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.

"Akşam yıldızının solmasından sonra artık bu kitapta eski günler hakkında bir şey söylenmez"
Olağanüstü bir yapıt. Sadece anlattıkları, olaylar silsilesi değil koca bir evren yaratmak, dil yaratmak inanılmaz birşey. Daha başka ne söylenir ki.
Kitabın fiziksel ağırlığı nedeniyle okumam uzuunn bir zaman aldı ama bitince bambaşka bir alemden dünyaya geri dönmüş hissi verdi. Artık o evrende olmamak da üzdü. O yüzden dedim ki; iyi çok uzun bir süre ortadünyada yaşamışım :)

As I’ve already written three joke reviews of these books (which you can find here, here, and here, if you’re interested), it seems high time for me to sit down and actually write an earnest review.

I should say, first of all, that I am among the group of unfortunates who watched the movies before readings the books; so when I sat down to read The Lord of the Rings, I already knew the characters and the plot. No doubt that this negatively affected my experience of the books, for the movies followed Tolkien pretty closely. I should also say that I really do love the movies. I don’t think they’re cinematic masterpieces or brilliant works of art, but I enjoy them immensely nonetheless. Perhaps, in movies, I look much more for entertainment than for art; I don’t think Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Big Lebowski are wonderful works of art, but I do think they’re wonderful movies.

In books, on the other hand, I tend to look more for artistry than for entertainment. This may be just an old-fashioned or snobbish preference, but the fact remains that I know much more about how books are made than movies, so I can be a more intelligent critic. Plus, books have been around for far longer; some of the greatest minds in history have written books, and this necessarily raises the bar. So I think I’m not altogether unjustified in applying more critical standards to the books.

Let me sum up my opinion in one sentence: I think these books have serious flaws, and lovely merits. And I’ll try to tackle them in that order. Yet, it is easy, far too easy, to criticize Tolkien—so much so that I even hesitate to do it. But here it goes.

Tolkien is simply not a novelist. Being a novelist requires, not only that you are a good writer and have a fertile imagination, but that you have certain skills. Writing nonfiction is not good practice for fiction. In nonfiction, you write with only one voice and one perspective—your own. A novelist, on the other hand, must be able to dive deeply into diverse psychologies and personalities. To be a novelist is, in fact, very much like being an actor playing a role; writing nonfiction, on the other hand, is much more like being a politician delivering a speech.

Tolkien was not an actor. His characters (at least, his protagonists) are all remarkably similar. They are all terribly nice, polite, courageous, kind, gentle, good-hearted, and respectable. They only rarely get angry, and are never mean. They sometimes make mistakes, but most often are astonishingly competent. Although many of the characters come from different backgrounds and cultures—and many from different species—there is almost no infighting between the protagonists. In the movies, the characters often get frustrated, angry, or distraught; but the emotional tone is far more even in these books, and that tone is of quiet fortitude and good-natured bravery.

One of the things that I found most stifling about the books was the almost total absence of humor. There is whimsy, yes; there is silliness, sure. But there is no wit, no spice, no savor. And it’s not only that there isn’t any wit, but it’s that wittiness seems entirely foreign to Tolkien’s whole mentality; I can’t imagine Tolkien enjoying one of Wilde’s epigrams or Voltaire's satires. So by the time I reached the end of each volume, I felt a desperate need to laugh; and my joke reviews were, in that way, the most honest reviews I could have written. I felt like I had just sat through a very long concert of chamber music—which was very good music, after all—and needed a relief from the stuffiness and the seriousness.

There are many other criticisms that one could make of these books, but I'll try not to spend too much time on them. For one, they are far too boyish. I don’t mean that there aren’t enough female characters—there are many great books with few female characters—but that the books are written for boys. I’m saying this as a former boy who still enjoys a good superhero or adventure story, that it just got to be too much; I felt like I had to go read Pride and Prejudice or something as a tonic. Another obvious flaw is that the world Tolkien creates is, in many ways, lacking in dimension. There are several kingdoms, several types of creatures, and a long mythological history. But are there any religions? Is there any intellectual life? Are we supposed to simply accept that Aragorn is the one true king, and that his reign will be beautiful and just and wonderful? And what are the common people doing? How is their lot? In short, there’s an awful lot that is simply swept under the rug; and all vanity, intrigue, ignorance, and struggle, which for me characterizes almost all social and political life, is almost entirely absent from the world of our protagonists.

