LOTR Fellowship of the Ring: Book review

Fellowship of the Ring (JRR Tolkein): **and 1/2

Laurelled and re-laurelled as the benchmark in English literature, hailed as the monarch of fantasies, the pinnacle of allegoric writing, I embarked upon reading this “mytho-epic” much to the expense of some definitely comfy evenings and nights and the hangover after completion is so severe, that I really can’t be asked to sort out my notes and have simply typed them up below. However much I perceive this to be actually a set of three books, its honestly a single tale and this is the sole reason what kept this review a set of notes in my diary. But finally, after a verdict that has remained sealed in my notes for the better half of this year, by typing it I’ve helped it reach the actual audience (and not the moths).

Day 1 5:30 pm
The exquisite foreword has left me practically exasperated with the author’s level of honesty and

modesty both for his own work and the readers. Was enlightening to note that there isn’t any hidden meaning or “message” and the tale is just a story free of any allegorical significance or political reference. Immediately I am reminded of the umpteen interpretations starting from the decryption of Christian overtones to seeking links with the Second World War, the readers indeed gave new meanings to the phrase “reading between the lines”

Day 1 11:30 pm
No, I just have to admit this. This is the third time I struggled to keep my eyelids from shutting in an attempt to read through the Prologue. The excruciating detail of the background of hobbits, pipe-weed, Shire records and the Ring is so bereft of any fluidity and reads so much like some dictionary, that I better get some nap to regain some sanity. More tomorrow.

Day 2 4:00 pm
The first chapter catalogues the introduction of Bilbo, his eleventy-first birthday and his bequeathing the Ring to Frodo, his young cousin. Though the drama reeks of pretentiousness, Bilbo’s queer obsession with the Ring and his final departure save the day. Dialogues reek with formality with hordes of exclamations and it’ll take some time to get used to hilarious cognomens like Bracegirdles, Sackville-Bagginses, Brandybucks, Lobelia and the ilk.

Day 3 7:30 pm
Am now through the brief chronicle of the ring and its fairly captivating though the expression is downright pedestrian with the only relief coming from an exquisite verse about the Ruling Ring and the nineteen other rings. And yes, Gollum’s tale of yore is immensely appealing, but I can’t wait to get the actual journey started.

Day 3 11:40 pm
I am hooked. Finally Frodo’s journey commenced and what a pulsating start it is! One has to read the sentences to feel the ire of the sinister Black Riders, the strange grasp of the Ring on Frodo and the balmy council of Gildor. I have seldom read poetry that reeks with both tonal and emotional exactitude. The only gripe is an absolute dry conversation and clinically analysed geography. Am hoping that this would erase with the coming chapters.

Day 4 2:00 am
Still reading and the hobbits’ journey is quite intriguing to Mr.Maggot and then to Crickhollow with the bondage between the four subtly sealed and treated with a feather-hand. Readable till now.

Day 4 11:00 pm
The kineticity suffers thanks to the thoroughly repetitive geography but the excitement survives with Pippin and Merry vanishing into the willow tree cracks. However the introduction of Tom Bombadil as the saviour simply fails to cut ice. The verse does the opposite now—replacing dialogue, it stabs any attempt to intrigue the reader page after page. What’s more—a full length chapter on Bombadil’s house would send even the most rock-ribbed insomniacs snoring! From good to pathetic, the experience so far is… err… ummm..

Day 6 11:30 pm
Two days—can you imagine? From Bombadil’s house to the Prancing Pony, I’ve fought with my now-all-sore eyes and with my now-almost-dead brain to survive a petty 20 pages and hail! I have reached the shore! From the sickeningly repetitive geography (I half expected the author to give me distances correct to the quarter of a feet for every step of the hobbits, but then again there’s always the Supreme One for such nanomercies) to the formulaic turn of events to the maddeningly sleep-inducing verse, the following three chapters take the crown for giving me an experience of dozing inside the pages. Of course, the very occasional hiccup in the form of Barrow-wights was more than welcome. Are there any more such tortures in-store?

