This is the entire, epic Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien created an imaginative and incredibly detailed world with an unforgettable struggle between good and evil, played out on so many different levels, and in different ways with various characters. It's not necessarily an easy read - Tolkien can get a little dry at times - but there's so much richness and depth to it.

*sigh* I really need to reread this sometime soon ...

Authors who inspire a movement are usually misunderstood, especially by those they have inspired, and Tolkien is no exception, but one of the biggest misconceptions about Tolkien is the idea that he is somehow an 'innovator of fantasy'. He did add a number of techniques to the repertoire of epic fantasy writers, and these have been dutifully followed by his many imitators, but for the most part, these techniques are little more than bad habits.

Many have called Tolkien by such epithets as 'The Father of Fantasy', but anyone who makes this claim simply does not know of the depth and history of the fantasy genre. For those who are familiar with the great and influential fantastical authors, from Ovid and Ariosto to Eddison and Dunsany to R.E. Howard and Fritz Leiber, it is clear that, long before Tolkien, fantasy was already a complex, well-established, and even a respected literary genre.

Eddison's work contains an invented world, a carefully-constructed (and well-researched) archaic language, a powerful and unearthly queen, and a central character who is conflicted and lost between the forces of nobility and darkness. Poul Anderson's n  The Broken Swordn, which came out the same year as The Fellowship of the Ring, has distant, haughty elves, deep-delving dwarves, a broken sword which must be reforged, an epic war between the armies of light and darkness, another central character trapped between those extremes, and an interweaving of Christian and Pagan worldviews.

So, if these aspects are not unique to Tolkien, then what does set him apart? Though Dunsany, Eddison, and Anderson all present worlds where light and dark come into conflict, they present these conflicts with a subtle and often ironic touch, recognizing that morality is a dangerous thing to present in absolutes. Tolkien (or C.S. Lewis), on the other hand, has no problem in depicting evil as evil, good as good, and the only place they meet is in the temptation of an honest heart, as in Gollum's case--and even then, he is not like Eddison's Lord Gro or Anderson's Scafloc, characters who live under an alternative view of the world, but instead fluctuates between the highs and lows of Tolkien's dualistic morality.

It is a dangerous message to make evil an external, irrational thing, to define it as 'the unknown that opposes us', because it invites the reader to overlay their own morality upon the world, which is precisely what most modern fantasy authors tend to do, following Tolkien's example. Whether it's Goodkind's Libertarianism or John Norman's sex slave fetish, its very easy to simply create a magical allegory to make one side 'right' and the other side 'wrong', and you never have to develop a dramatic narrative that actually explores the soundness of those ideas. Make the good guys dress in bright robes or silvery maile and the bad guys in black, spiky armor, and a lot of people will never notice that all the 'good guys' are White, upper class men, while all the 'bad guys' are 'brutish foreigners', and that both sides are killing each other and trying to rule their little corner of the world.

In Tolkien's case, his moral view was a very specific evocation of the ideal of 'Merrie England', which is an attempt by certain stodgy old Tories (like Tolkien) to rewrite history so that the nobility were all good and righteous leaders, the farmers were all happy in their 'proper place' (working a simple patch of dirt), while both industrialized cultures and the 'primitives' who resided to the South and East were 'the enemy' bent on despoiling the 'natural beauty of England' (despite the fact that the isles had been flattened, deforested, and partitioned a thousand years before).

Though Tom Bombadil remains as a strangely incoherent reminder of the moral and social complexity of the fantasy tradition upon which Tolkien draws, he did his best to scrub the rest clean, spending years of his life trying to fit Catholic philosophy more wholly into his Pagan adventure realm. But then, that's often how we think of Tolkien: bent over his desk, spending long hours researching, note-taking, compiling, and playing with language. Even those who admit that Tolkien demonstrates certain racist, sexist, and classicist leanings (as, indeed, do many great authors) still praise the complexity of his 'world building'.