Much of Tolkien’s flaws as a novelist and a maker of worlds can be attributed to his oft-mentioned dichotomous understanding of good and evil. For Tolkien, good and evil are two points, fixed and immutable, and you are either standing on one spot or the other. Yes, some characters waver—Boromir is the prime example of this. But note that the reader is never unsure of what goodness is; the characters sometimes are tempted by power, but we are never in doubt what is the right and wrong thing to do in any situation. This is why the protagonists all sound and act so similarly—there isn’t much wiggle-room in Tolkien’s conception of goodness. And this is also why there isn’t any religious, cultural, or political tensions among the protagonists. Tolkien’s idea of goodness is uniform; the idea of pluralism, relativism, or even of uncertainly regarding anything moral, is totally foreign to Tolkien.

This struggle between pure good and pure evil also makes for bad literature. After all, the greatest works of literature are often riddled with ambiguity. Homer is exciting because you both root for Achilles and for Hector; Milton’s Satan is fascinating because he is so sympathetic, and yet so spiteful; and people will argue about Hamlet until the sun explodes. Even more humble examples show the importance of ambiguity: Mr. Rochester is charismatic, but also brutish and selfish; Mr. Darcy is an uptight snob, but sincere. I’m sure we could have a very interesting discussion about the likability of Holden Caulfield, Jake Barnes, or Jay Gatsby. But could we have that discussion about Aragorn or Gandalf? I don’t think we could, and that’s what feels so suffocating. Tolkien almost forces his view of the story upon us; there isn’t really much room for different interpretations (which is also partly why I wrote my reviews the way I did, to show how bottlenecked is all criticism of these works).

But on the level of pure writing style, Tolkien is far from incompetent. His prose is doughty, plucky, and pleasingly quaint. At his best, Tolkien’s writing has an oaky, rustic charm; but at his worst, Tolkien’s writing can be stiff and wooden. I found Tolkien’s descriptions of battles particularly soporific, probably because they often lacked concrete detail. Consider this passage, chosen almost at random:

The next day, though the darkness had reached its full and grew no deeper, it weighed heavier on men’s hearts, and a great dread was on them. Ill news came soon again. The passage of Anduin was won by the Enemy. Faramir was retreating to the wall of the Pelennor, rallying his men to the Causeway Forts; but he was ten times outnumbered.

That is, I think, a fair sample of the way Tolkien narrates battles. It has a nice ring to it, certainly; but it is neither strongly visual nor kinesthetic. It is devoid of concrete detail; it feels too much like I’m being told about the battle, and not enough like I’m there experiencing it. (As a side note, I was surprised that the battle scenes weren’t more impressive, given that Tolkien served as a soldier.)

Despite these flaws, the tone of these books does have a wonderful uniformity; it takes a lot of skill to maintain a single tone for such a long time, and Tolkien accomplishes it masterfully. There are no jarring transitions or incongruous passages, but all is of the same cloth. This makes reading these books often feel much more like reading an epic poem or a myth, than a novel. And, as I’d like to suggest, this is how these books should be read: as myths, not novels.

To complete my earlier statement, Tolkien is simply not a novelist; he is a myth-maker. As novels, I think The Lord of the Rings fail utterly; but as myths, they utterly succeed. Much of this has to do with Tolkien’s background in languages; as Manny notes, the names of the characters have been given so much thought, that they stick in the mind effortlessly, and yet retain a kind of exotic charm. (The only exception to this is Mt. Doom—I’m not sure why he opted for such a comic-book name.) Like characters out of an oral poem, the protagonists of these books are heavy, flat, and heroic. Aragorn would be just as much at home in the world of Beowulf as in Middle Earth.

I can’t exactly say why myths are so emotionally satisfying. Joseph Campbell attempted to answer that question in his Hero with a Thousand Faces; and, indeed, the plot of The Lord of the Rings corresponds very closely with Campbell’s monomyth. For Campbell, myths help us get in touch with our unconscious dream-world, to reconnect with that childlike sense of wonder and fantasy that is so often excluded from our daily lives. Well, I’m not too sure what lies at the heart of myths; but clearly something in these books speaks powerfully to many readers. We all love feeling like we’re heroes on a quest, fighting dangerous monsters at every turn, relying on only our own cleverness and strength. We all love beating the bad guys and experiencing the triumphant thrill of victory.

