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A review by mightyjor
The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
4.0
4/5 Stars
After 20 years of calling myself a Lord of Rings fan, I've finally finished the trilogy. I can't tell you the number of times I've started and stopped prematurely. It's probably obvious that I consider the movies some of the best cinema ever put to film. It's one of the greatest stories ever told. It might be that I've watched the movies almost once a year since they released, but seeing it in print felt cozy and familiar, though not entirely engaging. I never really felt pressed to continue and was able to just casually read the books over the last year or so. The few sections that had me gripped were the ones that were cut from the movies, which seems to support my theory that I would have liked them more had I read them before watching the movies.
Oh well, everyone has they're own journey to go on and that's what happened with mine.
The series is great, but I think it can be tough to recommend to a modern audience. Most of what works brilliantly here has been copied and iterated upon by everything from wheel of time to Stormlight Archive to fantasy that bears almost no resemblance to the original like Rings of Power. It means that's reading this now just feels kind of old and tired, despite being the first to do it all.
Where I think the book really deserves to be read though is the chapters following the end of the main quest to destroy the ring and all the epilogue style chapters. It's so clear that Tolkien really loved these characters and this world. After a whole trilogy with them, they all get the attention they needed to leave the reader feeling satisfied.
Overall the book is a great read and it's a classic for a reason.
After 20 years of calling myself a Lord of Rings fan, I've finally finished the trilogy. I can't tell you the number of times I've started and stopped prematurely. It's probably obvious that I consider the movies some of the best cinema ever put to film. It's one of the greatest stories ever told. It might be that I've watched the movies almost once a year since they released, but seeing it in print felt cozy and familiar, though not entirely engaging. I never really felt pressed to continue and was able to just casually read the books over the last year or so. The few sections that had me gripped were the ones that were cut from the movies, which seems to support my theory that I would have liked them more had I read them before watching the movies.
Oh well, everyone has they're own journey to go on and that's what happened with mine.
The series is great, but I think it can be tough to recommend to a modern audience. Most of what works brilliantly here has been copied and iterated upon by everything from wheel of time to Stormlight Archive to fantasy that bears almost no resemblance to the original like Rings of Power. It means that's reading this now just feels kind of old and tired, despite being the first to do it all.
Where I think the book really deserves to be read though is the chapters following the end of the main quest to destroy the ring and all the epilogue style chapters. It's so clear that Tolkien really loved these characters and this world. After a whole trilogy with them, they all get the attention they needed to leave the reader feeling satisfied.
Overall the book is a great read and it's a classic for a reason.