Started: October 23, 2021
Finished: April 15, 2022
This is one of my compilation book reviews--as I explained HERE.
To see my separate reviews of each of these books, see below:
Playlist HERE
Showing posts with label J. R. R. Tolkien. Show all posts
Showing posts with label J. R. R. Tolkien. Show all posts
Saturday, April 30, 2022
Friday, April 29, 2022
The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
(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)
Monday, February 07, 2022
The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien
Started: December 20, 2021
Finished: February 6, 2022
(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)
Background Information
Originally published in 1954, this is the second book of The Lord of the Rings trilogy (following on from The Hobbit, and The Fellowship of the Rings).
...although the word "trilogy" may be slightly misleading in this case, because although The Lord of the Rings was published in 3 separate volumes, Tolkien composed it all together as one whole. For this reason, a lot of people regard it as just one whole work--including the publishers of my box set edition, who write in the introduction to the trilogy (placed at the beginning of the previous volume):
J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy, when it is in fact a single novel, consisting of six books plus appendices, sometimes published in three volumes. (Notes on Text, p.ix, Douglas A. Anderson)
Presumably for this reason, the page numbers in my box set are continuous over the 3 books. The Fellowship of the Rings ends on page 536, and The Two Towers starts with its first page numbered as 537, even though it is in a separate binding.
As you can probably guess from this, the tone, plot, pacing, and feel of this book is remarkably similar to its predecessor, and consequently there might not be a lot of new things to say in this review.
My History With this Book
I mentioned in my review of Fellowship that I did Fellowship as an audiobook back in early 2001. As I mentioned, I found the experience of doing this series by audiobook dissatisfying, and was feeling more and more confused about what was actually going on. After I finished Fellowship, I checked The Two Towers out of the library next. But very early on in The Two Towers, I decided that I had completely lost comprehension of the story, and that I wasn't getting anything out of this series by doing it as an audiobook, and I bailed on it.
And then, like everyone else in the world, I saw the Peter Jackson movie when it came out in 2002. So, like everyone else, I've known the story from the movie.
But I've felt guilty ever since about never finishing this trilogy (as I confessed before here and here). I mean, everyone is always talking about this thing. So for the past 20 years, I've always been meaning to come back to it. I even bought the trilogy again at one point when I lived in Japan (around 2007 and 2008) with the intent to give it another go, but only got a few pages into it before I realized it was just as slow moving as I remembered it, and that I would need to clear out some space in my reading schedule so I could give it more attention. And then I just never got around to it.
I don't remember exactly at what point I bailed on the audiobook 20 years ago, but it was fairly early on. I remember the scene of Boromir's death. And I think I remember Aragon, Gimli and Legolas starting to track the Orcs, but I don't remember much more than that.
And as for Boromir's death, I had known that scene was coming ever since middle school. My best friend was reading these books in middle school, and on a school field trip (7th or 8th grade) we were sitting next to each other on the bus, and he suddenly groaned while he was reading. "Oh no!" he said. "Boromir's dead!"
"What?" I said.
"One of the Fellowship of the Ring. He died," my friend explained mournfully.
Summary of the Plot
As with last time, I'm going to assume everyone knows the plot already. Everyone has either read these books, or seen the Peter Jackson movies, right?
Although if you've only seen the movies, it's worth noting that the story is distributed slightly differently in the books. In the movies the death of Boromir was at the end of Fellowship, but in the books it is in the beginning of The Two Towers. In the movies, the encounter with Shelob the giant spider is in the beginning of Return of the King, but in the books it is in the end of The Two Towers.
The book is also structured differently. The book is split into two halves--the first half dealing with the battles, the second half dealing with Frodo and Sam and their journey. (The movie, if memory serves, cut back and forth between these two story lines, but the book just splits them into two separate halves.) Thus the big battle scenes that make up the climax of the movie occur halfway through the book.
Evaluation
As I mentioned above, this is part of the same work as Fellowship, so a lot of the same comments I made about Fellowship are going to be the same here as well.
Although it's not exactly the same. This book gets off to much more of a running start than Fellowship. Fellowship took forever for the story to get going, but in The Two Towers, we start out right in the middle of the action. And, although there are a lot of slow sections, there's generally speaking a lot more action in this book than there was in Fellowship.
Also, there's a lot less songs in this book. The Two Towers has a couple songs at the beginning, but it's nothing like Fellowship were characters were breaking into songs every couple pages.
This book does have some great moments.
The battle at Helm's Deep comes is pretty intense and exciting.
And the confrontation with Shelob the giant spider is delightfully creepy. (I think Tolkien could have been a great horror writer if he had wanted to be.)