But in the end I didn’t love these books. They are interesting samples of modern myths; but what I think ultimately holds them back is Tolkien’s refusal to really confront the themes he is writing about. In Homer’s poems, killing is sometimes heroic, but death is always ghastly and horrible; in these books, Tolkien can write about the death of thousands of orcs and men without really coming to grips with the horror of the situation. He does not delve deeply into the nature of good and of evil, but takes them as givens. In short, I don’t think he lives up to his material; and that's a shame because his material is so interesting and rich. Tolkien the story-teller was not the equal of Tolkien the myth-maker.

As a parting thought, I’d like to suggest that Tolkien’s real gem was his first book: The Hobbit. Bilbo is a much more compelling protagonist than Frodo. And I think Tolkien is at his charming best when he is writing of hobbits, dwarves, and forgetful wizards. In The Lord of the Rings, I consistently thought his most silly characters were his best realized: Treebeard and Tom Bombadil were far more memorable than Legolas or Gimli. Paradoxically, when Tolkien was writing his most whimsical characters, the books seemed the most serious; nobody but Tolkien could have imagined Gollum in all his ghastly splendor. It is here that I think his real genius lay, and that is why I think The Hobbit is a better book—and doubly grand for being twice as humble.

______________________________

Just came across this review by Edmund Wilson, that I largely agree with:

http://jrrvf.com/sda/critiques/The_Na...

(The formatting is a bit dodgy.)

4 ⭐

"Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."
- Gandalf

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A review of a book like this at this point is somewhat purposeless but I just want to add that it is perfectly understandable for generations already exposed to this book's descendants that are written more to the tone and vibe of their generation to respect this book, or maybe not even respect it, and not love it as Tolkien has fairly singular obsessions that may not be their thing. We do very much live in a generation, be it in books or music, or just attention spans, of taking all that other stuff out and just leave the cool shit. I'm here for that. I'm here for the input of all succeeding generations.

I'm also here for this book though and while the book stands up to me, even if it didn't, there are a handful of books, maybe less than a half dozen in each genre that you (or at least I) give a 5 stars because of how foundational they are both to the actual art being produced and what it did to carve out a market. All that 70s/80 epic fantasy, some of which were great, are almost completely indebted to Tolkien and their success was the blueprint that signaled to publishers, oh this is a thing we can put money in.

It's also almost the ultimate mixture for a very young kid obsessed with reading above their level and checks the boxes of classic and that fantasy we all love at once. I remember being in middle school and it was this series and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum that obsessed me.

Aside, an odd story related to LotR, it actually revealed how bafflingly dumb some adults could be at an age where you still trusted adults and acknowledged their wisdom and experience and didn't think they were all like vile people on Facebook all day lol. I was walking home from the library having checked this book out again (because that's how we do) and I stopped by my best friend's house who lived across the street from me just to see if he was and wanted to play some ball (we lived at the mouth of a park with courts and the it was one of our town's prime spots for pick up games). His mother answered the door, saw the book, and said she'd go get my friend but I couldn't come in with that book because "it was a portal of evil". I don't know I used such language at the time but it may have been the first time I thought "you're the dumbest mofo I ever met" even before I knew the word. It's like it got downloaded into my brain from the experience points I just got from this encounter.

I remember the day vividly in the only way I could at the time, being somewhat of an already arrogant kid, and thinking damn if there are adults who become like this in the world I'm going to be hugely successful in whatever I choose to do if this is what I'm competing with. Thanks Tolkien.

The movies are great too. Incredible accomplishment. Almost impossible to believe. But the books are where I get my Glorfindel.

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.

Those books that balloon into virulent, lethal pop-culture viruses that feast on disinterested bystanders. You try to flee them by hiding in a disused warehouse under a soiled mattress in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but Frodo and his friends will find you eventually and pull you into their lair of medieval gimps called Bilbo and Bongo on an implausibly long and homoerotic quest for a misplaced ring. Did they look behind the sofa? Under the fridge? This whole quest could have been avoided! But here’s what I resent about Lord of the Rings. I have been physically, cosmically unable to avoid it. And that hurts. One thing I pride in life is my ability to avoid participating in popular culture in its many-tentacled forms. Since the creation of Dungeons & Dragons and the games it spawned I have been on countless pointless quests for rings. How many rings did I pick up in Sonic the Hedgehog? Millions. Computer programmers adopted this book as their bible, and the subsequent two decades of game innovation (which I addictively participated in) took their “plot” templates from Tolkien. When I left this world, a series of blockbusting films filled up the media pipes like fast-acting carbon monoxide being pumped into my front room year after year as the endless insufferable saga to find a missing fucking ring droned on and on infecting comedies, dramas, films and books with reference after reference after reference. How dare you, Lord of the Rings, invade my cultural happy place so brutally, you ubiquitous beardy bastard? Why can’t you leave me alone? Your ubiquity has devalued any artistic merit the books might have had for me completely. Happy now?

