(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)
Background Information
Originally published in 1955, this is the 3rd and final book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
For my previous reviews of this series, see:
To emphasize the continuity with the previous volumes, the edition I read keeps the page numbers continuous. So the first page is page 977 (picking up where the previous volume left off).
There are 6 appendices at the end of The Return of the King. These are meant to be considered appendices to the whole trilogy (and to some extent, The Hobbit as well), and not just to The Return of the King, but since they are contained within The Return of the King's binding, I'm lumping them in with this review.
They are:
* Appendix A: "Annals of the Kings and Rulers"
* Appendix B: "The Tale of Years" (Chronology of the Westlands)
* Appendix C: "Family Trees" (Hobbits)
* Appendix D: Shire Calendar for Use in All Years
* Appendix E: "Writing and Spelling"
* Appendix F: "Languages and Peoples of the Third Age" and "On Translation"
In my edition, these appendices made up a total of an extra 145 pages of reading (p. 1351-1496).
(I worked through them very slowly over several weeks. I actually finished the main text of the narrative way back on March 6, but then got bogged down in the appendices. As a result, I'm worried the main narrative is not going to be as sharp in my memory as if I had written this review on March 6. But I'll do the best I can.)
My History With This Book
As I recounted in my started video for this series, my initial exposure to this series was the Rankin-Bass animated movies. I saw The Hobbit first when it aired on the Disney Channel in the mid-80s, and was a huge fan of it. Some time later (a year? a few months? I don't remember), Disney Channel began advertising that it would soon air the animated The Return of the King. I was super excited.
Actually if memory serves, even before I saw the movie, there was some chatter in my 4th grade class about the gruesome ending to the movie. Some of the guys were saying a character actually got his finger bitten off at the end. Since I grew up in a sheltered environment, the idea that a character could get his finger bitten off in a cartoon movie (airing on the Disney Channel no less!) seemed pretty shocking.The night The Return of the King premiered on the Disney Channel, my siblings and I were ready with special snacks prepared. And we had the VCR all set up to record it onto video cassette. (Remember those days?)
...I was, therefore, disappointed by how incredibly boring I found that movie. I tried to convince myself I was enjoying it, but it was a real slog to sit through. (If you've ever seen this movie, you'll know exactly what I mean. It's got a lot of really boring scenes. That song, It's So Easy Not to Try, was the worst, wasn't it?)
However, after the movie was over, and I had time to think about it over the next day, some of the more dramatic scenes lingered in my head, and I convinced myself it was a really good epic movie. The showdown between Eowyn and the Witch King, for example, struck me in retrospect as a really epic moment in the movie.
And then, like everyone else in the world, I saw the Peter Jackson movie when it came out in December 2003. (This was the only one of the Peter Jackson trilogy that I actually got to see in theaters. I was home from Japan over the Christmas holidays in 2003, and saw it with my family in the theater. And like everyone else, my primary memory of seeing the movie in theaters was the big impressive battle scenes, but also the fatigue at the end of the movie when it just would not end!)
Summary of the Plot (***SPOILERS***)
I'm going to assume once again that everyone has seen the movies, and everyone knows the basic plot beats, and I'm only going to concern myself here with stuff that was different from the movie.
A lot of the big battle scenes from the movie were not in the book. That dramatic scene of fighting the elephants, for example? Not in the book at all.
...somewhat to my surprise, I admit. Although I guess I should have known better. Especially since I had long known that almost everything in The Hobbit 3: The Battle of the Five Armies was not in the book--I should have realized that Peter Jackson had probably done the same thing in the other movies.
In fact, as is common in these older fantasy books, the battle scenes are generally not given blow by blow descriptions, but are described only in very vague terms.
Likewise, I was also surprised to learn that the Army of the Dead does not appear in the final battle in the book. In the book, Aragon uses the Army of the Dead to attack the pirates ("corsairs" as they are called in the book), but we the reader don't get to actually see this scene. We only hear it recounted briefly by Gimli later.
Because of the way the book is structured, the big battle outside Minas Tirith occurs only about halfway through the book. Then we switch over to follow Frodo and Sam in the second half.
If memory serves, the movie switched back and forth between these two plot threads, so that we got to watch them unfold concurrently. (Am I remembering that right? It's been years since I saw the movie all the way through.) But in the book, it's first one story, and then the other.
