This is a weird one for me. I've seen the first movie 3 times and I couldn't tell you a single thing about it. I read some of this physically, I listened to some of it on audio (5 stars for the Andy Serkis Audio btw) and I just cannot get this story to stick in my mind at all.
I like how expansive the world is and how obvious it is that J.R.R. Tolkien had all of the world building down before he laid down the story. I even enjoyed the story itself to some degree, but while I like the writing and the world and am genuinely interested - there's something about this story that really doesn't grip me at all. I just wish I could figure out why.

Founding a genre like a boss

Stealing everything possible from mythology and the, maybe sometimes a tiny bit boring, old, classics.
The beloved tradition of using others' ideas to create something new is big here, especially because Tolkien had the perfect background to milk everything from wherever he could find inspirations, from ancient to medieval and, at the time, modern works. It would especially be interesting to read or reread LotR with a focus on how he let the classics mutate to new forms, transformed oldfashioned tropes to fit for a modern audience, and especially made it a compelling, well written, and suspenseful pageturner. Don´t be angry, good old classics, it´s not your fault, your poor creators just had no creative writing courses available or were hunted by the inquisition, or it were total monopolies to that their works were the only ones available, and thereby never cared about royalties, book signing tours, or target audiences.

Black, white, and the most important grey
The pure, camouflages fascistic, evil, is of course as noir as possible, but especially the sexy seductiveness of the mind penetrating psi magic of the distilled badassery, is one of the main driving engines of the groundbreaking epic journey, because good old almightiness totally corrupts. It´s just normal that everyone is struggling with the whispering of the dark side with all its attractive options and the real life implications of this are, well, terrible, frustrating, and daunting. Throw money at close to everyone and she/he will get corrupted, especially if the alternative is to get eaten by orcs while the family is raped by Uruk hais and Balrogs.

Establishing cliffhangery ends of single parts
One just can´t stop, this damn, evil tendency of the genre to stop at the most suspenseful part and let the reader hanging to wait for felt eternities. As if Sauron wasn´t bad enough, this vicious cycle continues with each new, far too multi k page series and eats away the lives of poor, innocent humans, not to speak of their tormented souls that can´t find peace over these nauseating periods of despair and regret to have been relapsing. Again! I´m not sure if Tolkien should be praised or damned for having laid the foundations for things like Sandersons´, Jordans´, Eriksons´, etc. amazingly exhausting and immersive monster series. I´m ashamed to admit it, but I have the whole, good old second hand paperback, Wheel of time series ‚(and the new ones) lying around and I am afraid to restart reading the whole thing (not just the first few parts like a few years ago), because I fear that it could trigger reading and rereading other series and finally Wheel of time again until 2027 or something, not just having lost contact to reality (not much difference to the present reality https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...
), but, much more problematic, to all other genres for half a decade or something. Thanks for that, J.R.R!

Being attacked by the bigoted academic society of the time
That´s just ridiculous, Tolkien had to hide and vindicate his amazing work, because it wasn´t highbrow enough for his snobbish, elitist, and old, boring, so called quality literature prone, colleagues and a bigoted, conservative society that wasn´t ready for something new. Better stay with theater texts as books or whatever can be used for patriotic „our writer“ idiocy. Just bad luck that there aren´t enough good, if any, old writers for each country to fuel feelings of literary supremacy. However, it´s one more of these examples of how parochial even seemingly well educated and sophisticated people can be as soon as it comes to close to their cognitive dissonances and socioeconomic status hierarchy overkill.

