Not so precioussssss after all (The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien)

Name: rabbitina hole

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Product:	The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
Date:	09/05/02 (52 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Gollum, Fun

Disadvantages: A bit much, Self indulgent, Boring at times

Well, The Lord of the Rings then. It's a classic, yes. But only by definition. To be fair, it hasn't dated well at all.

I'm sure that almost everyone on the planet is now familar with at least parts of this tale, and that's no easy feat. And it also means I can dispense with explaining too much about the story. However, I'll say; Hobbits = small people + wizards + elves + ring + certain doom via incredible evil = the sum of the parts making up the tale. Pretty much. And moving on from that: Tolkien has created a dense backstory, an actual history. It all seems very painstaking. Apparently, the (three) book(s) was only written because his publisher was clamouring for a sequel to the Hobbit. He used the sequel as a place were he could utilise his real passion - thus all incorporating of his pet projects in to the book - languages created; all the elvish and dwarvish, all the dense history. As if it were the secret, mystical past of Britain.

However, while this is wholly admirable, it does tend to bog down the book at times. Sure it's nice to know these things. But it's not really important, and often, it's not even important to the story. It can get awfully self indulgent and tiresome, as if you have to wade through great bit chunks of text just to find the actual story.

And while now it most assuredly plastered all over the face of popular culture, sometimes while reading it's hard to see why. I would put most of it down to it simply being purely dated (when will they bring out an "easy to read kids version" I wonder?) but also to Tolkien's mannerisms as well. I feel there are many more themes present here that could well do with being explored more wholly. And yet, often the reverse seems to true. While you get little in one respect, you are bogged down with things that happened to Middle-Earth way back whenever, and what happened to the forth dwarves cousins aunt and the like, almost t
o make up for some things. It seems a very tiresome way to go about creating a story, almost like the chracters are constructed of pure surface. Which often they can be. There are so many things which seem to be hinted at, which never really seem to be there in the end.

But, it must sound like I hate the damn book. I don't, there is a lot of intriuging things to be found within it. There a lot of ideas, and cultures completely created by this book that have remained stable in the fantasy genre (which probably says a lot more about other people's imaginations) it treads this (what was once) new ground well.

There is a diverse cast in the book, and Tolkien has gone to great lengths and you feel like each chracter has a history (although sometimes it can seem like you never really "get inside" any of the chracters) and there are certainly some interesting elves, dwarves and whatnot. But we all know that Gollum is the best. And Gandalf is kind of cool.

So really, it just depends if you can be bothered to take the time wade through the swamps of text and find the (admittedly quite nice) tale. Or you could just wait for the next two movies. But, in all, it is a well written (though perhaps tiresome in some cases) fantasy tale. And if you're going to read one, you may as well make it this one... and I always did like Gollum.

Summary: