Lord of the Rings
So I finally got around to reading Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Which is presumably pretty late in life for a geek. It took me nine weeks to get through the whole thing. Basically three weeks per book; I borrowed it in three parts from the library. On the whole, I was a little underwhelmed.
I found the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring, to be quite long and slow. At the end of it I was wondering what all the fuss was about. Heresy, I know :)
The second book, The Two Towers, was a big improvement. The action fairly raced along and it was hard to put down.
The third book, The Return of the King, was a bit slower, but still quite readable. The only thing that struck me was the length of the wrapping-up. It was about 100 pages from the destruction of the ring until the end of the book.
Overall, it is a very impressive work. The scale is enormous. And there's no doubt it’s the template or forerunner for much fantasy literature that was to come. I did like it, but I can't see myself reading it again. I will have to get around to watching the movies though. I've only seen the first.
Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
Comments
Post new comment