And any student of the great Epics, like the Norse Eddas, the Bible, or the Shahnameh can see what Tolkien is trying to achieve with his worldbuilding: those books presented grand stories, but were also about depicting a vast world of philosophy, history, myth, geography, morality and culture. They were encyclopedic texts, intended to instruct their people on everything important in life, and they are extraordinarily valuable to students of anthropology and history, because even the smallest detail can reveal something about the world which the book describes.

So, Tolkien fills his books with troop movements, dull songs, lines of lineage, and references to his own made-up history, mythology, and language. He has numerous briefly-mentioned side characters and events because organic texts like the epics, which were formed slowly, over time and compiled from many sources often contained such digressions. He creates characters who have similar names--which is normally a stupid thing to do, as an author, because it is so confusing--but he’s trying to represent a hereditary tradition of prefixes and suffixes and shared names, which many great families of history had. So Tolkien certainly had a purpose in what he did, but was it a purpose that served the story he was trying to tell?

Simply copying the form of reality is not what makes good art. Art is meaningful--it is directed. It is not just a list of details--everything within is carefully chosen by the author to make up a good story. The addition of detail is not the same as adding depth, especially since Tolkien’s world is not based on some outside system--it is whatever he says it is. It’s all arbitrary, which is why the only thing that grants a character, scene, or detail purpose is the meaning behind it. Without that meaning, then what Tolkien is doing is just a very elaborate thought exercise. Now, it’s certainly true that many people have been fascinated with studying it, but that’s equally true of many thought exercises, such as the rules and background of the Pokemon card game, or crossword puzzles.

Ostensibly, Scrabble supposedly is a game for people who love words--and yet, top Scrabble players sit an memorize lists of words whose meaning they will never learn. Likewise, many literary fandom games become little more than word searches: find this reference, connect that name to this character--but which have no meaning or purpose outside of that. The point of literary criticism is always to lead us back to human thought and ideas, to looking at how we think and express ourselves. If a detail in a work cannot lead us back to ourselves, then it is no more than an arbitrary piece of chaff.

The popularity of Tolkien’s work made it acceptable for other authors to do the same thing, to the point that whenever I hear a book lauded for the ‘depth of its world building’, I expect to find a mess of obsessive detailing, of piling on so many inconsequential facts and figures that the characters and stories get buried under the scree, as if the author secretly hopes that by spending most of the chapter describing the hero’s cuirass, we'll forget that he’s a bland archetype who only succeeds through happy coincidence and deus ex machina against an enemy with no internal structure or motivation.

When Quiller-Couch said authors should ‘murder their darlings’, this is what he meant: just because you have hobbies and opinions does not mean you should fill your novel with them. Anything which does not materially contribute to the story, characters, and artistry of a work can safely be left out. Tolkien's embarrassment of detail also produced a huge inflation in the acceptable length of fantasy books, leading to the meandering, unending series that fill bookstore shelves today.

Now, there are several notable critics who have lamented the unfortunate effect that Tolkien’s work has had on the genre, such as in Moorcock’s n  Epic Poohn and Mieville’s diatribe about every modern fantasy author being forced to come to terms with the old don's influence. I agree with their deconstructions, but for me, Tolkien isn’t some special author, some ‘fantasy granddad’ looming over all. He’s just a bump in the road, one author amongst many in a genre that stretches back thousands of years into our very ideas of myth and identity, and not one of the more interesting ones

His ideas weren’t unique, and while his approach may have been unusual, it was only because he spent a lifetime obsessively trying to make something artificial seem more natural, despite the fact that the point of fantasy (and fiction in general) is to explore the artificial, the human side of the equation, to look at the world through the biased lens of our eye and to represent some odd facet of the human condition. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s characters, structure, and morality are all too flat to suggest much, no matter how many faux-organic details he surrounds them with.

My Fantasy Book Suggestions

Concedetemi un po' di autobiografismo, perché Tolkien non può essere recensito.

