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A review by mymiddlename123
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
3.0
I'm setting this to hidden because of spoilers for those people who haven't seen the movie or read any of the books. Just in case.
So I finally decided to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've long since seen the movies and I love all of them very much. But, I've always been intimidated by the books. I've heard mixed things about them -- that people either love them or that the books are really long and dry. But, I finally decided to take the leap and see for myself.
This book took me for-freakin-ever to finish -- about a month from start to finish. That's terrible for me and the primary reason is that it kept putting me to sleep! I couldn't read for more than an hour or so before I had to put the book down and take a nap. So, I resolved to only reading it before bed. Even then, I put it off for days because of dreading reading it. I know, this is like one of the most loved books ever, but I didn't like it that much, it was way too dry and drawn out. So why three stars, instead of two? I'll explain below.
First off, I was really shocked with how long things took in this book as opposed to in the movie. For example, in the movie between the party and Frodo setting off on his journey, it appeared to be just a few days. Well, in the book the time between the party and the beginning of the journey is 32 years! That's right, just a bit of a difference in time-frame there. In addition, they were in Rivendell for months before setting off again, and there were other things too. This marked the biggest differences between the book and the movie. But, I suppose it's more realistic given the way they're traveling and such.
Some other differences between the book and the movie:
1) Merry and Pippin are not as mischievous and playful in the book. They act more like adults than teenagers. I kind of missed this because I enjoyed that about them in the movies.
2) There is a whole journey before they even get to the Prancing Pony -- about 150 pages worth of journey. Including Tom Bombadil, who wasn't even in the movie. It was pretty boring and I could see why it was left out of the movie though.
3) Gandalf never told them to go to the Prancing Pony, they just assumed they might meet him there.
4) The story of how Gollum first obtained The Ring was told by Gandalf in the very beginning of this book, not in the 3rd book.
5) They run into the Trolls that are still stone (from The Hobbit) -- that was cool.
6) The romance between Aragorn and Arwan is non-existent in this book. Although he stands by her at one party, that is all that happens between them. The necklace she gives him in the movie isn't even given to him by her in the book. It's given to him by the Lady of the Wood on behalf of Arwen.
7) The people in the fellowship do not volunteer to help Frodo in the meeting, they are chosen some time after the meeting and not really given a choice either way.
8) The breaking of the fellowship was being discussed before Frodo even takes off. They are all apparently deciding that they've had enough of helping Frodo and want to do other things. I thought this was very weird and pretty selfish of them.
9) Boromir is really annoying and I don't like him at all in the book. I get he's struggling with falling under The Ring's spell, but in the book he's just really negative and an asshole all the time.
The other primary difference is that the book is extremely drawn out. As I've said earlier, everything takes longer than in the movie. But, this is not the only thing. Conversations and walks seem to take forever. It just doesn't seem like too much editing happened. There was just too many unnecessary words that caused the book to be overly dry. However, despite all the words, I thought the book wasn't nearly descriptive enough when it comes to the surroundings and things around them. I'm not really sure if I would have enjoyed this book more or less, had I read it before the movie. I think I may have enjoyed it a little less because I used visuals from the movie to fill in places that were lacking descriptions in the book. However, I might have enjoyed the book more had not known -- generally -- what was going to happen. It's hard to say.
Overall though, the reason I gave this three stars, instead of my usual two stars if I don't like a book, is because of the world J.R.R. Tolkien built. The world is so full and huge -- with the Elvin language, maps, races, history, places, etc. I cannot in good conscious belittle that. I'm sure the world building took an extreme amount of time and effort to accomplish and I'm truly impressed by that. However, I wish the book was written a little better in description, less dialog, and more action. Even the action that was in this book didn't get my blood pumping and me turning the page. So that is a huge downfall of this book. I will continue reading them, but I think I'm going to take a little break from LOTR for now.
So I finally decided to read the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I've long since seen the movies and I love all of them very much. But, I've always been intimidated by the books. I've heard mixed things about them -- that people either love them or that the books are really long and dry. But, I finally decided to take the leap and see for myself.
This book took me for-freakin-ever to finish -- about a month from start to finish. That's terrible for me and the primary reason is that it kept putting me to sleep! I couldn't read for more than an hour or so before I had to put the book down and take a nap. So, I resolved to only reading it before bed. Even then, I put it off for days because of dreading reading it. I know, this is like one of the most loved books ever, but I didn't like it that much, it was way too dry and drawn out. So why three stars, instead of two? I'll explain below.
First off, I was really shocked with how long things took in this book as opposed to in the movie. For example, in the movie between the party and Frodo setting off on his journey, it appeared to be just a few days. Well, in the book the time between the party and the beginning of the journey is 32 years! That's right, just a bit of a difference in time-frame there. In addition, they were in Rivendell for months before setting off again, and there were other things too. This marked the biggest differences between the book and the movie. But, I suppose it's more realistic given the way they're traveling and such.
Some other differences between the book and the movie:
1) Merry and Pippin are not as mischievous and playful in the book. They act more like adults than teenagers. I kind of missed this because I enjoyed that about them in the movies.
2) There is a whole journey before they even get to the Prancing Pony -- about 150 pages worth of journey. Including Tom Bombadil, who wasn't even in the movie. It was pretty boring and I could see why it was left out of the movie though.
3) Gandalf never told them to go to the Prancing Pony, they just assumed they might meet him there.
4) The story of how Gollum first obtained The Ring was told by Gandalf in the very beginning of this book, not in the 3rd book.
5) They run into the Trolls that are still stone (from The Hobbit) -- that was cool.
6) The romance between Aragorn and Arwan is non-existent in this book. Although he stands by her at one party, that is all that happens between them. The necklace she gives him in the movie isn't even given to him by her in the book. It's given to him by the Lady of the Wood on behalf of Arwen.
7) The people in the fellowship do not volunteer to help Frodo in the meeting, they are chosen some time after the meeting and not really given a choice either way.
8) The breaking of the fellowship was being discussed before Frodo even takes off. They are all apparently deciding that they've had enough of helping Frodo and want to do other things. I thought this was very weird and pretty selfish of them.
9) Boromir is really annoying and I don't like him at all in the book. I get he's struggling with falling under The Ring's spell, but in the book he's just really negative and an asshole all the time.
The other primary difference is that the book is extremely drawn out. As I've said earlier, everything takes longer than in the movie. But, this is not the only thing. Conversations and walks seem to take forever. It just doesn't seem like too much editing happened. There was just too many unnecessary words that caused the book to be overly dry. However, despite all the words, I thought the book wasn't nearly descriptive enough when it comes to the surroundings and things around them. I'm not really sure if I would have enjoyed this book more or less, had I read it before the movie. I think I may have enjoyed it a little less because I used visuals from the movie to fill in places that were lacking descriptions in the book. However, I might have enjoyed the book more had not known -- generally -- what was going to happen. It's hard to say.
Overall though, the reason I gave this three stars, instead of my usual two stars if I don't like a book, is because of the world J.R.R. Tolkien built. The world is so full and huge -- with the Elvin language, maps, races, history, places, etc. I cannot in good conscious belittle that. I'm sure the world building took an extreme amount of time and effort to accomplish and I'm truly impressed by that. However, I wish the book was written a little better in description, less dialog, and more action. Even the action that was in this book didn't get my blood pumping and me turning the page. So that is a huge downfall of this book. I will continue reading them, but I think I'm going to take a little break from LOTR for now.