The Fellowship of the Ring Book Review
The Lord of the Rings is actually a single novel with appendices. This review will only go over the first part of the Lord of the Rings, the Fellowship of the Ring. I read the 50th anniversary text, so this review will go based on that version of the Lord of the Rings. The 50th anniversary edition is a giant one volume edition of the Lord of the Rings, which is how J.R.R Tolkien originally wanted the book to be published.
First off, I’m going to discuss the text, and one of the reasons why I really love Lord of the Rings. J.R.R Tolkien really used lots of descriptive words and it really helps the reader visualize the scene in their minds without cluttering the text too much. Also, every character is their own person, and their personalities really stand out. Aragorn is sometimes shown as a rough Ranger, other times he is a brave leader. I also love how each character has their own flaws. Boromir wants power, Aragorn often doubts himself, and Frodo is fearful. And love how some characters gets over their flaws, but for some, corrupts them and leads them to a bad end.
Another thing that made me love Lord of the Rings is Tolkien’s creativity. Tolkien made up the lore, the language, the land, the names, and basically an entire new world with lots of diverse cultures. Also, the creatures he made up! Although Tolkien based many of his beasts from myths and legends, he changed them in an entirely new way, and that is what makes the world of Tolkien special.
Lastly, the words of the text are remarkably interesting. Tolkien uses some old English words, along with his made-up language words, and words of magic. In the foreword, there is a text about the history of the text in Tolkien that talks about the previous editions, when there were many errors in printing, sometimes removing sentences from the book, and misspelt words that changed the meaning of the paragraph. From 1956 to today, the publishers published different editions of the Lord of the Rings, with the first ones having tons of errors. They also didn’t have the index, maps, appendices, and other things that I have right now in the 50th edition. That part makes for an intriguing reading, and there have been books published on this topic.
That concludes my book review of the Fellowship of the Ring, being the first part of the Lord of the Rings. Overall, Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite books of all time, and my favorite part is when the Siege of Helms Deep happens.
