, and Frodo on the Seat of Seeing on Amon Hen, were superb.