Lord of the Rings

I'd like to note that there's nothing inherently wrong with this classic. Tolkien paved the way for high fantasy and has inspired so many phenomenal works of fiction, from novels to films to tabletop RPGs. But the narrative style of The Lord of the Rings is dry and was difficult to engage with after the hobbits left the Shire. I respect Tolkien and am certain my stories would be vastly different without his influence, but I'd much rather watch the condensed and visually striking films than slog through another thirty hours of text. I understand the draw and loyalty of Tolkien's biggest fans, he simply isn't for me. After struggling through the text for weeks, I finally called it at the 25% mark.

If you are in need of a thoughtful, well written review of the three books constituting the Lord of the Rings trilogy, please look elsewhere. I decided to reread J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" for the fist time since I read the trilogy of books when I was in Junior High School some forty years ago. The blue, green and red paperback books purchased from a Scholastic Book Fair that first I read did not survive my many house moves in the intervening years. Much later, I had purchased a copy of the 1991 Special Edition beautifully illustrated by Alan Lee which sat on a bookshelf for several years until recently unread. When I finally did pull the heavy single volume down, I found it almost too heavy to hold in my lap to read. So I went out to my local used book store (Recycled Books in San Jose) and bought the slightly smaller, hardcover movie tie-in edition that is the subject of this review. Because this edition of the LotR trilogy was first printed in 1994, the only evidence of the Peter Jackson film adaptation is limited to the graphic design of the dust jacket. The plates used to print the book I read were apparently worn and left some blemishes which rendered one or two letters illegible on a few of he pages, but the text overall was perfectly comprehensible. The Lord of the Rings trilogy of books was originally published in the middle of the previous century and has been read by millions of readers in several languages around the world. Consequently, the books have been extensively reviewed by many professional journalists over the decades. The purpose of this review is to encourage readers of the LotR trilogy to not stop reading at the apparent climax of the story that occurs in the middle of "Book Six". I found the closing chapters to be a necessary and rewarding "cool-down" from the world-ending consequence, action and questing of the preceding 930 or so pages. The penultimate chapter was particularly fun to read as battle-hardened heroes return from their quest to find their home in disarray and must rally fellow villagers to set things right.