Day 7 9:30 pm
With the advent of the Strider (Aragorn), some pep re-enters but the scorched-dry dialogues and the forced tale (and poem again!) of Tinuviel dampen whatever little punch that surfaces. The author’s obsession with physiography and geography is thankfully put in good use or maybe heading to the final pages for a glimpse of the map time and again has lent me some patience. The graph reaches its peak with Frodo getting stabbed by the Lord of the Nazgul and continues to enthral, (albeit inconsistently) until the Riders are drowned in the flood of the Ford.

Day 8 11:00 pm
Its almost impossible to forgive the unceasing and forced sermons splashed on page after page in The Council of Elrond had it not been for the Saruman-Gandalf dialogue which uplifts the feel of unseen power of the seemingly dormant enemy manifold. Yet, Rivendell’s beauty comes as unstuck as Bilbo’s never-ending chant about a mariner which can replace all the lullabies and cradlesongs there are in the universe!

Day 9 7:00 am
The summoning of the Fellowship, though slow, grips the moment it sets afoot outside Rivendell. The snow-storm of the Caradhras is as wonderfully realised before the swelling darkness of the gates of Moria. Of course, I have begun to appreciate the author’s prolificacy in imagination when I see the elven characters and read about the Elvish speech. The descriptive topographics don’t veil the hideous dour of the Mines of the Moria and the effect is amazingly consistent with chips of history wonderfully sewn in the dialogues. The Bridge of Khazad-Dum, the Balrog-Gandalf fight, Gandalf’s fall is probably the book’s first full-fledged fantasy escapade and a moderately gripping one at that.

Day 9 7:00 pm
The graph dips slightly but the relief from the balmy descriptions of Lothlorien can’t ever be denied with Galadriel’s careful speech, the amusing Mirror, the captivating dialogue and the soothing poetry. Almost spiritual in its aura, the rush indeed takes a back-seat for some pages with tid-bits of Tolkien’s much-acclaimed indulgence in the flesh of an Elven poem yet the arrival and the departure of the Fellowship into this elvish land is nail-biting.

Day 9 11:00 pm
A snippet of Gollum, a peek of the Orcs, and a sinister glint of the Eye is all that graces the remaining pages. The thrill is masterfully built up and the last chapter holds a menacingly attractive door for electrifying action in the next book. Strangely, the chink in the armour is the episode of Boromir succumbing to the lore of the Ring where the clichéd histrionics flow with surprising nonchalance.

To sum it up:

If you think fantasy fiction is all about a series of events in breakneck succession and adventure that keeps redefining the very meaning of the word “exciting”, look elsewhere for the first instalment of this ponderous trilogy is decidedly sluggish (read dead) and in fact so serial, formulaic and long-winded, that one literally struggles to finish it. If at all, one attempts to connect with the ongoings and the weak characters, any such endeavour is obediently crushed by Tolkien’s tedious, almost comatose style of expression. There are some flashes apparent here and there, but the generous trepanning of the grey cells done by the gawdawful geography and blanched and pale characters is never really compensated for.

There’s this complete indulgence into external detail, which might sum up to make a fantastic screenplay but for any book to be intriguing, the characters need to be drawn with honesty, with care so that they connect with the reader atleast somewhere. The moment an author accomplishes this task of reader-character adjunction, however real or surreal the tale’s background be, the reader travels then with the character, in the character’s world… the book! Sadly, Tolkien misses the point here and its the inclusion of excessive static detail (all those Elvish speeches and writings and dialogues in different languages) that kills the first part of the trilogy, atleast for me. Gasping to be edited, Fellowship of the Ring, as a book is simply not recommended.

PS: By the way, there’s always the cinematic interpretation to feast your senses upon. And you don’t lose any of the story as well! So catch up with the DVD!