Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings The Lord of the Rings, #1
Paperback
English language
Published Sept. 6, 2012 by HarperCollins.
In a sleepy village in the Shire, a young hobbit is entrusted with an immense task. He must make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ruling Ring of Power - the only thing prevents the Dark Lord Sauron's evil domination. --back cover
I tried three or four times to read this book but it fell out of my hands for as many times. I guess fantasy really doesn't appeal to me.
Ungeschlagen für mich das Beste der Mittelerdebücher ✨✨✨
This is my review of the entire The Lord of the rings trilogy.
It scarcely seems necessary to do a review of this work, it is so well known, and recently turned into a movie series to boot. It is the Platonic ideal of the epic high fantasy genre, and at the heart of Tolkien's work through his life. The first effort in this fantasy world was the children's book The Hobbit, but as it was successful Tolkien's publisher wanted more, and Tolkien obliged. Originally it was intended that the The Lord of the Rings would be the first volume, with the Silmarillion as volume 2, but the publisher decided to break it into three volumes (though each of those three has two parts, so one could as well call it a six-volume work). The overall summary is that the dark lord Sauron created Rings of Power: Three for Elves, …
This is my review of the entire The Lord of the rings trilogy.
It scarcely seems necessary to do a review of this work, it is so well known, and recently turned into a movie series to boot. It is the Platonic ideal of the epic high fantasy genre, and at the heart of Tolkien's work through his life. The first effort in this fantasy world was the children's book The Hobbit, but as it was successful Tolkien's publisher wanted more, and Tolkien obliged. Originally it was intended that the The Lord of the Rings would be the first volume, with the Silmarillion as volume 2, but the publisher decided to break it into three volumes (though each of those three has two parts, so one could as well call it a six-volume work). The overall summary is that the dark lord Sauron created Rings of Power: Three for Elves, 7 for Dwarves, and 9 for Men. Then he created the One ring to rule the others and to corrupt them. He loses this ring in a battle and is trying to get it back, and if he does his power will corrupt all of Middle Earth. The only way to stop him is to destroy the ring, and that can only be done in the fires of Mount Doom where it was originally forged. So a mixed group of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, and Men, plus the wizard Gandalf, set out to do just that. The work is about all of the adventures they have along the way.
The themes embedded in this work display the discomfort Tolkien had with the modern world, and much of that derives from his experience of World War I. Because of the subsequent World War II and the Cold War, the first World War has faded in the minds of many people. But it was a particularly searing experience to those who lived through it. For example, if you look at the total number of Americans killed in Vietnam over the entire course of the war, that is less than half of the number killed on both sides in just 6-day Battle of the Marne in 1914. Human life was of no account in this war, and the butchery was staggering. It was the modern industrial war, and even the killing was industrialized.. Tolkien displays in The Lord of the Rings a deep disdain for industrialization. And as is the case with so much fantasy, class structure is implicitly important, and some races are irredeemably evil. But it has won many awards, and in 2003 the BBC named it Britain's best novel of all time. Virtually all high fantasy traces its roots to Tolkien.
I imagine most people are familiar with this work, either from reading the original novel or from the recent film series. This book was written as a children's fantasy by Tolkien back in the 1930s, and set the stage for the later Lord of the Rings. The plot is about a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who is invited to join a company of dwarves who wish to recover their treasure from the dragon Smaug. Bilbo, who had been a pretty simple home-bound soul changes dramatically through the events he experiences and becomes someone much different.
This book was lauded on its publication and deservedly so.
It scarcely seems necessary to do a review of this work, it is so well known, and recently turned into a movie series to boot. It is the Platonic ideal of the epic high fantasy genre, and at the heart of Tolkien's work through his life. The first effort in this fantasy world was the children's book The Hobbit, but as it was successful Tolkien's publisher wanted more, and Tolkien obliged. Originally it was intended that the The Lord of the Rings would be the first volume, with the Silmarillion as volume 2, but the publisher decided to break it into three volumes (though each of those three has two parts, so one could as well call it a six-volume work). The overall summary is that the dark lord Sauron created Rings of Power: Three for Elves, 7 for Dwarves, and 9 for Men. Then he created the One …
It scarcely seems necessary to do a review of this work, it is so well known, and recently turned into a movie series to boot. It is the Platonic ideal of the epic high fantasy genre, and at the heart of Tolkien's work through his life. The first effort in this fantasy world was the children's book The Hobbit, but as it was successful Tolkien's publisher wanted more, and Tolkien obliged. Originally it was intended that the The Lord of the Rings would be the first volume, with the Silmarillion as volume 2, but the publisher decided to break it into three volumes (though each of those three has two parts, so one could as well call it a six-volume work). The overall summary is that the dark lord Sauron created Rings of Power: Three for Elves, 7 for Dwarves, and 9 for Men. Then he created the One ring to rule the others and to corrupt them. He loses this ring in a battle and is trying to get it back, and if he does his power will corrupt all of Middle Earth. The only way to stop him is to destroy the ring, and that can only be done in the fires of Mount Doom where it was originally forged. So a mixed group of Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, and Men, plus the wizard Gandalf, set out to do just that. The work is about all of the adventures they have along the way.
The themes embedded in this work display the discomfort Tolkien had with the modern world, and much of that derives from his experience of World War I. Because of the subsequent World War II and the Cold War, the first World War has faded in the minds of many people. But it was a particularly searing experience to those who lived through it. For example, if you look at the total number of Americans killed in Vietnam over the entire course of the war, that is less than half of the number killed on both sides in just 6-day Battle of the Marne in 1914. Human life was of no account in this war, and the butchery was staggering. It was the modern industrial war, and even the killing was industrialized.. Tolkien displays in The Lord of the Rings a deep disdain for industrialization. And as is the case with so much fantasy, class structure is implicitly important, and some races are irredeemably evil. But it has won many awards, and in 2003 the BBC named it Britain's best novel of all time. Virtually all high fantasy traces its roots to Tolkien.
