Currently Reading: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
I may or may not have devoured The Two Towers and The Return
of the King so quickly that I’m not sure I could distinguish which plot
points came from which book. For this reason, I’m combining both books into one
blog post for an epic post worthy of this epic story.
First of all, if you are one of those bizarre people who
must live like a hermit in a TV-less, movie-less existence and thus have never
seen The Lord of the Rings movies, I
should state that this blog post will most certainly contain spoilers.
Furthermore, if you are a fan of the movies, but are bad like I was and haven’t read the books, I reiterate:
THIS BLOG POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
So… Holy cow was it totally
worth it to suck it up through The
Fellowship of the Ring! Because, honestly, I may have sugarcoated a little
bit how painful it was to get through the first book in this series. As I said,
the book certainly picks up once the characters make it to Bree, but even after
that point, the book still seems to drag a bit.
Most likely this is due to the insane – albeit impressive –
detailed descriptions of every bit of landscape, history, and thought process
in the characters’ journey. Seriously, I was stunned with how well Tolkien
seemed to know every single nook and cranny of this fictional world, able to
describe every nuisance in the woods in which the hobbits get lost; every lane
in the village of Hobbiton; every hallway in the great halls of Gondor. It
makes my mind boggle to think of how he must have known every aspect of this
expansive, fictional world as well as he knew his own house. Either Tolkien
simply had an impressive mind or he really needed to get out in the actual world
more.
And while I’m flabbergasted and awed with Tolkien’s ability
to do this, it didn’t make for the most interesting reading. In fact, this
actually led to an epiphany-level insight about why I always get hopelessly lost: I’m
utterly bored with directions. Seriously, I don’t have the desire to listen to
directions I actually need so having
Tolkien spell out every single turn the fellowship takes – complete with a
lengthy debate about the decision to make that particular turn – was horrible
for me. Who cares? Just get to the next plot point already!
There’s one other impressive, yet excessive aspect of The Fellowship that decreases the speed
of the plot that doesn’t appear nearly as often in the other books. This would
be the songs/poems. I know many people who skip over these while reading The Lord of the Rings and, honestly, I
don’t blame them. However, having taken several creative writing courses and
made sad attempts of my own to create poetry, I think the skill required to
create all these songs is underappreciated. They are clever and informative,
certainly as impressive as the detail of the landscape. But once again, they
contributed greatly to slowing down the plot.
Fortunately, this changed with The Two Towers. Finally, Tolkien
struck the balance I was looking for between the almost purely active Hobbit and the overly descriptive Fellowship. At long last, the landscape
was no longer as important as what was done on it; the singing was replaced
with action. However, unlike in The
Hobbit, I wasn’t lacking for looks into the characters’ minds.
Part of why I so thoroughly enjoyed the second two books of
the trilogy is that it separated the characters’ stories. And more importantly,
it minimized the amount of time spent with Frodo and Sam, whose story’s pace
was too similar to that of The Fellowship.
Again, every decision, every stop, every turn was depicted. What was worse was
that the setting for these turns was dismal and monotonous.
Furthermore, Frodo is pretty much one of the worst heroes.
It confuses me that Tolkien didn’t opt to make his Ring-bearer, the character
who is supposedly the most pivotal to conquering the evil Sauron, at least more
sympathetic if not likeable. All Frodo does is whine, cause trouble
unnecessarily, and become a burden himself. As if that’s not enough, he’s so
imperious.
I mean, I understand that he has the responsibility of
carrying the Ring and destroying it, but really? Does Frodo actually do anything useful? Think about it, he
doesn’t even accomplish his mission! He’s not
the one who destroys the Ring. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Gollum, Frodo
would have ruined everything instead of saving it. I’m kind of glad that, in
the end, Merry, Pippin, and Sam are more revered than Frodo in Hobbiton.
To put it simply, as my friend Emily said, “All of [Frodo’s
parts] could be summed up with, ‘Frodo was miserable but kept going.’”
The only redeeming aspect of the Frodo and Sam parts is that
they include Faramir, who is by far my favorite character! He combines the
gentleness and sweetness of the hobbits, the wits and intellect of Gandalf, and
the leadership and strength of Aragon. I love him.
What makes the Frodo and Sam sections even more painful –
with the exception of Faramir – is the stark contrast between them and the
other sections of the novels, which are amazing! I loved, loved, loved the
parts with Aragon, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Merry, and/or Pippin!! They were
gripping, page-turning sections with characters that were the opposite of
Frodo. Plus, they had new characters who were cut out of the movies that I
discovered and fell in love with, like Beregond, the guard who befriends
Pippin, and Quickbeam, the younger, hasty Ent.
Just as it’s worth it to read The Fellowship to get to the other books, it’s worth it to read the
Frodo and Sam parts to get to all the other ones.
Despite my complaints, I overall really enjoyed these novels! Even if I found parts boring, they
couldn’t have been that bad considering I plowed through all three books in
about five weeks – completing two of them in about two and a half weeks. And if
I didn’t have a job or anything, those numbers could have been in terms of
days, not weeks.
Basically, there’s a reason there’s a cult following for
these books. You should definitely check them out.