I was forced to read this book. Each member of my first book club had an opportunity to choose the book we read. When one of the members chose The Lord of the Rings I was not happy. Fantasy is not my genre! But I was a good book club member and read it anyway.

I loved it! There were times when I did not want to sleep because I wanted to finish just one more page or chapter. Tolkien creates whole worlds, languages, species, and histories. It is epic in its scope. Somehow he manages to entertain, make you think, and visualize the world he describes.

It taught me a lesson about being open to new things, because sometimes by being open you can be richly rewarded.

"Un Anillo para gobernarlos a todos. Un Anillo para encontrarlos, un Anillo para atraerlos a todos y atarlos a las tinieblas en la Tierra de Mordor donde se extienden las Sombras."

Realmente es admirable lo que han logrado autores como J.R.R. Tolkien así también como H.P. Lovecraft, George R.R. Martin, C.S. Lewis o J.K Rowling.
El hecho de que estos escritores puedan crear todo un universo entero, una mitología de personajes, lugares e historias es algo realmente poderoso y muy difícil de imitar y considero que son autores tocados por la genialidad y difícilmente puedan ser igualados en la literatura.
Lo que J.R.R. Tolkien ha hecho creando esta historia del Señor de los Anillos es épico y genial.
Por primera vez decidí apartarme de la literatura clásica o tradicional para adentrarme en este mundo mágico creado por este prolífico escritor inglés.
Hace mucho tiempo me había comprado una hermosa caja con los tres libros y sentía que era el momento de darle una oportunidad y aunque había visto las películas a las cuales tengo en dvd no recordaba muy bien el desarrollo de la historia, razón por lo cual decidí leer la trilogía.
Independientemente de su fantástica mente capaz de crear todo el mundo de paisajes, historia y personajes de la Tierra Media, me resisto a creer que Tolkien no se haya inspirado en distintos libros clásicos de la literatura universal (aunque esta es mi postura personal, no la que realmente haya sucedido) puesto que en muchos casos las similitudes son llamativas y saliéndome del análisis de esta grandiosa trilogía que para mí no es necesario ya que se solventa por sí misma; me gustaría señalar algunas cosas que pude descubrir mientras la leía.
Investigando un poco me entero de que su inspiración tal vez se inició en "El anillo de los Nibelungos", obra maestra del compositor Richard Wagner, así también como el poema épico "Beowulf", la epopeya finesa "Kalevala" y toda la mitología nórdica.
Yo por mi parte encuentro que algunos capítulos en los que Tolkien describe las batallas a las que deben enfrentarse Aragorn, Gandalf, Boromir, Théoden e incluso los hobbits, (tomemos por ejemplo el caso del capítulo "El abismo de Helm" de "Las dos torres"), poseen componentes que aluden a la “Ilíada” o la “Odisea” de Homero como también a “Ivanhoe” de Sir Walter Scott, los caballeros templarios y todo lo inherente a la época medieval, más precisamente en lo que a descripción de las batallas respecta.
Incluso podría decir que las novelas de caballería clásica -sea “Don Quijote de la Mancha”, el “Orlando Furioso” y hasta me atrevería a nombrar el “Amadis de Gaula”- son una referencia clara cuando el autor describe físicamente a Aragorn o al rey Théoden y a sus acciones en batalla.
Es más, encuentro algunos diálogos profundamente shakesperianos.
Algo similar sucede en el viaje que inician Frodo y Sam hacia los dominios de Mordor, ya que la descripción gráfica, desoladora y verdaderamente terrorífica que Tolkien hace de la Ciénaga de los muertos previo a las puertas de Mordor es digno del "Infierno" de "La divina comedia" de Dante Alighieri por los escalofríos que produce leer ese pasaje.
En otro momento de la novela, en la lucha entre Sam y Ella-Laraña, cuando Sam le clava la espada élfica de Frodo, Dardo, en el vientre me llevó a ese instante épico en el que el capitán Ahab le clava el arpón a Moby Dick antes de ser engullido por la ballena blanca en el mar.
Y el viaje de Aragorn por el Sendero de los Muertos inexorablemente remite al descenso de Eneas a los infiernos en la “Eneida” de Virgilio.
Repito que lo que escribo en esta reseña es mi visión personal de lo leído y de ningún modo afirmo que Tolkien haya tenido tales inspiraciones. Usualmente cuando leo, suelo realizar todo tipo de asociaciones literarias que van surgiendo en mi cabeza.
Lo que me ha dejado muy impresionado también es la concepción de Tolkien de toda la mitología, de los nombres de los personajes que estimo ha partido de la mitología nórdica, de crear un nuevo lenguaje, el élfico y de la invención de los distintos pueblos, ciudadelas, la Comarca y muchas locaciones más.
Es realmente brillante. No hay otra manera de describir semejante poderío imaginativo y conceptual, aunque hay que entender que Tolkien invirtió toda su vida en el desarrollo de este universo.
Me llevo la más grata impresión de la lectura de esta trilogía y siento que me pude dar un gusto que a veces los puristas lectores de clásicos tratan de esconder.
Siempre digo que en literatura hay que tratar de leerlo todo y los mundos de J.R.R. Tolkien son una buena oportunidad para hacerlo.

