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A review by pokecol
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I do not wish to dominate this space with a full analysis. And will not.
I was both disappointed and underwhelmed, and immersed and overwhelmed. There is a LOOOOT that can be said about the dissection of The Lord of the Rings in the Legacy of Fantasy - and there are many many angles to look at it from. I have, as with everything, no singular perspective. I agree with many criticisms and many praises which have been heaped onto the story, and world-building. For the most part I find myself disenchanted with Middle-Earth as the defacto fantasy; which I consider to be a good thing, with how much it prioritses the compartive individualism of legacy only due to recognition.
When reading though, straight-foward speaking, none of this comes into consideration for how I feel about the flow of the story at hand.
Simply put, The Fellowship of the Ring doesn't really have characters. And that's the thing that bothered me the most - some choices and ways of portraying the 9 are so shallow it beggars-belief the majesty of their on-screen counter-parts made in Peter Jackson's image. I don't wish to use this to discredit the story though as I think it for the most part is necessary. The weird thing about reading this book is I can see a lot of things I would correct, and a lot of things I would not correct - weirder still, I see a lot of things I would normally criticise but would not in this case of novel; as well as a lot of things I would be fine with bothering me in this case of novel. There is such a specific way the tale unfolds that there is a lot to change for making it a more enjoyable story and simultaneously making it a worse one. Its very much a kind of; 'make sure to eat your vegetables too'. But those vegetables do not make the meal itself but the nutrition of the world-building, in this one moment you don't necessarily need the world-building (full course meal) to make this story (the food) good. But cyclically, reducing the access to the world-building by proxy affects where the world goes, which affects the characters' views, which affects how they act which affects the story. Its very strange.
Without pulling apart intentions and where the rigidity and fluidity lie for the sake of making something both enjoyable and convincing - the story is essentially good. It knows where its going, what is doing and has its intentions well set. The problem is how different it is from a story in the more conventional form. I do not agree that this is reason enough to give the Lord of the Rings some grand title of fantasy - and this I say as someone who has been a sole fan of it for many years.
The best parts are not what you might expect. The bout of levity in Bree, with the musing of Strider and Frodo and the Hobbits. The Tom Bombadil portion. Bilbo's birthday. The very final chapter with Boromir's vague sense of Human corruption. These are all the best parts from my appointed perspective on story. And while the slower image of Imladris, Moria, Lothlórien, the places between the Misty Mountains and Bree, Eregion, all paint the picture of the journey and what the journey of the Fellowship of the Ring stands for; they were (for myself) the parts I was least engaged with. Note: not 'disliked'.
In some perfect image of the book, I would account for characterising these portions better with the Fellowship and yet I would not - for the reason I specified earlier. So with the accounted way of having to look at it, its tantamount to being a pseudo-history lesson first (not a grave one).
The actual, unabated criticisms I will levy are as follows. The dialogue for characters often ends very strangely. After a whole long-winded paragraph they will, comported or no, say "So goodbye!" "Let us move on!" "So goodnight!" - its really strange. The nature of the statements are often a given but then like a child writing their first story to make sure - in the most clear cut words - every character closes their piece with this alien snippet. Even Galadriel did something like it at one point and its just very odd. Nothing would be lost for removing these bits from the book, less than 100 words taken out, and the book would be markedly better for it.
My other criticism is the strangeness of combat, in the legacy of heroism it should be that plot prevails. When we know how well these bastions of hope stand against the strength of shadow, plot-armour is not really a concern. Saying on a few occasions that the group came out unscathed doesn't bother me, most of the time because we know how; 'the very practiced fighting of Aragorn and company'. However, when the Ring-Wraiths fell upon Frodo in the dell below Weathertop, solitary. He just lives and they leave or... something? The fight just sort of ends. Sort of as what was done at times in The Hobbit, but in this instance - with very little reason at all. Many threats and moments involving the Black-Riders in this way had them just do nothing really. And I was brought to more enjoyable tension with the combative weather of Caradhras.
Lastly, Tolkien's descriptions are strange. They are at times, nothing at all, and others very detailed and fanciful without laying things out in an understandable manner.
-The majority of portions during The Shire used directions and places with not a lot of feel for the immediate location.
-Then it switches to very little description from after the Barrows until Rivendell. And from Eregion to Lorien.
-Then it switches to sweeping descriptions in fantastical ways that do not really elucidate much about their actuality (which at times is good ala Caras Galadhon but at many other times, leaving a challenging mental image to contend with).
3 seperate versions of the same issue which switched across the book - this bothered me the most. As the thing I was most looking forward to for reading the Fellowship of the Ring for the first time, was what images my mind would conjure in place of the shown art/assets/designs of these places I had seen anywhere else - and I was left wanting very frequently.
The overall book is still very enjoyable and easy enough to read, but sadly there do not feel like there are any stakes or hook with which the journey hinges upon. We know this quest needs to be undertaken to save Middle-Earth and the hook is the Ring must have something happen to it (be destroyed) but neither has polluted the story as the crux of narrative. The Hobbit hooked us with treasure and dragon from the outset and that it was for the sake of a legacy, a last chance to renew it - it was well set. The Lord of the Rings has given into vagueness for this instance, one might argue for the prevalence of the hook and direction but what are we truly expecting forwards from this point? The only known point of draw is that things will get darker and we are approaching Sauron, but what does this mean? And what does it mean if Sauron were to get his hands on the Ring? Little image is made of disaster at failure beyond musing of the elder races - even still they don't specify much that would actually result of His terrors, just that it will be terrible. Which strangely is not the thing I thought would be missing in a grand fantasy tale set in Middle-Earth.
I do not think this is a negative in the critical sense, but as far as flow-state commitment to reading goes it detracted from the desire to pick up the book again at a few of the less crucial intervals. Looking forward instead to the next landmark or notion of the story-beats ahead as a short-term. But that is a byproduct of being familiar with where the tale heads already.
I am looking forward to seeing how multiple narrative perspectives with the division of the Fellowship adds to the story-telling. As I hope the fresher pace of each party's movements in the locales around Gondor and its periphery will be a good engagement draw in the next books to come.
Content Warnings
Minor: Death and Violence