Then, there is a long epilogue / final battle in the book that was completely absent from the movies. It turns out that while the hobbits had been gone, Saruman and his henchmen had taken over the Shire. So when they get back home, the Hobbits have to fight one last battle to free the Shire.
The Reading Experience / Evaluation
It probably goes without saying that my comments about Tolkien's narration style from the previous - two books still holds true here as well. So I'll try to only limit myself to what was new.
My imagination was kindled by the opening parts of this book which described the ancient kingdom of Gondor and the magnificent city of Minas Tirith.
It struck me that there was almost a bit of a genre shift here. The Hobbit and the first two books in this trilogy seemed to inhabit a rather primitive tribal world (perhaps influenced by the Anglo-Saxon tribes that Tolkien had studied?). But here, with the Kingdom of Gondor, we seemed to be shifting to the genre of knights and magnificent castles and the Chilvaric Romance. It was different, but it was different in a good way.
The big battle scenes were, of course, epic. (I was slightly disappointed to learn that there wasn't nearly as much action in the book as there had been in Peter Jackson's movie. But as I wrote above, I shouldn't have been surprised.)
Then the book shifts to Sam and Frodo. And I found myself utterly bored.
I think the basic plot-line of Sam and Frodo is pretty boring to begin with. (Frodo is so tired, and yet somehow, they must find the inner strength to keep walking. *YAWN*) But the gloomy and barren atmosphere of Mordor just increase the general boredom of the whole section.
I noticed my reaction as I read these sections, and I found it interesting that they depressed and bored me so much. After all, I myself am not physically in Mordor. I'm just reading about it. And there aren't even any pictures in this book, so it's just the visuals that are created in my mind's eye as I read the book. And yet, it depressed me nonetheless. There must be something about human psychology. Imagining pretty and beautiful things makes us feel refreshed. Imagining barren and gloomy things makes us feel depressed. Even if it's all just in the mind's eye.
I was really having a miserable time reading those Frodo and Sam sections, but then they actually finished earlier than I thought they would. (I was expecting them to take up most of the second half of the book, but it turns out it wasn't that bad. There's only about 70 pages of Frodo and Sam in Mordor.)
And then, very quickly, the ring is disposed of, and then Frodo and Sam pass out, and suddenly they wake up in much more beautiful surroundings.
When Sam awoke, he found that he was lying on some soft bed, but over him gently swayed wide beechen boughs, and through their young leaves sunlight glimmered, green and gold. All the air was full of a sweet mingled scent. (p.1245)
...and all of a sudden, my mind's eye is visualizing something sweet and beautiful, and I find myself completely refreshed. Weird how our brains work, huh?
As I mentioned above, the Peter Jackson adaptation was famous for never ending, and the book is similar. (We still have 106 pages of narrative left after Sam wakes up safe in his bed.) But while this is a frustrating experience in a cinema, it's okay in a book. For one thing, with a physical copy of the book you can see exactly how many pages are left, so there's no fake outs with the ending. Secondly, you absorb a book at a much slower pace anyway, broken up over several days, so it's not the same as being stuck in a seat at a cinema after a 3 hour movie.
Another scene that was different from the book: on the journey home, Gandalf and the Hobbits met up with Sarumon and Wormtongue. Gandalf offers them redemption, but they prefer to be miserable by themselves rather than take the offer.
I thought at first that this might be the final fate of Sarumon and Wormtongue. (I almost wonder if somewhere, in an earlier draft, this was actually their intended final fate. The scene has an air of finality about it.) I almost wonder if it would have been preferable to have this be their final fate--it is a nice little unexpected ironic ending. One expects the antagonists in an epic fantasy to have a violent death, how ironic that their final fate is just to wallow in the misery of being evil.
(Although in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, offers of mercy and redemption seem to be very selectively extended. It's not clear to me why the offer is extended to Sarumon and Wormtongue, but not to any of the Orcs, but I've complained about the Orcs as Amalekites - twice - before, so I won't harp on it again here.)
And then we come to the Scouring of the Shire section--which was not in either of the movie adaptations.