Era il gennaio del 2002 quando gli amici del liceo mi invitarono a vedere un film d'avventura. Il Signore degli anelli, questo il titolo della pellicola, e per le mie conoscenze letterarie d'allora poteva benissimo essere la biografia di un gioielliere. Andai tuttavia a vederlo con loro, entrando in sala senza alcuna idea di ciò che avrei dovuto aspettarmi.
Due ore e mezza dopo, uscii dalla sala con la bocca ancora aperta.
Diciotto ore dopo tornai a vederlo da sola.
Avevo finalmente ricondotto il titolo del film a un volume ingiallito e dalla rilegatura scassata che vagava periodicamente in giro per casa (la storica edizione Rusconi), continuamente prestato e restituito reciprocamente tra mio padre, mio nonno, mia zia e mio zio -di chi fosse quella copia, poi, mai si è saputo con certezza- da vent'anni a quella parte. La lettura, però, dovette attendere la trasposizione cinematografica de Le due torri, quando cioè compresi che non avrei mai potuto aspettare un anno per conoscere la fine della trilogia.
Sono trascorsi quasi dieci anni dall'uscita del primo film, rivisto innumerevoli volte insieme ai suoi seguiti; un'altra volta ho letto il libro dopo la prima; una copia l'ho regalata a una persona per me importantissima, riuscendo a invogliarla al mondo della letteratura e del fantastico, e quella persona importantissima a sua volta mi ha fatto dono dell'edizione illustrata che ho appena finito di leggere. Adesso la copia ingiallita la sta leggendo mio fratello minore, e dopo essere passata tra le mani di mio nonno, mio zio, mia zia, mio padre, mie, credo sia giunto il momento che vada a lui.

Non ci sono parole per descrivere questo libro, ma forse quelle che si avvicinano di più al valore di quest'opera sono proprio quelle di C.S. Lewis: "Qui ci sono cose meravigliose che feriscono come spade o bruciano come gelido acciaio. Ecco un libro che vi spezzerá il cuore. "

My full review has been moved over to my website, and in its place I have left a defence of the novel itself. If you would like to read my review please click the following link: My review of J.R.R. Tolkien's, The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings was the book that created my love of literature when I first read it at the age of twelve. Certainly I was a precocious reader beforehand and The Chronicles of Narnia and The Hobbit have much to be thanked for also. However it was The Lord of the Rings that pushed me onto a path of epic fantasy and grand classics. Without it I would no doubt have avoided Ulysses and Crime and Punishment - works of equal importance. For in my eyes The Lord of the Rings is a great and versatile work. It has a riveting story - a story so compelling and so punctuated with themes that it demands a re-reading from me, time and time again. It has poetry and imagined history of the type that many aspire to recreate, and yet no one can. For there is only one Lord of the Rings and it does not share power with other aspiring fantasy works.

To finish therefore, I will briefly attempt to answer the critics of this monumental work. Not in a manner that is in any way conclusive or exhaustive, but in a manner that satisfies my cravings. For I find there is much in The Lord of the Rings that is often overlooked nowadays - due in part to changing attitudes to fantasy, fiction, politics, history and the many Tolkien clones and fantasy movies available. 

The biggest criticisms of Tolkien can all be found in the one source, in Michael Moorcock's essay Epic Pooh. His essay begins with a fascinating quote by Clyde S. Kilby which begins: "Why is the Rings being widely read today? At a time when perhaps the world was never more in need of authentic experience, this story seems to provide a pattern of it."The final statement of this quoted paragraph is exceptionally revealing however: "For a century at least the world has been increasingly demythologized. But such a condition is apparently alien to the real nature of men. Now comes a writer such as John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and, as remythologizer, strangely warms our souls."

This quote also brings us to the first criticism made by Moorcock (keeping in mind that Moorcock to me exemplifies the overall criticisms made by many about fantasy and The Lord of the Rings as part of that). He writes that: "The sort of prose most often identified with "high" fantasy is the prose of the nursery-room. It is a lullaby; it is meant to soothe and console. It is mouth-music. It is frequently enjoyed not for its tensions but for its lack of tensions. It coddles; it makes friends with you; it tells you comforting lies."