Tolkien's great strength is, of course, the world building. When we encounter the Riders of Rohan, Tolkien does a good job of imagining the simple warrior culture of men who ride horse on the plains Riders of Rohan. There's also a lot of mythos built up around the ancient Kingdom of Gondor and its lore. And, of course, there's all the world of the Ents, and their lore. There's a lot of stuff to immerse yourself in in this book.
...but, let's face it, the plot of this trilogy isn't all that impressive, is it? I mean, it's basically just a big evil force that wants to conquer the world. And the whole quest to destroy the ring is kind of a MacGuffin , isn't it?
There is still a lot of descriptions of landscape in this book. And, as with the previous book, I often had trouble visualizing Tolkien's descriptions. (And I sometimes did not recognize his vocabulary). I occasionally had to fight myself to keep my mind from wandering off during the descriptions of landscapes, but I was able to get through this book.
Extended Quotation
The bubbling hiss drew nearer, and there was a creaking as of some great jointed thing that moved with slow purpose in the dark. A reek came on before it. 'Master, master!' cried Sam, and the life and urgency came back into his voice. 'The Lady's gift! The star-glass! A light to you in dark places, she said it was to be. The star-glass!'
'The star-glass?' muttered Frodo, as one answering out of sleep, hardly comprehending. 'Why yes! Why had I forgotten it? A light when all other lights go out! And now indeed light alone can help us.'
Slowly his hand went to his bosom, and slowly he held aloft the Phial of Galadriel. For a moment it glimmered, faint as a rising star struggling in heavy earthward mists, and then as its power waxed, and hope grew in Frodo's mind, it began to burn, and kindled to a silver flame, a minute heart of dazzling light, as though Earendil had himself come down from the high sunset paths with the last Silmaril upon his brow. The darkness receded from it until it seemed to shine in the centre of a globe of airy crystal, and the hand that held it sparkled with white fire.
Frodo gazed in wonder at this marvellous gift that he had so long carried, not guessing its full worth and potency. Seldom had he remembered it on the road, until they came to Morgul Vale, and never had he used it for fear of its revealing light. Aiya Earendil Elenion Ancalima! he cried, and knew not what he had spoken; for it seemed that another voice spoke through his, clear, untroubled by the foul air of the pit.
But other potencies there are in Middle-earth, powers of night, and they are old and strong. And She that walked in the darkness had heard the Elves cry that cry far back in the deeps of time, and she had not heeded it, and it did not daunt her now. Even as Frodo spoke he felt a great malice bent upon him, and a deadly regard considering him. Not far down the tunnel, between them and the opening where they had reeled and stumbled, he was aware of eyes growing visible, two great clusters of many-windowed eyes-- the coming menace was unmasked at last. The radiance of the star-glass was broken and thrown back from their thousand facets, but behind the glitter a pale deadly fire began steadily to glow within, a flame kindled in some deep pit of evil thought. Monstrous and abominable eyes they were, bestial and yet filled with purpose and with hideous delight, gloating over their prey trapped beyond all hope of escape.
Frodo and Sam, horror-stricken, began slowly to back away, their own gaze held by the dreadful stare of those baleful eyes; but as they backed so the eyes advanced. Frodo's hand wavered, and slowly the Phial drooped. Then suddenly, released from the holding spell to run a little while in vain panic for the amusement of the eyes, they both turned and fled together; but even as they ran Frodo looked back and saw with terror that at once the eyes came leaping up behind. The stench of death was like a cloud about him.
(**ENDQUOTE--This is from page 942-943 in my edition)
This quotation illustrates a couple of different things.
First of all, that description of an evil giant spider is just really creepy, isn't it?
But then secondly, all the lore crammed into this little passage. Stuff about the ancient elves and the Simarils.
And speaking of lore, there is so much ink spilled about all of this stuff. Heading over to Wikipedia to read more about Shelob, we can read:
The Tolkien scholar Carol Leibiger writes that Shelob is presented as a disgusting female monster in the story.[5] The Anglican priest and scholar of religion Alison Milbank adds that Shelob is undeniably sexual: "Tolkien offers a most convincing Freudian vagina dentata (toothed vagina) in the ancient and disgustingly gustatory spider Shelob."[6] Milbank states that Shelob symbolises "an ancient maternal power that swallows up masculine identity and autonomy", threatening a "castrating hold [which] is precisely what the sexual fetishist fears, and seeks to control".[6] The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance mentions "Sam's penetration of her belly with his sword", noting that this may be an appropriate and symbolic way of ending her production of "bastards".[7]
The scholar of children's literature Zoë Jaques writes that Shelob is the "embodiment of monstrous maternity"; Sam's battle with Shelob could be interpreted as a "masculine rite of passage" where a smaller, weaker male penetrates and escapes the vast female body and her malicious intent.[8] The Tolkien scholar Brenda Partridge described the hobbits' protracted struggle with Shelob as rife with sexual symbolism.[9] She writes that Tolkien derived Shelob from multiple myths: Sigurd killing Fafnir the dragon; Theseus killing the Minotaur; Ariadne and the spider; and Milton's Sin in Paradise Lost.[9] The result is to depict the woman as a threat, with implicit overtones of sexuality.[9]
Where did all these Tolkien scholars come from? I mean, Tolkien only just published this stuff 70 years ago--it's not like this is some ancient Greek text. But I guess that's how influential these books have become.
