Following the events
of The Hobbit, published over a
decade earlier by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
takes us back to the exciting and rich world of Middle Earth. This time the
adventure is bigger, greater, and more lies at stake should the quest fail.
Tolkien’s world of fantasy is one of the greatest and richest realms in the
genre, spawning a number of histories and other books all set within the same
world.
Summed up, Lord of the Rings
is the greatest bedtime story ever!
A shadow is growing over the world of
Middle Earth, there are rumours of the survival of the Dark Lord Sauron and his
return to power. Upon a visit to the Shire for Bilbo’s 111th
birthday, the wizard Gandalf discovers that a magic ring in Bilbo’s possession
is in fact the One Ring, forged by Sauron to conquer the free peoples of Middle
Earth. Soon, even the peace of the Shire is threatened as Sauron begins a
search for the Ring so Gandalf charges Bilbo’s nephew Frodo to take the Ring to
Rivendell where the Elf Lord Elrond can decide what is to be done. Once there,
it becomes clear that there is only once choice: the Ring must be taken to the
dark land of Mordor and cast into the fires of Mount Doom where it was forged.
Frodo is charged with the quest, but guiding him is a fellowship of eight
companions: his kinsmen Sam, Merry, and Pippin, a ranger named Aragorn and
Boromir a man of Gondor, the elf prince Legolas of Mirkwood, Gimli a dwarf, and
Gandalf. The road to Mordor is long and treacherous, barred by foul creatures,
spies, and evil beings in the service of the dark lord, but with strength,
hope, and bravery, Frodo determines to take on the quest against all the odds.
Consisting of three books: The Fellowship
of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The
Return of the King, The Lord of the
Rings is, I reiterate, the greatest bedtime story ever! My love of this
book stems from a number of things: its beautifully crafted struggles between
good and evil (the best being the schizophrenic internal battle between Smeagol
and Gollum), its multiple stories that run parallel to the central tale of ‘the
War of the Ring’, and its rich characters that fill the pages with love, drama,
comedy, and everything that is good and memorable. At its core this is a story
of good and evil, power and greed, enlightenment and innocence (or the loss
thereof if we look at the characters of the hobbits). It’s a tale of growth,
change, and defiance. It basically contains everything that you could possibly
want in a fantasy, EVERYTHING!
This review is going to work as a summary
because it’s way too hard to critique and rave about everything that is
brilliant in this book and that is why I strongly recommend that everyone go
out and get themselves a copy to read!
The central richness comes from the
multiple stories that get told: we’ve got the quest narrative with Frodo and
the Ring, we’ve got the accepting of identity in the story of Aragorn, rightful
king of Gondor, we have the struggle of trying to be good that happens between
Gollum and Smeagol, we have a tale of corruption that happens to Boromir, and a
story of achieving more that you ever hoped to achieve in the respective
stories of Sam, Merry, and Pippin. There is so much going on in this book and
every little bit of it is wonderful, absolutely wonderful!
The writing is rich,
the characters are so beautifully rounded and crafted that you feel emotionally
tied to each and every one of them, and there are so many different stories and
histories and languages that just shape this amazing world. Tolkien uses
everything, absolutely everything at his disposal and it all works to create
this amazing reading experience! I can’t describe it you have to immerse yourself
in it.
Filled with action, friendship, quests, comedy, romance, drama, and
everything in between, The Lord of the
Rings is an incredible story and an incredible book that delivers an
incredible reading experience every time!
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