It seems that the Shire has become a sort of dystopian police state while the 4 hobbits were off on their adventures. (Tolkien was famously good friends with C.S. Lewis--I'm sort of reminded here of That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis which came out 10 years before this did. I wonder if there's a common influence.)
At first it seems to be implied that the reason things got so bad is because all the hobbits just passively allowed themselves to go along with it. (There seems to be a political allegory here, although it's probably the type of political allegory that could be just as easily used by either side of the spectrum.)
‘Look here, Cock-robin!’ said Sam. ‘You’re Hobbiton-bred and ought to have more sense, coming a-waylaying Mr. Frodo and all. And what’s all this about the inn being closed?’‘They’re all closed,’ said Robin. ‘The Chief doesn’t hold with beer. Leastways that is how it started. But now I reckon it’s his Men that has it all. And he doesn’t hold with folk moving about; so if they will or they must, then they has to go to the Shirriff-house and explain their business.’‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself having anything to do with such nonsense,’ said Sam. ‘You used to like the inside of an inn better than the outside yourself. You were always popping in, on duty or off.’‘And so I would be still, Sam, if I could. But don’t be hard on me. What can I do? You know how I went for a Shirriff seven years ago, before any of this began. Gave me a chance of walking round the country and seeing folk, and hearing the news, and knowing where the good beer was. But now it’s different.’‘But you can give it up, stop Shirriffing, if it has stopped being a respectable job,’ said Sam.‘We’re not allowed to,’ said Robin.‘If I hear not allowed much oftener,’ said Sam, ‘I’m going to get angry.’‘Can’t say as I’d be sorry to see it,’ said Robin lowering his voice. ‘If we all got angry together something might be done. But it’s these Men, Sam, the Chief’s Men. He sends them round everywhere, and if any of us small folk stand up for our rights, they drag him off to the Lockholes. They took old Flourdumpling, old Will Whitfoot the Mayor, first, and they’ve taken a lot more. Lately it’s been getting worse. Often they beat ’em now.’‘Then why do you do their work for them?’ said Sam angrily. ‘Who sent you to Frogmorton?’‘No one did. We stay here in the big Shirriff-house. We’re the First Eastfarthing Troop now. There’s hundreds of Shirriffs all told, and they want more, with all these new rules. Most of them are in it against their will, but not all. Even in the Shire there are some as like minding other folk’s business and talking big. And there’s worse than that: there’s a few as do spy-work for the Chief and his Men.’(p.1311-1312)
In my opinion, this moralizing is undercut later when we learn that the source of this dystopia is revealed to be not just hobbit complacency, but a blatantly evil external force--none other than Sarumon and Wormtongue. There's another battle, and eventually Sarumon and Wormtongue do meet a violent end (even though Frodo does try to show them mercy.)
There's one more chapter of epilogue, and then the main text comes to the end, and we get to the appendices.
I was a little unsure if these appendices would be worth reading or not, but Appendix A is absolutely fascinating. The whole history of Middle Earth, and the various kingdoms of it, are laid out.
The style is sparse. It seems to be deliberately imitating the ancient historical annals (such as the historical narrative of the Bible.) But this arguably works to the advantage--it makes it easy to imagine this is some sort of authentic historical document.
I could be wrong here, but it struck me that Tolkien's reputation as a fantasy world builder is based not so much on his main narrative as his appendices. That is to say, I suspect that if The Lord of the Rings had been published without Appendix A, Tolkien wouldn't enjoy the cult status he has today.
You see, Tolkien has a reputation for worldbuilding in his fantasy, and this is what I was expecting to immerse myself in when I started The Lord of the Rings. But when you actually read The Lord of the Rings, you discover that Tolkien's principle preoccupation is not describing the civilizations and history of Middle Earth, but rather describing the landscapes of Middle Earth. Most of the really impressive world building is regulated to the appendices.
There are references to the history of Middle Earth scattered all throughout The Lord of the Rings, but we don't get the full history until we get to Appendix A. And, in fact, Appendix A helps finally make sense of a lot of the confusing historical references that had been scattered throughout the main narrative.
(Although I will admit to occasionally encountering references to places in names in Appendix A that I wasn't clear about. Maybe it's stuff that I should have remembered from earlier in the book if I had been paying closer attention. I don't know. But at that point in the book, I decided to just keep plowing on forward rather than try to track down every reference.)