Odds and Ends (Random Observations)
* In my review of The Hobbit, I mentioned some concern that the goblins are portrayed as the Amalekites--that is, there seems to be some sort of unspoken rule that you had to kill them all whenever you encountered them, and that it was a sin to leave any goblins (or orcs) left alive. There are multiple passages in The Two Towers which give the same impression. As with my thoughts on The Hobbit, I'm conflicted about whether or not this is problematic, or whether having evil monsters in the story is just part of fairy tales.
What's interesting about the orcs though is that in The Two Towers for the first time the reader gets to listen in on extended conversations that the orcs are having with each other. And it's clear that the orcs are not mindless monsters. They talk to each other just like humans do.
In fact, for some reason, Tolkien has written the orc dialogue as sounding more like modern English than the other races. All the other characters in the book speak somewhat like they're in an ancient epic. But the orcs just use a 20th century dialect.
* And then speaking of the problematic stuff, in this book we get some brief description of the human peoples who have aligned themselves with Sauron. They are described as having black hair and dark skin ("swarthy"). Tolkien doesn't really harp on this. (The hair and skin color just get briefly mentioned). But it's something you can't help but notice nowadays.
I'm not sure this necessarily means that Tolkien is racist. It's not clear that the humans are joining up with Sauron because they have dark skin--they could just happen to have dark skin. But given the increased sensitivity of today's times, I'm sure this would have been written differently nowadays.
There is, it probably won't surprise you to learn, a whole Wikipedia article about how Tolkien's portrayal of race has been dissected by scholars.
* The sections with Frodo and Sam journeying to Mordor were always my least favorite parts of the movies (both the Peter Jackson trilogy, and the Rankin Bass animated one.) I always thought the emotional struggles of Frodo were just so boring.
I was dreading it, then, when I realized that the whole second half of the book was Frodo and Sam. But it wasn't as bad as I feared. The emotional struggles of Frodo aren't harped on too much. Tolkien's main concern is, as always, describing the landscapes. And as always I struggled to visualize what he was describing, but it could occasionally be interesting at the same time. Some of the visual imagery stuck in my mind--for example the description of the swamp where the dead spirits were looking up from the pools of water, etc.
* The names Sauron and Saruman are so easy to confuse, aren't they? Especially when reading.
I believe research on reading has indicated that people don't look at every letter of a word when reading. We just look at the general shape of the word. So my brain was constantly like 'Okay, there's an "Sa" at the beginning, an "r" in the middle, and an "n" at the end. They're talking about "Sauron".' And then only several lines of dialogue later did I realize the characters were talking about Saruman, and I had to go back and re-read the section.
I wonder why Tolkien gave them such similar names.
* While I was reading this book, a friend of mine posted on Facebook about how he was reading this same book to his son every night. "How about that!" I thought. "What a coincidence!" And then the comments to that post were filled with people (many of them mutual friends) all talking about how they were also currently reading this trilogy.
Is this just the noticing effect? Or is everyone reading these books right now?
Connections with Other Books I've Read (And Other Links)
* In this volume, the dwarf Gimli has become obsessed with the Lady Galadriel, and insists that everyone else he meet acknowledge her as the "fairest of ladies" or he will fight them.
This strikes me as straight out of Don Quixote. (Many of Don Quixote's misadventures resulted from him attempting to fight anyone who did not acknowledge his lady to be the most beautiful.) Given how well-read Tolkien was, I suspect the allusion must be intentional.
* Steve Donoghue posted a video earlier this month on The Seven Signs of Classical Fantasy which touches on a lot of the themes in Lord of the Rings.
This is largely the same as Fellowship, but with the plot and pacing increased. I gave Fellowship 6 stars, so I suppose, I should bump this one up to 7 stars.
Weekly Reading Vlogs (as mentioned above, the page numbers for this edition start from 537):
December 26, 2021 p.537-652
January 2, 2022 p.652-682
January 9, 2022 p.682-738
January 16, 2022 p.738-790
January 23, 2022 p.790-828
January 30, 2022 p.828-876
February 6, 2022 p.876-960
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
Monday, December 20, 2021
The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
Started: November 7, 2021
Finished: December 19, 2021
(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)
Background Information
First published in 1954, this was at the time the long-awaited sequel to The Hobbit. (The Hobbit had been published all the way back in 1937).
