‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo.
‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us’.
One hundred books! Oh my eyes are tired. To celebrate I chose to re-read for the umpteenth time the first book in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. I read The Hobbit and then its larger sequel while I was still in school towards the end of the 1980’s. In many ways the experience defined my taste in reading ever since, so I felt the choice for today was appropriate. What’s more returning to this book I find much that is familiar; but also many elements of Tolkien’s writing that I did not notice before.
As this is a sequel to the popular novel The Hobbit, Tolkien begins by returning to the Shire, where a race known as hobbits once lived centuries ago during a time known as Middle-Earth. Bilbo Baggins the hero of that book is celebrating his 111th birthday and has chosen to travel once more on the open road, leaving his home and possessions to young Frodo Baggins. His old friend, the wizard Gandalf the Grey, arrives in the Shire to see him off. Before Bilbo leaves the wizard asks that he bequeath his magic ring to his heir, won during his adventures in a contest of riddles with the creature Gollum. At first the old hobbit refuses, shaking with anger, but he eventually relents. He leaves the Shire, suddenly feeling as if he has been unburdened.
Years pass before Gandalf returns to Frodo’s home in Bag End, revealing that the magic ring hidden for all this time is in fact The Great Ring, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to command all the races of Middle-Earth. Frodo decides to flee the home he loves so well, knowing that as long as he stays all his friends are in danger. Gandalf encourages him to leave in secret, for there are spies from the east, the land of Mordor, abroad looking for news of the Ring.
Accompanied by his trusty man-servant Sam, and friends Merry and Pippin, Frodo leaves the Shire just in time. The party of hobbits have several close escapes from mysterious Black Riders hunting them, even at one point seeing one sniffing the ground like an animal. They are also faced with other dangers during their journey, such as the powerful Old Man Willow and the dread Barrow-Wights. Eventually they meet a ranger who is known as Strider, who offers to help them travel to the safe haven of Rivendell. Only after a terrifying chase do they make it to the house of Elrond Half-Elven. There a final council is held to decide what to do with the Great Ring and Frodo realizes he has little choice but to bear it into the kingdom of Mordor itself. Only there at the volcano where it was first forged can it be destroyed.
In my opinion The Fellowship of the Ring is the best of the three published books that make up Tolkien’s epic story The Lord of the Rings. For one it bridges the charming tone of The Hobbit with the increasingly more grandiose quality of its sequel. The Shire is shown to be sheltered from the greater dangers of Middle-Earth and Tolkien’s love of the bucolic lifestyle of hobbits is unfeigned. Years after reading this book I discovered a painting by Pieter Bruegel The Land of Cockaigne, which perfectly captures this contrast.
This almost childlike innocence of Frodo and his friends is threatened by the malign evil of the Black Riders. They appear in each of the three books, yet I never found them as frightening as when they were chasing hobbits down country lanes. Evil is a great concern of Tolkien’s, here identified as the corruptive influence of power. Sauron exists to pervert life and cheat death. The Christian subtext in the novels favours the worthiness of innocent hobbits over mighty warriors.
It is also a book about the passing of things, representing Tolkien’s idyllic vision of his childhood. Repeatedly he describes how magic is leaving the world of Middle-Earth, leaving the world of men behind.
Like a warm blanket, I enjoyed sinking into it for a day.
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September 28, 2010 at 8:31 pm
Comelybankingcrisis
Congratulations on #100!
“…for there are spies from the east…abroad” – you have indeed been reading this book, and I’ll bet you enjoyed it.
One question though: this book does indeed bridge The Hobbit’s charming tone with its grandiose sequal, but do you think that in today’s publishing world (if you could possibly imagine what that would be like without this book having been publishing) Tolkien would have been sent off for a re-write? I’ve always found that the tone changes quite a bit during the course of the Fellowship, to the extent that he’s writing a different book by the time he’s somewhere between Bree and Rivendell.
Don’t get me wrong, I like it the way it is!
September 28, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Emmet
It did occur to me that I hadn’t included enough of a critical note in my review. The language shift is quite noticeable, especially whenever Tolkien refers to his invented monomyth.
I find that Sam Gamgee ably deflates the more ‘epic’ tone whenever it takes hold, indicating that Tolkien had a wry sense of humour even where his precious world-building was concerned.
What is interesting about the Lord of the Rings is that we have two films – Peter Jackson and Ralph Bakshi’s – that offer an interesting critical perspective on the books. Both adaptations ignore Tom Bombadil and Jackson’s shrinks the time period. Almost twenty years pass between the first two chapters.
Reading the Lord of the Rings we have to remember it is founded on a very personal conception of myth and draws from Tolkien’s childhood and his experiences in the first world war. As a work of literature it is open to criticism, but as a singular vision of an invented fantasy world it’s quite brilliant.
September 29, 2010 at 1:10 am
wordofmousebooks
Great post! Congratulations on your hundredth book! I suppose mine has come and gone too -I didn’t even notice!
I love all the Tokien’s books as well. I once even took a “Humanities” type course that was based solely on the Lord of the Rings triology and involved role-playing and play teaching (this was post-secondary school no less) and a giant essay at the end of the term.
It was magnificant!
Can’t wait for the next hundred :)
Cheers
Stacey
September 29, 2010 at 8:53 am
Emmet
That sounds very interesting. My dad used to be a teacher and once or twice he attempted to pass on my obsessive interest in Tolkien to his students, presuming that at the very least it would get them to read. Didn’t take though.
It is a very unusual book. On the one hand you have the swings from slapstick humour and wordplay to frightening wraiths and orcs. As a sequel it is also odd in that while it refers to the events of the Hobbit, often Tolkien introduces elements of his self-created mythology that his readers in the 1930’s could not possibly have known!
He strikes the balance just enough so that you are intrigued to find out more about the names and places mentioned (Numenor, Luthien, Morgoth, Gil-Galad, Silmarils, the Exile). Whatever doubts he may have had about his readership (there’s a conversation between Bilbo and Gandalf as to whether anyone will read his story – which Tolkien claimed he ‘found’) they must have been overcome by the sheer level of detail and personal investment into his mythos.
September 29, 2010 at 9:10 am
Suder
Just wanted to chime in and congratulate you on the 100th. A fantastic achievement.
As for the book, well all I can say is that I have read countless fantasy books ranging from the inane to the inspired and without a doubt “The Fellowship of the Ring” was one of them.
September 29, 2010 at 2:23 pm
Emmet
Cheers good sir.
“Tell my wife I said hello.”
:-)
October 4, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Jason
a bit late to the party, but hoping this still counts; congratulations on 100 (and +) books!
I’ve a preference for The Two Towers, mostly because I enjoy the characters of Merry and Pippin more than Frodo and Sam. But I have to agree with you that The Fellowship of the Ring is indeed the best of the trilogy.
It would’ve taken me longer than a day to reread the book though. I’ve always had a hard time reading Tolkien, especially since his descriptions of things tend to be longer than necessary. But that’s just me.
October 4, 2010 at 8:19 pm
Emmet
Cheers Jason. Yes The Two Towers upped the ante in terms of epic storytelling, but there’s something about that early section with Frodo and the other hobbits fleeing the mysterious strangers on horseback that I just find more appealing.
I actually like the Tom Bombadil sequence, the references to Middle Earth history, but I recognize that it doesn’t make for a solid, well presented piece of writing. With Tolkien many of the criticisms stick, but the appeal of the three books remain undimmed for me.
December 27, 2011 at 12:15 pm
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