Appendix A also contains a lot of extra information about things like the backstory of Aragon and his romance with Lady Arwen. It is, in my opinion, essential information for understanding these characters, and I almost feel like Tolkien was cheating a little bit by relegating this stuff to the appendices. If the story of Aragon is incomplete without this information, then shouldn't it have been integrated into the main text better?
Appendix B is also interesting, although much of it is a repeat of the information in Appendix A, just written differently--in the form of a timeline instead of as a narrative.
Appendix D is a 10 page explanation of how the hobbit calendar works. And it's at this point that I reached the "Why am I even reading this?" stage of the appendices. Seriously, I did not need to know how the intricacies of how the hobbit calendar works in order to enjoy The Lord of the Rings. I mean, it's cool that Tolkien put so much thought into his world building, I guess, but do I need to read it?
The next couple appendices are on the languages and writing systems of Middle Earth. This is another thing Tolkien is famous for. I found it a bit dry to read through myself, but I suppose I can't complain too much about it. I knew this was coming--everyone knows that Tolkien is famous for creating his own languages in Middle Earth, so I knew sooner or later I'd get to an explanation of the languages.
Extended Quotation
Now after Gandalf had ridden for some time the light of day grew in the sky, and Pippin roused himself and looked up. To his left lay a sea of mist, rising to a bleak shadow in the East; but to his right great mountains reared their heads, ranging from the West to a steep and sudden end, as if in the making of the land the River had burst through a great barrier, carving out a mighty valley to be a land of battle and debate in times to come. And there where the White Mountains of Ered Nimrais came to their end he saw, as Gandalf had promised, the dark mass of Mount Mindolluin, the deep purple shadows of its high glens, and its tall face whitening in the rising day. And upon its out-thrust knee was the Guarded City, with its seven walls of stone so strong and old that it seemed to have been not builded but carven by giants out of the bones of the earth.
Even as Pippin gazed in wonder the walls passed from looming grey to white, blushing faintly in the dawn; and suddenly the sun climbed over the eastern shadow and sent forth a shaft that smote the face of the City. Then Pippin cried aloud, for the Tower of Ecthelion, standing high within the topmost walls, shone out against the sky, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, tall and fair and shapely, and its pinnacle glittered as if it were wrought of crystals; and white banners broke and fluttered from the battlements in the morning breeze' and high and far he heard a clear ringing as of silver trumpets.
So Gandalf and Peregrin rode to the Great Gate of the Men of Gondor at the rising of the sun, and its iron doors rolled back before them.
'Mithrandir! Mithrandir!' men cried. 'Now we know that the storm is indeed nigh!'
'It is upon you,' said Gandalf. 'I have ridden on its wings. Let me pass! I must come to your Lord Denethor, while his stewardship lasts. Whatever betide, you have come to the end of the Gondor that you have known. Let me pass!'
Then men fell back before the command of his voice and questioned him no further, though they gazed in wonder at the hobbit that sat before him and at the horse that bore him. For the people of the City used horses very little and they were seldom seen in their streets, save only those ridden by the errand-riders of their lord. And they said: 'Surely that is one of the great steeds of the King of Rohan? Maybe the Rohirrim will come soon to strengthen us.' But Shadowfax walked proudly up the long winding road.
For the fashion of Minas Tirith was such that it was built on seven levels, each delved into the hill, and about each was set a wall, and in each wall was a gate. But the gates were not set in a line: the Great Gate in the City Wall was at the east point of the circuit, but the next faced half south, and the third half north, and so to and fro upwards; so that the paved way that climbed towards the Citadel turned first this way and then that across the face of the hill. And each time that it passed the line of the Great Gate it went through an arched tunnel, piercing a vast pier of rock whose huge out-thrust bulk divided in two all the circles of the City save the first. For partly in the primeval shaping of the hill, partly by the mighty craft and labour of old, there stood up from the rear of the wide court behind the Gate a towering bastion of stone, its edge sharp as a ship-keel facing east. Up it rose, even to the level of the topmost circle, and there was crowned by a battlement; so that those in the Citadel might, like mariners in a mountainous ship, look from its peak sheer down upon the Gate seven hundred feet below. The entrance to the Citadel also looked eastward, but was delved in the heart of the rock; thence a long lamp-lit slope ran up to the seventh gate. Thus men reached at last the High Court, and the Place of the Fountain before the feet of the White Tower: tall and shapely, fifty fathoms from its base to the pinnacle, where the banner of the Stewards floated a thousand feet above the plain. (p.982-984)
***END QUOTE*** I think this does a good job of signaling the transition I mentioned above. We are no longer here in the world of primitive tribal settlements, but of grand Chilvaric castles and towers.
