On Reading The Lord of the Rings for the Fifteenth Time; Part Three: The Return of the King and Appendices
The third volume of The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King, is full of epic-scale heroic deeds: the passage of Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and the Dunedain through the paths of the dead; the ride of the Rohirrim to relieve the siege of Minas Tirith; the vanquishing of the dark captain of the Nazgul during the battle of the Pelennor Fields; the final march of the armies of the West to the Black Gate of Mordor; and, of course, Frodo and Sam’s trek through the wastelands of Mordor to cast the ring into the fiery chasm of Mount Doom. Numerous passages touch me deeply and move me to tears. Tolkien makes it starkly clear that strength of arms alone cannot defeat Sauron; the allies of the West must rely on courage, honor, friendship, loyalty, and self-sacrifice. In Frodo and Sam we come to realize that the smallest of people can become the greatest of heroes. Each of us must fulfill our destiny with sincerity and heroism.
Rereading the trilogy this time reminded me of why I was so drawn to the story when I was young. Back then it gave me an impression of noble intent and of the implacable contrast between good and evil. Having now lived much of my life, I realize that honorable virtues are often called for in the many decisions and deeds that impact each of our journeys. The Lord of the Rings is so popular because it reminds us of the need to claim our destinies amidst the ever-changing vagaries of existence.
This reading, then, brought me a lot of joy and a touch of nostalgia. And it caused me to feel great empathy with Frodo as he completes his quest and returns to the Shire. I set out on my own quest long ago. I journeyed into far countries and even raised a family overseas. It was all in the nature of a grand adventure. When I came back to the States, and eventually back to Seattle, it wasn’t the same to me. My homeland had changed somewhat, but even more I had changed. I’m not the same person I was when I left, and even though I have returned and am once again living in the city where I was born, I feel somewhat ill at ease and out of place. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Once again I am reminded of what I wrote near the end of my memoir World Without Pain: “Perhaps the journey itself, the search, was the point of it all. But if it was then there was no end, no goal, no destination. One could not arrive; one could not rest, except intermittently. And home? I couldn’t go home again. Home was an abstraction from which one commenced a particular phase of the journey, not an absolute.” After being gone for so many decades and living so much life it’s hard for me to settle in and be comfortable.
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A few words should be said about the appendices at the end of The Return of the King. I’m sure that many people, when they come to the end of the primary narrative, ignore them. For several of my readings when I was young I was so disappointed when the tale came to a close that I read every word of the end matter. With this reading I have been a bit more selective, reading some of the history but passing by some of the lists of lineages and intricacies of the languages.
In my opinion, readers interested in the goings-on of Middle Earth should not ignore the appendices. Through them you get a glimpse of the background to the events in the trilogy, and you can also find out what happens to the heroes after the main story ends. Appendix A, “Annals of the Kings and Rulers,” offers tales of the Numenorean kings, of the realm of Gondor, of the Rohirrim, and of the Dwarves. It includes the touching story of Aragorn and Arwen, and tells of what happens to Arwen after Aragorn dies. Appendix B is called “The Tale of Years,” and it is a chronology of events in Middle Earth, but within the lists are hidden gems: brief accounts of deeds and adventures. In this appendix is the section “Later Events Concerning the Members of the Fellowship of the Ring.” Appendix C, “Family Trees,” is exactly what it says: family trees of some of the important lineages of the hobbits. In Appendix D, “Shire Calendar,” Tolkien explains the calendar system that the hobbits use in the book. Appendix E, “Writing and Spelling,” goes into the languages spoken in Middle Earth, especially the Westron or Common Speech. Tolkien describes the vowels, consonants, alphabet, stresses, and so on in intricate detail; I have known fans of the book to use the alphabets in this section to communicate with one another in a sort of pseudo-cryptic code. In Appendix F, “The Languages and Peoples of the Third Age,” Tolkien offers an overview of Elves, Men, Hobbits, Dwarves, Ents, and other races that inhabit Middle Earth.
Tolkien went to great effort to compile these details as he was writing The Lord of the Rings, and whether you skim them, study them, or ignore them, you can see the results of his research in the depth and details of the world he created for our amusement and edification.
