Author: J.R.R Tolkien
This was a great book and a great wrap up to the story. The book had around 500 pages, but seemed to be wrapping up around 250 pages in to my surprise. Turns out there are a couple hundred pages of appendix and the book is only about 300 pages or so long.
I had a pretty good feeling they would be successful in destroying the ring and saving Middle Earth. I liked the sort of epilogue at the end where the Hobbits returned to The Shire only to find Sauraman had taken over and they had to overthrow him. I’m not surprised the movie was not able to fit that in though after a 3.5 hour runtime (and that is the non-extended version).
I also assumed that Frodo would truly be the one to destroy the ring by tossing it into Mt. Doom, and did not expect Gollum to grab it and plunge to his death. It was a scary moment there when Frodo decided not to destroy the ring and slipped it on.
There is a scene in this book where the riders of Rohan charge against an overwhelming amount of Orcs who are in the middle of sieging Minas Tirith. They are essentially charging to their death. I read that the scene was one of Tolikien’s favourite of the trilogy, and Peter Jackson also stated that the corresponding scene in the movie was his favourite. You can really feel it in the movie that Peter Jackson, the actors, and the crew put everything they had into it. They did a phenomenal job of capturing the heart of this scene. I say without exaggeration that it was one of the best movie moments I think I’ve ever seen. Here it is below.
It’s easy when you are in the middle of a book to just glance over incredible writing because you are just in the routine of reading to move through the story, but I came back to this scene to appreciate it. Here is an excerpt:
“Suddenly the king cried to Snowmane and the horse sprang away. Behind him his banner blew in the wind, white horse upon a field of green, but he outpaced it. After him thundered the knights of his house, but he was ever before them. Éomer rode there, the white horsetail on his helm floating in his speed, and the front of the first éored roared like a breaker foaming to the shore, but Théoden could not be overtaken. Fey he seemed, or the battle-fury of his fathers ran like new fire in his veins, and he was borne up on Snowmane like a god of old, even as Oromë the Great in the battle of the Valar when the world was young. His golden shield was uncovered, and lo! it shone like an image of the Sun, and the grass flamed into green about the white feet of his steed.”
Anyways, a great trilogy that I am glad to add to my reading archives. I don’t think I will spend time on any of Tolkiens other stuff. I started The Hobbit, but it wasn’t grabbing my interest, so I didn’t bother. And there is not even a shred of me that cares to read a novel about Tom Bombadil. I tell you, that guy could be the star of a TV show called “People I don’t care about”.