Links
* While I was reading this book, Steve Donoghue answered my question on his Q&A: "Lord of the Rings"--Could Tolkien have benefited from a stronger editor, or is the work perfect just the way it is?
* And speaking of Steve Donoghue, he posted a video this past month in which he was talking about another fantasy series, and commented:
I completely forgot that I had to search my memories of the first time I read this book and you know when I did I realized, no, even the first time I read it, even though it was annoying me, I did not ever want to stop reading, never. That's a gift. That's not nothing. That's not nothing at all. In fact that's not even true of Tolkien. Need I remind you of the endless Sam and Frodo scenes?
So true! Those endless Sam and Frodo scenes totally made me want to stop reading. I'm glad to hear Steve say it first, so that I know it's not just me.
* Also while I was reading this book, I became aware that March 25th is Tolkien Reading Day. Then I came across this Tweet on the next day, which I thought was kind of accurate. (It's exaggerating for humorous purposes--Tolkien doesn't literally spend 3 pages describing one tree--but the general idea of reader fatigue with descriptions is definitely true.)
* In the past couple months, you may have seen this trilogy being referenced in news about the war in the Ukraine. It's been reported in several news outlets, but here's one link: Why are Ukrainians calling Russian invaders ‘orcs’?I love #thelordoftherings but I can’t deny this pic.twitter.com/WRqswiMpej
— Bryce (@CenteredShelf) March 26, 2022
I'm genuinely not sure if this is just a harmless reference, or if this is an attempt to dehumanize the enemy during a time of war. Part of me is worried that the influence of Tolkien has been to see wars in Manichean terms as pure good versus pure evil.
Compare this, for example, to The Iliad in which we the readers are forced to feel sympathy for both sides of the war. When did we lose this complexity in our storytelling? At what point did Western Civilization become infatuated by stories of pure good versus pure evil? Are Tolkien and Star Wars to blame? Or were the Greeks the exception, and the human norm is to see conflicts in terms of good versus evil?
Or is The Iliad more barbaric because it is acknowledging the humanity of the other side, but still glorifying the war?
I don't know. Talk among yourselves. (Or leave a comment.)
Odds and Ends
* Well, there we are. I've finally finished off The Lord of the Rings trilogy. For years and years, I've felt guilty about not having read these books.
The thing is, I actually consider myself a fan of the fantasy genre. But for years I felt ashamed calling myself a fantasy fan when I never finished Lord of the Rings.
And yes, I know, I'm probably 30 years late on this. (Most fantasy nerds read Tolkien in High School.) But better late than never.
I knew a few Tolkien nerds in high school, and I know that they obsessed over the whole Tolkien oeuvre. I considered trying to make up for lost time by plunging into the Tolkien extended canon: The Silmarillion, The Fall of Gondolin, etc. But I've been searching around online, and it doesn't look like these lesser-known books are readily available in Vietnam. So it looks like I'll be finishing my journey here.
Besides which, I've been advised by a couple people on Booktube (HERE and HERE) not to rush into The Silmarillion too fast. Maybe re-read The Lord of the Rings first seems to be the advice.
Maybe I'll get to the other books in Middle Earth someday.
7 out of 10 stars. (The same rating I gave to The Two Towers).
Weekly Reading Vlogs (as mentioned above, the page numbers for this edition start from 977)
February 13, 2022 p.977-1106
February 20, 2022 p.1106-1148
February 27, 2022 p.1148-1268
March 6, 2022 p.1268-1352
March 13, 2022 p.1352-1370
March 20, 2022 p.1370-1394
March 27, 2022 p.1394-1420
April 3, 2022 p.1420-1438
April 10, 2022 p.1438-1480
April 17, 2022 p.1480-1498 (finished) 2nd reading p.977-988
April 24, 2022 2nd reading p.988-992
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
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