To Moorcock, Tolkien's work is both overly romanticised and escapist all at once. He links success with the fact that the novels appeal to what people want to read, not with what they should read. Yet to state such is to me a form of cold cynicism. I do not believe that comfort is what appeals to the reader solely however. There will always be a degree of this, yet I perceive that readers look for works which contain at their heart a story and characters that appeal to them. It is in these areas that success is grown. 

Interestingly Moorcock mentions Watership Down at the same time as discussing The Lord of the Rings and both books are strong because they have characters which touch the reader. They are not in any degree comforting, because they contain frightening ideas and realities within them. Yet what they do is to show the reader truths about inner strength and the ability to overcome darkness, tragedy and minor defeat. All of which can sound like idealism or naivety, yet fiction allows us to do such a thing - to perceive an idealistic view of what we can be.

Moorcock writes on, however, and mentions that Tolkien uses his words "seriously but without pleasure." Yet this misses much of what and how Tolkien uses words. Certainly one can see how on the outside it could be seen that Tolkien has a sort of unconscious humour and writes without pleasure, but a linguistical analysis of the words and names shows that deeper down, within the roots and origins of many words are humorous ideas. For instance hobbit comes from old english words meaning 'hole' and 'dweller'.

Another of the criticisms levelled against Tolkien is the existence of "ghastly verse". Indeed, many people I know complain about the poetry in The Lord of the Rings as a childish distraction. Yet I find it one of the more appealing things about it. It conveys a sense of the work existing as a form of traditional storytelling and grants the tale a greater sense of organic development. And indeed, Tolkien's verse is hardly ghastly but has a rather melodic rhythm all it's own.

Of course Moorcock's arguments against Tolkien's verse go further into other areas such as that the existence of what he calls 'allegory' ruin the artistry of the book. And yet, for all such claims, Tolkien's work is one of great artistry. An artistry of natural surroundings - hills, trees, rivers and all forms of beauty painted with words. That is not to say that Tolkien writes like some writers, but there is a simple elegance to his work, more often found in his descriptive power.

"Writers like Tolkien take you to the edge of the Abyss and point out the excellent tea-garden at the bottom, showing you the steps carved into the cliff and reminding you to be a bit careful because the hand-rails are a trifle shaky as you go down; they haven't got the approval yet to put a new one in."

Of course, in the end Moorcock's writing comes off as nothing but a pretentious work that has nothing better to argue than 'it's all silly and poorly written.' It's rather subjective, though he makes the powerful argument as to whether we should consider such 'pulp fiction' among literary greats. I believe that it deserves a spot among them for its influence and what it achieves on the whole. For Tolkien's work is not one which performs according to the above quote. It does not coddle the reader as Moorcock says, nor does it glorify war. Instead it reveals the reality of darkness, power, depravity and doom. It shows us that where there is darkness we need not accept that darkness then, that we can choose to believe in the good that flourishes in the most unlikely places. In the tea garden at the bottom of the abyss - to use Moorcock's metaphor then...

What I am essentially arguing is that superficially The Lord of the Rings is nothing more than a silly idea. A work of fairies and elves - a book for children, idealists and other times. Yet underneath such a story, as with all fairytales, is a sense of something greater. This something is to be found with a sense of wonder, exploration and a willingness to look beneath the surface. I believe this is why Tolkien loved his hobbit creations so much. Because in them is represented all that The Lord of the Rings is: an unassuming face, harbouring great inner quality.

The Fellowship of the Ring begins with the Shire and winds its way through the barren lands that lie on the way to Mordor. I tried to read this part of the book once, but DNF it then. Then I picked up the trilogy bound in one volume and went through it fairly steadily.

I've read that Tolkien wasn't as original as first claimed. There is a book called The Broken Sword that has parallels with LotR. Nevertheless Tolkien take on traditional myths was unique and groundbreaking. The Eddas, the Welsh myths, and Norse myths all are the foundation for this great story.