This is also the first book of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is one long story that Tolkien split into 6 books. The publisher than decided to divide those 6 books into 3 volumes. This, the first volume, contains the prologue, Book 1 and Book 2. Because this is part of a larger series, it ends with the story unresolved.
It seems to be universally agreed among critics that there was a tonally shift between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The Hobbit was written for children, but The Lord of the Rings is targeting adults.
My History with This Book
I mentioned in my review of The Hobbit that in childhood I had been familiar with The Hobbit because of the Rankin-Bass movie. I was likewise as a child familiar with The Lord of the Rings story through the Rankin-Bass 1980 cartoon The Return of the King (W), which, like The Hobbit, was re-run on The Disney channel in the 1980s.
If you've seen the Rankin-Bass version, you'll know that although The Return of the King is primarily an adoption of the final book in the trilogy, it's also set up to work as a direct sequel to The Hobbit. So for the longest time, I thought I knew the whole story because of the movie. But gradually, as I got older, I became to get hints through bits and pieces of cultural osmosis that The Lord of the Rings trilogy had a lot more story in it than I realized.
In 2001, there was a lot of anticipation of the upcoming Peter Jackson adaptation of these books, and I knew that if I didn't read them before the movies came out, I would never read them.
Also back in 2001, I had newly discovered audio books, and I thought they were the most wonderful thing ever to get extra "reading" done when I was driving around town. I had also discovered that you could check out audio books for free from the public library. So I checked out The Fellowship of the Ring in the winter of 2001. (The library didn't have The Hobbit on audiobook, so I checked out a physical copy of The Hobbit and read that first.)
Now, as I said, I already knew the basic story from the Rankin-Bass movie. I knew that this was going to involve Frodo and Sam journeying to Mordor while their was a big battle outside of Minas Tirith. But I didn't know what other story details would be buried in the extra 1,500 pages. I imagined that there must be a lot of interesting subplots going on to justify the extra length, and I eagerly awaited to hear all about the different factions and plots that I was sure made up the rest of this story. (I wasn't aware of what Game of Thrones was back then, but in retrospect I think I was expecting something Game of Thrones-esque--I was sure that there must be a lot of different plot wheels in motion to justify the huge length of this trilogy.)
I was therefore puzzled, and also frustrated, when The Fellowship of the Ring turned out to have almost no plot at all other than "characters go on a journey". And the journey just went on and on and on through endless descriptions of landscape and countryside. "When is the plot going to get started?" I kept wondering. But the plot never really seemed to kick in.
But also, the more I got into the book, more I was confused about what was happening. Who was this Strider guy and where did he come from? Where did Legolas and Gimli come from?
This was I think partly because as I got increasingly bored by the long descriptive parts of this book, my attention began to falter. (Always a danger when doing audio books). And, I think, this was partly because I was driving around the city while I was listening, and at times distracted by traffic. And, also because I think the narration style of this book doesn't lend itself to audio books. (I think here are some information dense paragraphs that take time to parse.)
But for whatever reason, I finished the book feeling like I only had a vague understanding of the story.
I saw the Peter Jackson movie at a friend's apartment in 2002. (I had been in the Japanese countryside in 2001, and so missed the theatrical release). And then when I saw that movie, I finally felt like I understood what had actually happened
I particularly remember the part of the battle in the Mines of Moria, which had really confused me in the audiobook, only became clear to me after watching the movie.
Why I Re-Read This Book
Ever since 2001, I've felt like I'd only partially absorbed this book, and needed to sit around and read it properly one day.
I should also mention that in the years since 2001, I've spent a lot of time reading about Tolkien on the Internet, and also a lot of time in conversation with Tolkien fans. And I've become more aware of exactly what to expect from a Tolkien book, and what not to expect from a Tolkien book. I've learned that you aren't supposed to go into Tolkien's book for their fast-paced plots, but rather you are supposed to read these books for their atmosphere.
The long descriptions Tolkien gives of the forests and the shire and the mountain passes and the rivers--that's not Tolkien taking forever to get to the point, that is his point.
Now that I know a bit more about what to expect from these books, and their place in literary history, I've been meaning to give them another try for years now. It's taken me a while, but here I am.
The Plot ***SPOILERS****
Back before December, 2001, only nerds actually knew what the plot of these books were. But all that has changed now since the Peter Jackson movies, right? Everyone has seen the movies already. Everyone already knows this story.
Right?