Putting in meta, connotations, and social criticism
Tolkien was heavily influenced and inspired by war, and the atrocities humans so much love to do to each other until nasty nukes eliminated the option of more WW action, and put the real life implications everywhere in his work. Not just in the form of the big, bad government cooperating with war industry, propaganda machines, and black magic, but with

Corrupted blood
The banality of evil, the attractiveness of the dark side is, as mentioned in „Black, white, and…“ above, is one of the driving forces of the saga and without Tolkiens´experiences, it might have stayed much more superficial and have never reached that deep level of human soul and psyche vivisection. The same with love, without his lifelong, deep bound to this adored wife, he wasn´t allowed to see until reaching full age, the importance of emotions maybe wouldn´t have unfolded and played such an essential role in the work. Expanding this whole, philosophical, psychological somewhat assumptions to his profession as a philologist and, for the standards of the time, mad professor, would go a bit too far, but let´s just say that his expertise might have helped him create both Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings.

Is it outdated?
Very objective thing, even if not including the sociocultural, immense literary impact, Tolkien invested a bit more than the usual fantasy writer in her/his third or fourth series with a new one each new year. Just take the mentioned Silmarillion, the immense details of the world, all the links to the cultural heritage, and the sheer scale and size, and, on top of that, close to everyone agrees that it´s a timeless, genre founding, ingenious masterpiece that will stand the test of not just time, but eternity. Sure, it´s not as accessible as the average, new, overhyped world bestseller, but that´s the same as with Lem, Lovecraft, etc., authors just were used to write in that wacky, overcomplicated, intricate, and difficult to digest language, because they were no narcissistic, lazy, self aggrandizing, god complexed hedonists. I won´t excuse for that, I´m one myself and have N word privileges.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Comparing and contrasting fantasy with other genres
Horror, Sci-Fi, or crime had no similar big bangs (fringe theory, by the way, to provoke and insult even more additional people than with just the human degeneration gag above lol) but different founders, prodigies, and subgenres, while fantasy was, stayed, and will be very genre compliant, not to say a bit inflexible in contrast to other genres with much vaster differences, especially sci fi, my bread and peanut butter. So one could say that close to every, no matter if grimdark, YA, high, epic, romantic, etc. fantasy, is always quite the same with some variations of magic systems, the balance of focus on protagonists or antagonists, tone, and the rare establishment of the one or other sub sub genre.

The endless evolution
Close to all human mythology, faith, myths, etc. is fantasy and I see one of its biggest potentials in a fusion to science fantasy, because it opens up all options including any horror or psychothriller crime plot. Without Tolkien, this amazing development couldn´t have taken place so soon and it would have probably needed much longer to establish the (I´m a sci-fi head, sorry) second best genre to subjugate and enslave them all.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

Haven't felt such warmth in a story. It has evoked a certain nostalgia inside me, that I can't help but love it.

Ringwraith Shocker! Coach benches the Nine! '"Well, I expected better at Weathertop. After all, they're fracking immortal. (Shakes head) What's a Dark Lord gotta do to get back my PRECIOUS?!" Sauron declared today from the heights of Barad-dur.' - The Mordor Bugle.

There are four authors of epic fantasy that I'm familiar with, Feist, Wurts, Erikson, and Tolkien. Of the four, I think Tolkien still holds the throne, with Erikson running a close second.

I'm always amazed at the enormous amount of work that must go into the world building in this genre. Of the four luminaries above, they are all geniuses in my eyes.

(Of course) Strongly recommended. 5, 'The little guy with a stout heart wins through,' stars.

The Fellowship of the Ring (Lord of the Rings,#1) by J.R.R. Tolkien

This book is full of wonder and adventure with fantastic writing. And filled with a lot of emotions, exciting characters, and creatures. But also provided a lot of information at the beginning. For this, the story was a bit confusing for me at first. But later, Tolkien amazingly set up all the information and made the story so entertaining.
n  

Don't adventures ever have an end? I suppose not. Someone else always has to carry on on the story.

n

Oh geez.

This book fell victim to "It was really great at first but then I had 7 chapters to read in one night so I started skimming it and cramming it was making it less enjoyable and now reading this book feels like a task even though if I was given more time I could enjoy it to its full extent but now after being bored for so many chapters I have no interest in picking it up again outside of class."