This was a reread and was a satisfactory one because I wanted to reach my favorite parts. I looked forward to read Tom Bombadil's part again. Did it. Then the Rivendell parts, ditto. Slowly I wound my way, sometimes following Sam and Frodo, sometimes Aragorn. Gandalf appears relatively scantily towards the third book. I had a lot of fun reading LoTR, and I've not yet deleted it from my Ereader because I'm tempted to reread it soon. Five well deserved stars, indeed.

Best read ever.

Luin J.R.R. Tolkienin "Taru sormusten herrasta" (WSOY, 1999) ensimmäisen kerran parikymppisenä opiskelijana sairaalan vuoteessa maatessani (nykyään sekin aika olisi tietysti mennyt netissä notkuen). Lukukokemus oli vähän kaksijakoinen: toisaalta muistan nauttineeni eeppisestä fantasiaseikkailusta, toisaalta pitkästyneeni kun tarinassa siirryttiin seuraamaan muiden kuin Frodon ja Samin ponnistelua kohti Tuomiovuorta.

Vuonna 2020 oli aika palata Keskimaahan. Luettiin ensiksi iltasaduksi Hobitti ja päätettiin hypätä sen jälkeen suoraan Sormusten herran pariin. Seitsemän kuukautta siihen meni, mutta lopulta mahtisormus saatiin tuhottua.

Jonkin verran lukemastani muistin, mutta paljon oli joko unohtunut tai sitten jäänyt jollakin tavalla Peter Jacksonin erinomaisen elokuvatrilogian varjoon. Loppuhuipennuksen jälkeen tarina jatkuikin vielä aika pitkään. Lisäksi Merrin ja Pippinin rooli kirjassa oli odottamaani suurempi, eivätkä nämä olleetkaan ainoastaan koomisia sivuhahmoja. Leffat ovat kyllä onnistuneet tylsistyttämään omaa mielikuvitusta siinä määrin, että oli vähän vaikea ajatella vaikka Aragornia näkemättä edessään Viggo Mortensenin pärstävärkkiä.

Tolkienille täytyy nostaa hattua fantasiamaailman luojana, mitä en ensimmäisellä kerralla osannut ehkä arvostaa samassa mittakaavassa ("voi ei, nyt joku tonttu laulaa taas kolme sivua"). Valehtelisin silti jos väittäisin, etten olisi nytkin hetkittäin vähän pitkästynyt, kun jaarittelulle ei näkynyt loppua.

"Sormusten herra" tarjosi myös onnistuneen matkan tunnekasvatuksen maailmaan. Se tarjosi melkoisen ahdistavia ja pelottavia kohtauksia Mordorissa, mutta myös muutamia hersyvän humoristisia katkelmia, kuten suosikkihahmojeni Samin ja Klonkun välisen vuoropuhelun onnistuneeseen ruokailuun liittyvistä jutuista. Ja sitten toisaalla Samin ja Frodon ystävyyttä kuvattiin niin kauniisti, että jouduin vähän nieleskelemään kyyneliäni, eikä sellaista tapahdu kovin usein.

Mitähän tästä vielä sanoisi? No, kannattihan tämä lukea uudestaan ja tykkäsin tällä toisella kerralla kirjasta melkeinpä enemmän!

It's been about 20 years since I've read The Lord of the Rings in High School. That's... let's just move on... I do remember that I loved this story and, upon finishing it, there was no question as to it being my favorite book of all time. It’s now, most recently, been finally supplanted by The Way of Kings so I felt it appropriate to revisit Middle Earth.

The Fellowship of the Ring
Our story starts off in the Shire, home of the Hobbits. Our story continues in the shire until about the 20% mark too. Hobbits aren't known to make quick decisions on adventures, you see. Tolkien will spend a lot of time describing the history of the world and people throughout this tale. It is tedious and did cause me to not read as fast as I normally would. Things pick up a little after leaving the Shire but grind to a halt with the entrance of Tom Bombadil. He's an interesting character who, like others in this book, overstays their welcome by a couple of chapters. The pacing picks up after his exit and I thoroughly enjoyed everything from Rivendale onward. The best part, as it was in the movies, was the journey through the Mines of Moria. Tokien can set a scene exceptionally well and across all three books you'll notice he sets up despair like none other.

