Lets do a Review - of The Lord of the Rings! (Part 1)

After reading the Lord of the Rings a second time these days (the first time I did read the books was about a year before the first of the Peter-Jackson-films was released), my impression was indeed very, very mixed. Since the movies took such a massive part of the way how the story is set in the public consciousness, I didn't quite knew what would expect me and it became rather discovering the book anew instead of recapitulating a familiar text. Some aspects of it were surprisingly good, others were frankly quite shocking.

But lets start with...

The good things

Plot and Storydeveloping

You simply can't take for granted that a 1000-pages book will keep you entertained throughout its entire length. The Lord of the Rings really does. You can clearly see how well composed it is in its outlines and how well planned the development of the story is. There are no loose threads and even every minor protagonist is thoroughly carried through the plot. A well-rounded story really. Of course this is clearly the result of the long time it took for Tolkien to write it (and the vast amount of background resources he put together in all the years). It was certainly not an easy task writing the story down but that doesn't really shows to the reader.

Depth

I will come back to Tolkien's world-building later in the text, but I can say already here that: when he decides to elaborate a culture, region or event, he does it with great depth and a richness in detail hard to match. The book offers the reader a plethora of sub-stories to unfold and to get background information from further sources online or offline. I found it also quite interesting researching about the real-world mythology he based much of his book on. The author certainly knew his trade.

Emotion

Another big feat of Tolkien is that his story really touches you. The very likeable Shire and its clumsy, peculiar inhabitants for example. It simply gives you such nice feelings of rural childhood cosiness that I can't help but call it with the nice German term Gemütlichkeit.

And it is a pretty clever move starting the novel there, as it is in general to focus on the Hobbit's perspective than of the Human's: The author welcomes you with open arms, seats you at a warm fireplace with a good cup of hot chocolate (or the middle-earth counterpart of it) and serves you a plate of sweets before sending you out on your trip to terrible Mordor, through a supersized world chased by undead riders, Orks and other nasty critters!

I think its also not a too big stretch to view his depictions of the Shire and Mordor in relation to the First World War. While the Shire can be seen as metaphor for his early years in secluded and peaceful rural England, Mordor shows clear traces of rampaging industrialization, trench warfare and devastated, burned landscapes typical for the First World War.

I think this clearly left an imprint on him him, as it did on millions of other young men, who were thrown into the greatest slaughter mankind ever experienced to that date. The only difference really is that Tolkien had the talent and ambition to express his feelings – and clear disdain of what he experienced – into a highly popular narrative.