Genuinely, I like the world. I love the characterization of Sam and Frodo. I like Gandalf, and the action, and the compelling danger of the Ring. But all of the elven info dumps and the politics of "so and so had the ring and so and so can't get the ring" got very tiresome. I listened to a huge chunk of this book on audiobook at 2X speed while cleaning my room, and I only absorbed about half of it, so i'm not entirely sure what's been going on, and that makes me sad. I feel like I need to read a summary of this or watch the movie just because I feel like I really only read half of this book. Hopefully the next two in the trilogy will focus on more action rather than lengthy dialogue scenes talking about ~~how powerful!!!~~ the ring is.

2025 reread:
I have no idea how to rate this experience so I simply won’t but Sam Gamgee is one of thee fictional characters of all time. Other bitches simply aren’t on his level.


Original review 2021:
2.5 stars im so sorry please don’t kill me

n  Check out my YouTube channel where I show my instant reactions upon finishing reading fantasy books.n

While the writing style is quite outdated, this book still is a joy to read for first-time readers

While it may be hard to believe for someone who exclusively reads fantasy books, I actually didn't read this book until very recently. I just wasn't into fantasy as a child, and when I got into it as an adult I figured this book wouldn't catch my interest. And while I did not enjoy this book nearly as much as the fanatics who claim this is the greatest fantasy story every told, it was a worthwhile read that still holds up today in many regards.

You do have to constantly remind yourself of the year this book was written, and if you are an adult, it helps if you are already a fantasy fan if reading for the first time. If you have read a lot of fantasy, you can see how modern authors are still to this day using many of the same writing choices that Tolkien did here, and it's fun to see them peppered throughout the story.

However, if you are an adult and are not a fan of fantasy, you may be in for a bit of a rough journey. Several sections of this book can feel like a slog, there are chapters in this book that feel completely out of place and irrelevant to the story, the constant usage of songs feel extremely outdated, and the massive infodumps can be off-putting.

But the story itself is absolutely wonderful, engaging, epic, and is simply a joy to read. It's a timeless story that will never go out of style - and the more you learn about these characters the more fun they are to read about.

While I realize it can be blasphemous to say that I do believe the movies are better than the books, you owe it to yourself to read this book if you haven't already.

I’ll always love the trilogy. This set with covers by John Jude Palencar is beautiful. Definitely a keeper! Review to follow…

¡Una obra maestra de la fantasía! ♡

"La Compañía del Anillo será de Nueve, y los Nueve Caminantes se opondrán a los Nueve Jinetes malvados. Contigo y tu fiel sirviente irá Gandalf; pues éste será el mayor de sus trabajos, y quizá el último."
"En cuanto al resto, representarán a los otros Pueblos Libres del Mundo: Elfos, Enanos, y Hombres."

Mi calificación: ¡Estrellas infinitas!

Never have I been so sad to give a low rating to such a revered book. I'm so sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am.

Again, I'm so sorry, but I found this book unbelievably dull. I really am so, so sorry. I'm desperately sad about this. This series has been such a foundation for modern-day fantasy that I'm incredibly disappointed in myself for not liking this. I have always wanted to be a Tolkien fangirl. I've always wanted to learn Elvish and get completely offended à la Stephen Colbert but I can't. I just can't.

I want so desperately to love Tolkien, but it just ain't happening.

I've been trying this book for 17 years. Tolkien and I have a sad history. I've always been a book lover, when I was young, I would persist through any book, no matter how trying. The Hobbit was the first book that made me fall asleep. It's memorable to me because that's the first time, and only the second time it's ever happened. The other book that made me fall asleep? You guessed it.

The Fellowship of the Ring.

I tried The Fellowship in 10th grade. I couldn't get past Bilbo's birthday party.

I tried it again almost 10 years ago when I was stuck in bed for several days due to, oh, a giant surgical wound in my neck. My doctor said I had to stay in bed for a few days. So, I reasoned, what better way than to resume my attempt at reading one of the greatest literary classics of all time than whole having no other option?