A few notes: I can't help but love Sam. He is stout of heart and lacks no amount of courage. He is always the first one to spring to action, often while other characters are in awe or confused about an incoming attack. He also is the only one that truly knows Frodo and understands how he thinks. For that reason, he is able to spot him before he leaves the company when all else thought Frodo would logically do something else. The Fellowship of the Ring is a solid opening tale but it also drags the most. It isn't all set up of characters either as a lot of it is unnecessary side characters backgrounds or otherwise useless worldbuilding in the sense that most people won't care about it. It does show, however, Tolkien's genius and masterful ability to create a world and entire history! See the appendixes at the end for that.

The Two Towers
Much like The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers has a lot of secondary characters that we spend way too much time with or get to know more background history than we'd ever care to learn. This time around, it's primarily the Ents, and their trademark slow speech, that bog down the tale considerably. Fortunately, once you get past them, and Aragaorn's endless hunt for the Orcs, where you get to live through all of the days, the story really picks up. The Battle of Helm's Deep is, of course, the highlight, but I do have a big problem with how Tolkein wrote it. It's probably more of a product of modern fantasy, and the brilliance of authors like Brandon Sanderson when it comes to action scenes, that I am spoiled. I want to read about the epic battles and the one-on-one duels with my favorite characters. Tolkien, frustratingly so, tends to have a character get knocked out and then told the tale in more detail later or he sums up the battle in a few swift sentences essentially saying 'a lot of men died' and that's it.

Another thing that I'm not used to because of how modern fantasy does it, is the multiple points of view are found in completely different 'books'. Book 3 (the first of 2 in The Two Towers, confused yet?) is from the Aragorn/Merry/Pippin point of view of Helm's Deep and Rohan. Book 4 is all about Sam and Frodo on their trek toward Mordor. Fantasy books nowadays would have alternating chapters so you won't be confused about the timeline of events or wonder what's happening with the other characters for 200+ pages. It is a bit jarring and takes some getting used to. Speaking of Sam and Frodo, I found I really enjoyed their adventure more this time around. In High School, I was all about the action scenes, war! Blood! Violence! So naturally Aragorn was my favorite character and those large battles what I looked forward too.

Now that I'm more... seasoned... I found the companionship between Frodo and Sam and their struggles as they draw nearer to Mordor the most interesting and inspiring even. Sam, ever a steady companion and faithful friend, shows how much he desires to help Frodo at every turn. He has his wits ever about him as he is wary of Gollum in every way. I also enjoy how Tolkien shows the power of the Ring and the immense burden Frodo bears as it gets heavier with his ever step closer to Mordor. If you don't feel for Frodo and Sam on their journey, well, you may just not have a heart. I do remember in high school getting to the end of The Two Towers and being mortified since I hadn't seen the movie yet. Even knowing didn't make it any less harder to read. Also, Faramir rocks in the book much moreso than in the movies.

The Return of the King
The final act of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King is also the shortest and fastest paced. We do get a great deal of setup before we get to any of the impending action at Minas Tirith because, well, it's Tolkien. If he went into as much detail on descriptions of every setting and person like Robert Jordan, this book would easily be 2000 pages. Fortunately, he just describes the history of places and people. Once the battle rages though, we are in for a treat. More descriptions of the battle are found here than at Helm's Deep and the battle is glorious. Many character arcs come to a satisfying conclusion here and I enjoyed every moment with Gandalf and Theoden. Denethor has an added layer of depth to his character that the movies couldn't fully do justice, though the actor that played him nailed the character perfectly. I did feel my heart racing as I read the battle scenes and enjoyed Tolkien's writing when it came to the King of the Nazgul. There is truly some beautiful prose here that flaunts his talent as a writer.

