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Review: The Fellowship of the Ring

by J.R.R. Tolkien

the fellowship of the ring pamsthree

“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 king.”
-Page 247

Title: The Fellowship of the Ring
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Publisher: Harper Collins
Book: 2 of 4/23
Genre: Fantasy
Found: Everywhere
Rating: 3 Voodoos

Sauron, the Dark Lord, has gathered to him all the Rings of Power – the means by which he intends to rule Middle-earth. All he lacks in his plans for dominion is the One Ring – the ring that rules them all – which has fallen into the hands of the hobbit, Bilbo Baggins.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose.

-Goodreads

Wow. That was a hard slog. And I was listening to it! I really don’t think I’d have been able to get through this reading it by myself which makes me sad because I really wanted to like them. I was also sad that Arwen had a lesser role in this book as I love her character in the film, but I was also sad that she was replacing someone else from the book with her greater role in the film

I don’t know that Tolkien did himself any favours with having the false ending in there. When they get to Rivendell and everyone’s happy and reunited and healthy and having discussions and councils etc, it feels like the end of the book and everything afterwards just felt even longer in comparison.

I decided to read the books because I enjoyed the films and generally film adaptions can miss out a good chunk of information or even change whole story arcs to please themselves so I was pretty surprised to discover that this book seemed to have less information in it than the film! I guess they kept all the important pieces and elaborated on the vague which was well done.

I of course need to comment on the reader - Rob Inglis - who is pretty good to listen to – except his voice for either Merry or Pippin is so much like the voice that Sean Astin uses in the films for Samwise that I’m getting awfully confused! But other than that he has a pretty good variety of voices for the characters.

I think it’s hard to choose a favourite in this, perhaps because the story is barely started, but also because I have so many from the films it’s hard to focus on whose where in character development. However, I recall reading something that said people rarely choose Harry Potter as their Favourite Harry Potter character and it’s perhaps because he’s the one we’re seeing the story through so we think of ourselves as him – so with that in mind I’ve been paying more attention to Frodo and he’s pretty great.

I think this might be the hardest of the books because now the story will pick up momentum and things might just get better. Time to find out!

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