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The Fellowship of the Ring (The Lord of the Rings, #1)

J.R.R. Tolkien

Why we're reading this: #1 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#1 on Loc…more
[close] #1 on NPR's Top 100 SF/F novels of all time (2011 poll) http://www.npr.org/2011/08/11/1390858...
#1 on Locus Magazines Best Fantasy novels of the 20th century http://www.locusmag.com/2012/AllCentu...

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Oct 07, 2013 Timothy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi-fantasy

Quite probably my favorite work of the trilogy, Fellowship is the classic high fantasy quest. Often maligned as being bogged down by dense exposition and too too many verses, inserted seemingly willy-nilly throughout its pages, I seek now to defend against those charges.

To the first, I must first agree that there is, indeed, a lot of exposition. This epic grows from the roots of even more ancient epics: the wars and adventures of fabulous, distant agse. It is the Iliad, where mighty heroes of an Quite probably my favorite work of the trilogy, Fellowship is the classic high fantasy quest. Often maligned as being bogged down by dense exposition and too too many verses, inserted seemingly willy-nilly throughout its pages, I seek now to defend against those charges.

To the first, I must first agree that there is, indeed, a lot of exposition. This epic grows from the roots of even more ancient epics: the wars and adventures of fabulous, distant agse. It is the Iliad, where mighty heroes of antiquity are revere there forebears, the even mightier heroes of myth. What Tolkien does, brilliantly, is to put this knowledge into the mouth of every character we come across. One gets the feeling that these are not just idle stories, histories, recitations of rote fact, but that they form the very life blood of the speaker. For Tolkien, identity springs forth from history, and all people have one.

My second point is that he does not allow the action to get bogged down. It may seem that way to the first-time reader, who has no idea what a Gondolin was or where Balrog was located (see what I did there?), but upon this re-read, it was very obvious that characters are always in motion, whether it be ambling about the comfortable confines of bag-end, stumbling through the long dark of Moria, or forgetting themselves among the golden carpeted forests of Lorien.

To the second charge, again I must first admit that there are a lot of verses. But, just as with the previous point, these songs are an integral part of the cultures of middle-earth. Even the idle entertainments tell us something of the people who invented it-or provide a glimpse into the mentality of the character reciting it. Sam, we're looking at you. The use of verse and song has been copied by seemingly every other epic fantasy writer since the Master wrote his, but the Master provided us with more quality than you average D&D inspired fantasy, and far more quantity than "The Rains of Castamere," or "The Bear," song from GoT.

I am, of course, taking a highly opinionated and easily challenged position. The truth is no one is writing quite like Tolkien did--but they are still imitating him, or, at the very least, being inspired by him. Fellowship is the classic and quintessential exemplar of this subgenre, and I think it is only fair to give the man who wrote it some credit. After all, if it's so bad, why is everyone still doing it? ...more

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