Sam and Frodo's journey is equally harrowing and I found myself getting nervous for them often despite knowing the eventual outcome this readthrough. Once again, Frodo and Sam's despair are poignantly written and you can feel the pain that every step brings to Mount Doom (a name fit for pirates). It wasn't hard to find empathy for their plight and wish some eagles would just fly in and save them. One thing I didn't expect to enjoy and, in fact, dreaded getting to based on my first readthrough experience, was the return to the Shire. This time through, I found myself captivated and nervous for our companions on their return home. I know Tolkien was writing from experience in what it must have felt like returning home from World War I and find that life was anything but sunshine and rabbits with a problem-free life. Expertly done and enjoyed every minute of it.

Conclusion
Even though I rate this at 5 stars, it is, by no means, a perfect work. I suppose nothing really is, but it has more flaws than most of my other 5 star ratings. The slow parts and expounding on the history of the world, while interesting, took me out of the story on multiple occasions. That being said, this is a classic literary work that blazed a trail for the fantasy genre as a whole and many authors have been influenced or inspired by it. That in and of itself isn't a reason to give a 5 star rating, of course, so it's good that it's a fantastic story that has many memorable moments and deep commentaries on life with strong characters. You may laugh, you may cry, you may do neither, but you will remember Samwise and Frodo's adventure and feel their emotions. Tolkien is is the Fantasy Professor as far as I'm concerned and he set the bar high for worldbuilding in the genre. I would recommend The Lord of the Rings to anyone new to the genre to act as a gateway to epic fantasy and the like. Professor Tolkien is the master and his book is every bit worth reading.

I have read the Lord of the Rings at least a dozen times. I then started reading several translations (German, Norwegian, Portuguese, and French). Apart from English, those are the languages I can read more or less fluently. However, I could probably read the Lord of the Rings in a language I am not so familiar with, since I know the story almost by heart. I am not usually a great re-reader, nor do I generally read fantasy, it’s just this book, which has become somewhat of a safety blanket. My favourite chapters are at the very beginning and the end: leaving and coming home to the Shire.

No, I never finished this set of books. Truth be told, I can't - they're awful and horribly written. For me I found the author to be self indulgent in his writing. I know many people are impressed that he made up the languages, races , the lands, etc... quite frankly, big deal. Star Trek did it, as did Star Wars. I realize that many many people say without this book we would not have modern Dungeons & Dragons style books, games and the many spin offs.

Again, I disagree.

Just because Tolkien did it first doesn't mean he did it best. There are many many prolific fantasy writers out there that have written better books.

The book is a thousand page walk to a volcano to toss in a ring that corrupts pretty much everyone that holds it. During our walk through the various lands we hear Frodo whine - for a thousand pages. I'm not worthy, I can't do it, it's too much, blah blah blah. Sam is there to lift his spirits and sometimes, literally Frodo for the duration.

Doesn't this just sound delightful?

I don't.

Everyone is known by multiple names depending on who they encounter, which I found hard to follow as it was hard to keep the characters straight who were related since their names were variations on each others. Boromir, Faramir, and Steve. There's Eomer, Eowyn, and Beth.

You get the idea.

99% of you out there will strongly disagree with me, and that's fine. I still think this book is just dull, boring and just a plain old waste of time. There are many other great, fun, fantasy novels out there that you should try instead.

I recommend:

Dragonlance: The Chronicles Trilogy
Dragonlance: Legends Trilogy
Dragonlance: The War of Lost Souls Trilogy
Forgotten Realms: The Icewind Dale Trilogy

There's not really much to say other than EPIC. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this for the first time. I've seen the Peter Jackson trilogy and really enjoyed those as well. But this time it was fun to read the original story. J.R.R. Tolkien created so much in the Middle-earth realm and the LOTR books only capture a small portion. I feel he truly created a genre and set the standard for epic fantasy.

The movies obviously left material out for time and added some for creativity along the way. In my opinion both are strong. This edition had appendices innthe back to help with time lines, back story, and touched on a lot of the mythos based in Tolkien's world. He created so much that The Hobbit and The Silmarillion are recommended reads to further explore this genre. Thanks!