These books engendered my love of fantasy and it is easy to say that my life would be very different without that. It is the archetypal high fantasy. The Hero's Journey in almost pure form. In the modern era the style of writing may seem archaic but there is so much detail in it. A complex and interesting world built upon a history and mythology that feels as strong (or stronger in some cases) than real world counterparts.

When my parents wanted to wash their hands of me and thereafter treat me with a distanced forbearance - as I sweated it out in a nearby hospital and resisted my coming of age - it seemed the whole world had ganged up on me, though of course it hadn't.

Freaky behaviour must bear its downside.

The Daemon of Self-Pity, though, had begun to DEVOUR me, spitting out tiny bone fragments at the everyday world. Self-inflation precipitates deflation, but - bipolar as I had suddenly become - I dumbly balked at any correction.

I requested that Dad bring me my cigarettes - I had become hooked in that grim place, for I had tried ‘em just to have company in the desperate smoke haze of their common rooms - and asked him to visit me each night. He complied, as I was close to his office, and regularly, too, God bless him.

But with the drugs I received I didn’t know if I was punched, bored or reamed. It was unspeakable horror.

The worst part is that the shrinks started taking any and all diversions away from me, along with my books. Dreams were verboten.

This was one of ‘em: the Bantam Paperbacks three-volume set, a common sight in the sixties, after word of it got out. Tolkien mania was at its zenith, but I had barely cracked open the first one.

But of COURSE I read ‘em all, immediately upon release from Lord Sauron's ward from hell - but through a dense cover of numbing neuroleptic thunderclouds.

But they said it ALL. All three of these books. By throwing the Ring into Mount Doom, we give up the Siege against Reason (our diseased and Irrational Self-Justification).

Alas, we're not much to write home about.

So can Frodo LIVE again?

Yes.

He now has a New Life in Faith!

He's now free at least from his self-inflicted psychiatric armlock over the Ring of Power with the Gollum in that mountainside cave. His "precious" was not worth the bother in retrospect.

Power only corrupts.

Though he wondered at first how the Lord scraped his remains from Mount Doom's volcanic express lane to hell - and though his shocked brain neurons now misfire erratically - he started to sing:

I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain -
I’ve seen sunny days I thought would never end; but

There were lonely times when I could not find a friend.
***

No one gets that Hell is real.

Frodo does...

And I do.

And, because of that -

I've finally relinquished the Ring.

I’m healed.

And glad of it... My life is now Brand New.

For without standing up to my own self-pitying hurt, my heart was hollow.

But, now, if I throw my heart into the fire, it will be returned to me a hundredfold.

Crowned with abundant Life.

Dear mister Tolkien,

thank you. Thank you for this wonderful place called Middle Earth. Thank you not only for its joyful lands but for the perilous ones too. Thank you for Aragorn, whom I shall call my own King till my last breath. Thank you for the most amazing friendship between an Elf and a Dwarf, for those four little Halflings, Hobbits, who had more courage than Men ever had. Thank you for showing us that even a small person can change the world. Thank you for creating a new genre of fantasy and for showing us, how important world building is for a story. I sincerely hope, that after my last breath, my journey to Middle Earth will begin.

THANK YOU.

With love,

your fellow reader.