Audiobook it was! I didn't last past Tom Bombadil before I decided, fuck this, I'm going to head to the gym with a bloody bandage on my neck. True story. I got a lot of really weird looks. My doctor gave me a prescription for Vicodin because he was concerned the pain would be too much to bear. Apparently, I didn't even need the Vicodin because that pedophile Tom Bombadil put me right to sleep.

Seriously, were it not for the fact that it is written by Tolkien, I would have hated this book. It was so unbelievably dull. There were parts, that to a Tolkien amateur like me, didn't have a whit of relevance or anything interesting to add to the plot (namely, say, the first 700 pages of the book). Seriously, what the fuck is up with the farmer and Tom Bombadil?

The plot was all sorts of disjointed. Some parts just didn't make any sense. Tolkien is a linguist at heart, and it shows, because all the famous quotes we know from him are just sound bytes. In context, sometimes they don't really make any sense. All the poems and songs are in there to sound pretty, and frankly, they bored the fuck out of me.

For instance, in the middle of a serious dinner party where the company is just trying to decide what to do about the ring (surely a simple task), all of a sudden little Frodo stands up and solemnly announces.

n  All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be kingn

I was like what the fuck, man?! Where did that come from? It makes absolutely no sense in the context of the scene. Oh, sure, it's an inside thing on how Aragorn was the secret king, but nobody knew that! Everyone, elf, hobbit, dwarf, (and me) would have thought he was completely high on some elven grass.

Let me make this clear: I do not, for an instance, doubt Tolkien's literary value. I think he has been an inspiration to generations of writers, artists, hell, gamers. My beloved World of Warcraft game featured elves, pretty much every fantasy book we have these days have been inspired in one way or another by Tolkien. Again, he was an amazing linguist, his work developing the Elvish tongue, among others, as well as his efforts in developing the rich, fantastic history of the world within his books is not to be disregarded by any means.

But again, he is a linguist. He is a scholar. He may be the most brilliant one of those in the world, an inspiration to generations, but for me, personally, his writing is not to my tastes.

But damn, the movies were amazing!

من از سیزده چهارده سالگی رؤیای ارباب حلقه ها را داشتم. اولین بار بخش های پراکنده ای از فیلمش را در تلویزیون دیدم: موجوداتی کوتوله ساکن روستایی زیبا، با جادوگری پیر که آتش بازی راه می اندازد، و حلقه ای شیطانی که آرامش دنیای داستان را بر هم می زند، و سواران تاریک، و چشم آتشینی که همواره ناظر است.
هر چند هیچ وقت نتوانستم تمام سه گانه را ببینم، ولی همین عناصر به قدری تخیل نوجوانانه ام را تهییج کرد، که همیشه سر در آوردن از ماجرای کامل کوتوله ها و حلقه ی شیطانی، یکی از حسرت هایم باقی ماند.

گذشت تا این که در دوره ی دبیرستان، یکی از رفقایم کتاب را می خواند و با هم راجع به آن صحبت می کردیم. صحبت که نمی کردیم. بیشتر او تعریف می کرد و من مجذوب و مجذوب تر می شدم. کتاب دم دستم بود، و من هم خوره ی کتاب بودم، نمی دانم، نمی دانم چرا هیچ وقت کتاب را از او نگرفتم تا بخوانم. شده از کارهایی که در کودکی کرده اید تعجب کنید که آخر چرا من این کار را کردم؟؟



قطعاً قطعاً اگر همان موقع فیلم را می دیدم یا داستانش را می خواندم، "ارباب حلقه ها" در کنار "هری پاتر" تبدیل می شد به غنی ترین خاطره ی نوجوانی ام.
حتی در این سن، مثل کاشفان سرزمین های ناشناخته، ذوق می کردم از یافتن فلان منطقه و ارتباطش با فلان رود، روی نقشه ی "خطّه ی میانه"، یا کسب اطلاع از تواریخ و اسطوره های اقوام مختلف و تطبیق تمام این یافته ها، با وقایع داستان.