Of course there are some differences from the movie. Boromir's death, which actually takes place at the beginning of the next book, was moved to the end of the first movie in order to give it more of a dramatic note to go out on.
Also the movie infamously cut out the whole Tom Bombadil part. (I say "infamously" because Tolkien fans complaining about Tom Bombadil getting left out of the movie was a big thing on the Internet for a while ... or maybe I just spend too much time online.)
The Reading Experience
Adjusted expectations is really the key to enjoying this book.
Fortunately, now that this is my second time through this book, I knew what to expect. I did not expect (nor did I get) a fast-paced book. I expected a book that would take its sweet time, and that's what I got. I tried to get into it and enjoy the atmosphere.
As a reader, I have long ago acquired the bad habit of letting my eyes glaze over whenever I come to a descriptive passage, and only waking up again when we get back to more dialogue or plot. I was tempted to do this with The Fellowship of the Ring, but I tried to force myself to pay attention to the descriptions, and try to visualize Tolkien's landscapes in my head. And, although this book did require a lot of patience on my part, I largely enjoyed it.
There is also a tremendous amount of long poems and songs in this book. It seemed a bit weird to me. (Is this a musical? Why are characters constantly bursting into song? I mean, I know that in the ancient world, epic poetry was a common form of entertainment, but did ancient people really sing this much?)
As with the descriptive passages, I struggled to keep focused on the longer poems. (Again, my brain had a tendency to switch off during these passages.) But I forced myself to re-read the poetry sections until I felt like my brain had absorbed them.
Then, when the big action scene finally came in the Mines of Moria, the pacing of the book suddenly changed in a way that I felt was jarring. After reading through so many slow descriptive passages for so long, it took me a bit to adjust to the fact that the action was suddenly moving very fast all of a sudden. But I did make the adjustment, and that big fight in the Mines of Moria is a masterpiece of really intense writing! At least for a little while. But then, the action ends, and the long slow journey continues.
Evaluation
This book occupies an interesting cultural space. It's so beloved by popular culture. Which is strange, because it's a very long and slow moving book that requires a lot of patience to get through. I mean, the fans of this book have been not just the literati, but also hippies, heavy metal bands, and comic book geeks. Which is strange, I thought, because it's a book that requires a lot of patience to get through. I mean, can you picture Led Zeppelin actually sitting down and reading this book, with all the endless descriptions? But they did! Jimmy Paige was a huge Tolkien fan.
As for me, I've spent the past 20 years feeling guilty for not having grokked this book the way others have grokked it. So I've come back to this book not with a critical eye so much as with a searching eye--what is it about this book that has captivated so many people?
I feel like I got some more out of this book now than I did 20 years ago. I get the mysticism and poetry of it more than I did before.
But I still came to the end of this book, and thought: "Is that it? How did this very slow moving book captivate so many people?"
Maybe the answer will become clearer as I read through the rest of the trilogy.
Extended Quotation
'Alas! I fear we cannot stay here longer,' said Aragorn. He looked towards the mountains and held up his sword. 'Farewell, Gandalf!' he cried. 'Did I not say to you: if you pass the doors of Moria, beware? Alas that I spoke true! What hope have we without you?'
He turned to the Company. 'We must do without hope,' he said. 'At least we may yet be avenged. Let us gird ourselves and weep no more! Come! We have a long road, and much to do.'
They rose and looked about them. Northward the dale ran up into a glen of shadows between two great arms of the mountains, above which three white peaks were shining: Celebdil, Fanuidhol, Caradhras, the Mountains of Moria. At the head of the glen a torrent flowed like a white lace over an endless ladder of short falls, and a mist of foam hung in the air about the mountains' feet.
'Yonder is the Dimrill Stair,' said Aragorn, pointing to the falls. 'Down the deep-cloven way that climbs beside the torrent we should have come, if fortune had been kinder.'
'Or Caradhras less cruel,' said Gimli. 'There he stands smiling in the sun!' He shook his fist at the furthest of the snow-capped peaks and turned away.
To the east the outflung arm of the mountains marched to a sudden end, and far lands could be descried beyond them, wide and vague. To the south the Misty Mountains receded endlessly as far as sight could reach. Less than a mile away, and a little below them, for they still stood high up on the west side of the dale, there lay a mere. It was long and oval, shaped like a great spear-head thrust deep into the northern glen; but its southern end was beyond the shadows under the sunlit sky. Yet its waters were dark: a deep blue like clear evening sky seen from a lamp-lit room. Its face was still and unruffled. About it lay a smooth sward, shelving down on all sides to its bare unbroken rim.
