Lord of the Rings: A Re-Re-Reread

 

I am reading The Lord of the Rings for a third time. I know that's not a significant feat for LOTR fans. According to a Facebook meme today, Christopher Lee read the books every year for forty years before he became Saruman. I first read the three-book series in the late sixties, more than a decade after first publication. The second read was in the early nineties during another interregnum in my life. Today's reflection on my current immersion in conversation with the many times viewed films.

First, I would observe that most of the Peter Jackson tropes in the films were brilliant and effective summaries of long passages in the text. No real LOTR fan can forgive the omission of Tom Bobadil and Goldenberry but that is for another time. Just last night I finished book one finding a greater artistic respect of both J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson.

I am struck by how much of the writing is description of the land, the trees, the weather, the sky, all the environment of Middle Earth. A good 35%-40% of the entire story is rendered in such detailed, descriptive language. At times, I admit, I skim the approaching storm clouds or the darkening forest. But Peter Jackson was right in shooting the films in New Zealand. The Kiwi landscape mirrors the vivid and varied environs imagined by Tolkien.

Jackson also pours more character into the nine members of The Fellowship of the Ring. Boromir, Gimli, Logolas, Aragorn, even the hobbits are pale in the books, at least through the first volume. Only Frodo and Gandalf are fully formed characters at the one-third mark where I am now. Aragorn is somewhat more vigorous than the others but Merry and Pippin are vague shadows to this point.

I wonder going forward how the battles will be played out. The one major criticism of the films I have is the lengthy battle scenes. Good versus Evil in the story is a more nuanced confrontation than the sword and armor portrayal in the films.

I have no plans to re-re-reread The Hobbit, which is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit was published in 1937, as a children's fantasy tale. Tolkien had no thoughts of LOTR back then but was encouraged by his publisher to write more on Middle Earth. The Fellowship of the Ring was published 1954. The Two Towers and The Return of the King followed in 1955.

The Lord of the Rings under a toasty electric blanket in a Michigan winter. Yes, this works for me