I regret waiting this long to read this book. The imagery was wonderful and immersive. It's hard to believe such imaginative world creating happened in the 1930's and 40's. Love it!
Amazing if you like the world building / scene setting.
This book focuses on two men who lived in the original Gilded Age and the solutions they applied to conditions very similar to those we see now. How discouraging to realise that 100 years later, corporate power has systematically undone all of the progress made since then - and again we have a 'government of the people, by the few, for the wealthy'.
yeah, this book is really good, I guess there is a reason that so many people feel fondly about it, like the characters are friendly to each other and seem concern about each other. Its pretty refreshing.
I used to read this every few years, but I think I've let 15 or 20 go by without. It's good - accomplishes everything it sets out to do.
I was surprised by one thing; there were bits I'd intended to skip recalling that they were a bit boring, but when I got to those they were actually pretty lightly touched upon. Interesting that Tolkien was able to convey the tediousness of, say, being lost in the woods or imprisoned for months without the reading itself becoming a chore.
I debated how many stars to give. I profess as a teen (and I have not reread it since then, though I keep meaning to), I actually struggled to read through the whole thing in one go, even though there were large chunks of the story I quite enjoyed, the long travel sequences or 'hey look at my skill with languages' parts were not quite my thing. I primarily give it the rating it has because it handles its classic story much better than most of the rip-offs that come after it, although this will not be fully obvious until the ending, and actually has something interesting to say.
The ending is strangely realistic once you cut the fantasy part of 'They just tossed a ring into a volcano' away, and this is possibly because of Tolkien's view being so heavily colored by actual war. It is easy to come …
I debated how many stars to give. I profess as a teen (and I have not reread it since then, though I keep meaning to), I actually struggled to read through the whole thing in one go, even though there were large chunks of the story I quite enjoyed, the long travel sequences or 'hey look at my skill with languages' parts were not quite my thing. I primarily give it the rating it has because it handles its classic story much better than most of the rip-offs that come after it, although this will not be fully obvious until the ending, and actually has something interesting to say.
The ending is strangely realistic once you cut the fantasy part of 'They just tossed a ring into a volcano' away, and this is possibly because of Tolkien's view being so heavily colored by actual war. It is easy to come away after skimming the first parts of the series with an image of cutesy hobbits, who one imagines surely go home happy and victorious... but in the end this is not a happy-fluff novel, at least if I remember the ending correctly anyway, yet at the same time shows you don't need to go full on 'describe every bit of battlefield gore and rapine' unlike other certain reactionary (and frankly far more awful) works I can think of who seemed to think the problem with Tolkien was not enough gore, sex and misery.
They do not go home undamaged, Frodo does not 'get the girl' like in many fantasy Tolkien homages, and contrary to those who complain of black and white morality (though this book does have a fair deal of that) even Frodo is damaged by holding on to the ring for too long, which stands in for the temptation of power. There is not a lot of romance in this series (although you could make an argument for Frodo/Sam), which is fitting for a work about war, one of the things that makes it stand out as more realistic to me oddly enough. In a war with constant threat of death from above, your sex drive probably isn't going to be one of the first concerns on your mind (although I admit I'm not an expert on that and for some people it probably has the opposite effect - seek what thrills you can while you can, is not an uncommon mentality under threat). Here, war is terrible, not romantic, something that may leave you permanently damaged when you go play hero. This suits more a modern war than a medieval one, admittedly (until modern times, camps with trains of washer women were not unheard of, and war was glorified), which marks another difference between Tolkien and imitators and makes the fantasy strangely richer for it. (Tangently related: It's a weird fact that gorefests don't necessarily de-glorify war, and often the opposite.)
If you are curious about other human viewpoints, the religious undertones of the work may be a bonus, but this is a story that can be read without much thought toward religion at all. Having it (as well as a lot of the magic) largely be 'hidden' made it feel more like a fantasy version of the real world than works where gods actually constantly answer prayers, but like real world religion and magic if you think about it too much it will feel like a weak point - don't try to logic it.
I enjoyed the Hobbit more, which definitely did not have perfect heroes (they are thieves who aren't even that interested in slaying the dragon), but is still a much simpler work, although I feel it is also much better paced which is part of why I enjoyed it more and actually read it straight through as a kid. Nostalgia might also be a reason: my father would read it to me.
I read this as part of my son's bed-time story. There are a lot of dark points in the book but so much about people continuing to try and do their best, even when all hope is lost. It's a great lesson for any child and it's the reason the Lord of the Rings remains one of my favorites.
Kudos to Rob Inglis for creating a different voice for each hobbit and dwarf and wizard and Esgaroth resident and elf and spider and dragon, and actually singing the songs!!??!?!
Next to the audiobook for [b:The Graveyard Book|2213661|The Graveyard Book|Neil Gaiman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1303859949s/2213661.jpg|2219449], listening to this recording of The Hobbit was one of the most delightful listening experiences of my life, and I'm so excited to start The Lord of the Rings.
This was a quick read that was great for an afternoon when I wanted something light. I think I'd have enjoyed it less had I not read the first one - this one had little room for character development and backstory.
“You know what?” he said. “If I were to die or something, you know what I would do?”
He didn’t wait for me to say anything.
“I’d stick around,” he said. “I’d stick around a while.”