'There lies the Mirrormere, deep Kheled-zaram!' said Gimli sadly. 'I remember that he said: "May you have joy of the sight! But we cannot linger there." Now long shall I journey ere I have joy again. It is I that must hasten away, and he that must remain.'
The Company now went down the road from the Gates. It was rough and broken, fading to a winding track between heather and whin that thrust amid the cracking stones. But still it could be seen that once long ago a great paved way had wound upwards from the lowlands of the Dwarf-kingdom. In places there were ruined works of stone beside the path, and mounds of green topped with slender birches, or fir-trees sighing in the wind. An eastward bend led them hard by the sward of Mirrormere, and there not far from the roadside stood a single column broken at the top.
***END QUOTATION. From Book 2 chapter 6 pages 433-434****
I thought this was a good example of one of Tolkien's landscape descriptions. Like a lot of these descriptions, I did my best to visualize this, but I struggled.
I also found myself struggling the geographical vocabulary when reading Tolkien's landscapes. What is a "mere"? What is a "glen"? What is "heather" and "whin"? I've heard the word "dale" before, of course, but I couldn't visualize what a "dale" actually was. What is a "sward"? What is a "deep-cloven way"?
(On a separate note, this passage also does a good job of illustrating the style--which is a combination of modern prose style with an ancient epic style.)
Stray Comments
* So, I know Tolkien is still much-beloved today. But if he were a new and unknown writer, there's no way he could get these books published nowadays, right? I feel like the publishers wouldn't allow such a slow pace in a fantasy series nowadays.
* So, between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, the name for the bad guys switches from "goblins" to "orcs". But apparently they're still the same creature? Although I often get the impression that goblins are diminutive creatures, whereas orcs are bigger. So are they the same or not? (I've been confused about this for years now. I thought maybe if I read through these books carefully, it would become clear. But it's not really. There's still no explanation about why the name changes from "goblins" to "orcs").
* Are Gandalf's powers ever clearly defined? What exactly can he do? What can he not do?
* Something I remember from the audio book 20 years ago was feeling confused about the Ringwraiths. They are built-up to be so fearsome and scary, but then they never do anything. In the first half of this book, they are always around Frodo and his friends, but never actually attack. After a while it was hard to see them as scary anymore, and they just started to seem ineffectual.
I had the same reaction when I re-read the book.
* Okay, confession time. I've always thought this whole quest to destroy the ring seemed like a bit of a silly MacGuffin. And even though Tolkien does a lot of work to explain the origins and mythology of the ring in this book, I still had trouble buying the idea that the whole fate of Middle-Earth depended on destroying this one ring.
* The character development in this book isn't great, is it? I'm not entirely sure what the difference between Merry and Pippin is. They seem pretty interchangeable. I'm not sure if Legolas will get more developed as the series goes on, but he doesn't really seem to have much of a character in this book except as "elf". Aragorn doesn't really have much of a character. I mean, right on down the line, none of these characters really have that much of a personality to distinguish them from the rest of the crew.
* There's an old story that when Tolkien was reading The Lord of the Rings drafts aloud to The Inklings, Hugo Dyson groaned "Oh no! Not another fucking elf!"
I'm not sure if that happened during the drafts of Fellowship or if it was later in the trilogy. But I suspect it might be from Fellowship. Tolkien makes such a big deal out of the elves in this book.
The elves were also a big part of the story in The Hobbit, but they weren't portrayed as significantly more important than the other races of Middle-Earth in The Hobbit. But in Fellowship, the elves keep popping up over and over again. First we run into elves in The Shire. Then we spend a lot of time with the elves in Rivendell. Then our characters set out again, only to run into another elf civilization in the forest of Lothlorien.
I realize the whole appeal of these books is that the elves represent nature spirits, and you're supposed to immerse yourself in the romanticization of the natural world as represented by the elves, and enjoy the mystical mythical feel of it all. But it all became a bit much for me. After all the time we spent with the elves in Rivendell, I thought all the time we spent exploring a second elf civilization in Lothlorien seemed like a bit much.
* Poor Gimli. It's established repeatedly that there's an ancient rivalry between the elves and the dwarves, but how are the dwarves supposed to compete given that the elves are always portrayed as immaculately perfect and possibly semi-divine?
6 out of 10 stars. I know, I know, I'm a philistine. These ratings are just my subjective experience of the book, and they're not supposed to represent the objective quality of the book. And I'm sure I'm missing out on some stuff. (I'm sure Tolkien is drawing on a lot of stuff here from the Anglo-Saxon and Germanic literary tradition that are over my head.) But, I thought this book did a good job at creating an atmosphere, but not a great job at creating interesting characters or an exciting story.
November 7, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring i-xii
November 14, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring xii-xxvii, p.1-90
November 21, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring p.90-176
November 28, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien p.176-250
December 5, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien p.250-336
December 12, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien p.336-444
December 19, 2021 The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien p.444-531
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
Sunday, November 07, 2021
The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
Started: October 23, 2021
Finished: November 5, 2021
(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)
My History With This Book
As a child, I was a huge fan of the 1977 Rankin/Bass animated version of this movie (W), which was shown on the Disney Channel in the 1980s, and which I taped onto VHS and then watched and re-watched to the point of memorization. That movie had a big influence on my conception of fantasy, and also influenced the stories I was writing in 4th and 5th grade.
Also, when I was in 5th grade, my school did a the stage-play version of The Hobbit (W) for its annual school play. I wasn't in that play (it was the 8th graders only), but I saw it as a member of the audience.
I tried reading The Hobbit when I was in 4th grade, but didn't make it past the first chapter. I found that the book had all of the same dialogue as the animated movie, but moved at a much slower pace and had a lot more boring details. (The introduction of the Gandalf and the Dwarves happens very quickly in the movie, but takes several pages in the book.) Feeling like I wasn't getting anything valuable out of the book other than the boring stuff, I stopped reading.
I picked it up again in early 2001, when I decided to finally read The Lord of the Rings, and I knew I should start with The Hobbit first. I did actually read it all the way through that time, but I don't remember enjoying it. I remember feeling like it was a bit of a slog, because I already knew the story from the movie. (That's not the fault of the original book, but it was my reading experience nonetheless.)
In the years since, of course, I saw Peter Jackson's Hobbit movies, and have reviewed them on this blog:
Why I'm Reading It Now
This is a re-read. I did complete this once before 20 years ago. But 20 years ago, I also gave up on The Lord of the Rings.
I've felt guilty ever since about never completing The Lord of the Rings.
Also, in the years since 2001, I've spent a lot of time on the Internet and on Wikipedia, and I now have a greater appreciation for how Tolkien fits into the development of the modern fantasy genre.
Back in 2001, I knew that The Lord of the Rings was a famous fantasy series, of course, but I thought it was just one of many fantasy series. I didn't fully appreciate how much this was the series that shaped all the subsequent fantasy series.
I also didn't appreciate in 2001 Tolkien's expertise in Anglo-Saxon, and how his writing was drawing on all those ancient styles and legends. But now, thanks to the Internet and Wikipedia, I'm much better educated on this, and I feel like I have a much better appreciation for what tone he's aiming at in these books. So for several years now, I've been meaning to give Tolkien another try. And I've decided to start again with The Hobbit.
The Plot
Everyone already knows this story, right?
The Reading Experience
I said above that I found this book a bit of a slog back in 2001, but I thoroughly enjoyed the re-read. What accounts for the difference? I'm not sure. I probably am in a completely different frame of mind than I was 20 years ago. Perhaps I'm a more patient reader. Also, now that I have a better idea of the world building and atmosphere that Tolkien is famous for, I allowed myself to get immersed in the style and feel of this book.
I tried as best as I could to put the various movies out of my head, and just concentrate on the world of this book as Tolkien created it. It was, of course, a losing battle. With the songs especially, I couldn't help hearing them with the tune from the Rankin Bass Movie I grew up with.
...but I did my best. And enjoyed the experience.
I also tried to envision Middle-Earth as it was described by Tolkien, and not just fall back on my memories of the visuals from the movie. Although sometimes I found Tolkien's descriptions of landscapes a bit hard to visualize (particularly descriptions of rivers and the mountains), but for the most part I enjoyed this mystical, thoroughly ancient world that Tolkien had created.
Extended Quotation
“I have often wondered about my father’s and my grandfather’s escape. I see now they must have had a private Side-door which only they knew about. But apparently they made a map, and I should like to know how Gandalf got hold of it, and why it did not come down to me, the rightful heir.”
“I did not ‘get hold of it,’ I was given it,” said the wizard. “Your grandfather Thror was killed, you remember, in the mines of Moria by Azog the Goblin.”
“Curse his name, yes,” said Thorin.
“And Thrain your father went away on the twenty-first of April, a hundred years ago last Thursday, and has never been seen by you since–”
“True, true,” said Thorin.
“Well, your father gave me this to give to you; and if I have chosen my own time and way for handing it over, you can hardly blame me, considering the trouble I had to find you. Your father could not remember his own name when he gave me the paper, and he never told me yours; so on the whole I think I ought to be praised and thanked! Here it is,” said he handing the map to Thorin.
“I don’t understand,” said Thorin, and Bilbo felt he would have liked to say the same. The explanation did not seem to explain.
“Your grandfather,” said the wizard slowly and grimly, “gave the map to his son for safety before he went to the mines of Moria. Your father went away to try his luck with the map after your grandfather was killed; and lots of adventures of a most unpleasant sort he had, but he never got near the Mountain. How he got there I don’t know, but I found him a prisoner in the dungeons of the Necromancer.”
“Whatever were you doing there?” asked Thorin with a shudder, and all the dwarves shivered.
“Never you mind. I was finding things out, as usual; and a nasty dangerous business it was. Even I, Gandalf, only just escaped. I tried to save your father, but it was too late. He was witless and wandering, and had forgotten almost everything except the map and the key.”
“We have long ago paid the goblins of Moria,” said Thorin; “we must give a thought to the Necromancer.”
“Don’t be absurd! He is an enemy far beyond the powers of all the dwarves put together, if they could all be collected again from the four corners of the world. The one thing your father wished was for his son to read the map and use the key. The dragon and the Mountain are more than big enough tasks for you!” (End Quote: chapter 1, p.30-31)
I like passages like this, because they hint that the story in The Hobbit is taking place against a backdrop of a much richer and deeper story.
Odds and Ends
* Even as a kid (watching the movie), I thought that Gandalf's powers were undefined in a way that could potentially be a plot hole. (Why doesn't Gandalf just magic his way out of all their difficulties? What exactly are the limits on his power anyway?) Also, even as a kid, I thought that Gandalf suddenly disappearing in the middle of the book seemed very contrived. It's obvious why Tolkien needed to get rid of Gandalf. (You can't have a compelling story if there's a wizard who can just solve all of the problems.) But the way it's done in the story just feels so contrived. Gandalf just tells everyone that he has to go away because he has "other businesses". If it had been set up earlier in the book, maybe it would have felt less contrived.
I know its fashionable to deride the Peter Jackson trilogy, but this strikes me as one plot point that was better handled in Peter Jackson's version. In Peter Jackson's version, we see very clearly why Gandalf had to leave and what he was doing. In the books, Gandalf does mention his fight against the Necromancer at the end, but it feels very tacked on.
* Speaking of things that feel a bit tacked on--The Battle of the Five armies at the end of this book is told in such a hurried way. The Goblin army comes out of nowhere (this is another plot element that isn't adequately set-up in advance.) And that whole section with the final battle has a very rushed pacing--a much different style than the rest of the book. And also Tolkien kills off the two youngest dwarfs at the end, Fili and Kili, but their deaths are mentioned just as an afterthought. Like, "Oh, and also Fili and Kili are dead now."
* From Chapter 5 (p.81)
After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely. Just as well for him, as he agreed when he came to his senses. Goodness knows what the striking of matches and the smell of tobacco would have brought on him out of dark holes in that horrible place. Still at the moment he felt very crushed.
...I understand that tobacco addiction was considered normal in 1937 (when this book was published), but what's the point of putting this in a book for children? What are children supposed to get out of passages when Bilbo gets comfort from his tobacco addiction?
(This is one of several passages referencing tobacco).
* From Chapter 18 (p.335)
Then dismay fell on the Goblins and they fled in all directions. But weariness left their enemies with the coming of new hope, and they pursued them closely, and prevented most of them from escaping where they could. They drove many of them into the Running River, and such as fled south or west they hunted into the marshes about the Forest River; and there the greater part of the last fugitives perished, while those that came hardly to the Wood-elves’ realm were there slain, or drawn in to die deep in the trackless dark of Mirkwood. Songs have said that three parts of the goblin warriors of the North perished on that day, and the mountains had peace for many a year.
It's taken for granted throughout the whole book that killing a goblin is always good, but this passage about pursuing into the forest and swamp until they've all been slain reminds me a bit of the Old Testament injunction to hunt down and kill all Amalekites.
Is this problematic morals, or is this okay because irredeemably evil monsters are just part of the fantasy genre? I'm on the fence.
Connections With Other Books I've Read
* The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald from 1872. Reportedly this was one of Tolkien's influences when he wrote The Hobbit.
* As you know, this book involves a magic ring that can make the wearer invisible. (And, as you know, this same magic ring will become even more important in the sequels.) For another book about a magic ring which makes people invisible, see The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbit, published in 1907. Since The Enchanted Castle predates The Hobbit, I had wondered if Tolkien was stealing the idea from Edith Nesbit. But a quick search on Google shows that the idea of a magic ring predates Edith Nesbit, and Tolkien was probably influenced more by Norse Mythology and Wagner's - Ring Cycle.
9 out of 10 stars. (Like a lot of classic books, this one has been somewhat spoiled by over-exposure, and overfamiliarity hinders the reading experience nowadays. But I think it definitely would be a 9 out of 10 if you could read this book in a vacuum.)
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