Title: The Lord of the Rings
Author: JRR Tolkien
Publication date: 1954-55 [The Fellowship of the Ring: July 1954; The Two Towers: November 1954; The Return of the King: October 1955]
Genre: Fantasy (high fantasy/’swords & sorcery’/’wizards & warriors’)
Preliminary note
I first read this book in my teens; in fact, I read it numerous times. It appears in this challenge as a result of the random method by which I pulled the books together. This post, therefore, does not – cannot – describe my genuine initial reaction to the book.
However, it has remained with me throughout my life, as a piece of fiction that has had a huge influence on me. I hope to articulate why; and, of course, indicate in what specific way I will go on to make changes in my life because of it.
What’s it about?
Frodo Baggins inherits a mysterious ring from his uncle Bilbo, and finds out from the wizard Gandalf that it is the One Ring, forged by the Dark Lord, Sauron, to control and subjugate the free peoples of Middle-earth. Lost for many years, the Ring has returned just as Sauron’s forces are beginning to grow strong again.
Accompanied by his friends and, later, a fellowship of men, elves, and dwarves, Frodo sets out on a quest to destroy the Ring. Pursued and beset by foes such as Ringwraiths, orcs, giant spiders, cave trolls, and ghosts, not to mention the strange creature Gollum, they must find their way to Mordor and the fires of Mount Doom.
For it is only there that the One Ring can be destroyed and Middle-earth saved from Sauron’s rule…
Read more information on Goodreads.
Where did I get hold of the book?
This has been a treasured possession for around 30 years. I first read a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring that was lurking on my grandparents’ bookshelves; oddly, they didn’t have the second and third volumes. Perhaps it wasn’t their kind of thing.
So, when I realised I needed to read the remainder of the trilogy, I headed straight to the newsagent’s shop on our local high street, where a few rows of books nestled among shelves of sweets, newspapers, and stationery.
I’d saved up my pocket money for the occasion, and bought a paperback copy of the omnibus edition, complete with prologue, appendices and indexes. It cost £6.95, and was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
- Find the book in a library near you.
- Support local independent bookshops by buying the book from Hive (UK).
What did I learn from it?
I learned an extraordinary amount of what, with hindsight, was quite academic stuff; not so much within the text of the book, but within its prologue, appendices and indexes. In these, Tolkien goes into great detail about additional elements of his created world: family trees, calendars, languages, alphabets, further history, and timelines, to name but a few.
As a child, my best school subjects were languages; I also enjoyed history. Later on I would go to university to study English and French, including options on ancient versions of these languages (Old English and mediaeval French). So it was perhaps natural that I would be drawn to these appendices in a time when I was practically inhaling knowledge of this kind.
A true nerd (nerds are cool now, right?), I even kept notebooks where I copied out the runes of the elves and the dwarves; vocab books where I jotted down all the ‘foreign’ words I came across, with their meanings; and made notes on the pronunciation of the different languages. I was in my element: it was probably the highest learning point of my life.
Although I’m not quite so devoted to the intricacies of Tolkien’s world these days, I’ve retained a fascination with language. The majority of my career has been spent in roles where an appreciation of language and its nuances is vital: librarianship, web editing, medical communications, writing… It’s hard not to see the beginnings of this trajectory in my discovery of Tolkien’s astonishingly complex work.
How did it make me see the world differently?
It’s difficult, looking back, to know what effect this truly first had on me as a teenager. I can remember wishing that this imaginary world were real! – and I’m aware I’m not the only person to feel this way; I recall hearing the same of fans of the more recent movie Avatar.
But that feeling soon passed. Life moved on, and I grew up. But I never grew out of my love for fantasy; it’s still my ‘go-to’ reading and viewing material of choice. And I refuse to feel guilty about this.
Fantasy gets a bad press. I’ve mentioned this before, in passing, but I think the reason I value it is because, contrary to what is often said about it, it deals very much with issues of real importance in life.
Rather than look at problems arising out of the day-to-day, such as relationship break-ups, job hassles, or money worries, fantasy goes straight to the point of ‘why are we here?’, ‘what is our purpose in life?’, ‘what path should we choose?’. It’s about the ultimate battle between good and evil – and, even though we don’t generally think of our own lives in these terms, perhaps we should, even if only occasionally.
How many times have you…
- …been drawn in to a conversation that’s essentially a bitching session about someone who isn’t there?
- …cut someone up in traffic because they behaved like an idiot half a mile back?
- …excluded someone from a gathering because you wanted to ‘get them back’ for something (perhaps genuinely awful) they did to you on a previous occasion?
All these are instances of the small ways in which bad feeling perpetuates itself throughout the world. It might seem excessive to say that one bitchy comment is the slippery slope to a dictatorship by the Dark Lord, but in all these situations, a negative action is taken over a positive one – and it’s worth remembering that, however unfair life seems at times, we do have a choice over how we react to it. We can feed the anger – or we can choose to focus on what is good, helpful, and constructive.
Fantasy, for me, highlights that we have this choice in our everyday lives – and that it matters. Not all of the characters in The Lord of the Rings are on an important quest to destroy the One Ring; but there is not a single person in Middle-earth whose actions, however small they might seem, do not impact in some way on the difficulty or ease with which Frodo pursues his quest.
The Lord of the Rings was the first book that encouraged me to see these issues for real – and to try (with varying degrees of success) to live my life accordingly.
What changes will I make to my life as a result of it?
Well, I was going to write a blog post, ‘In Defence of Fantasy’, but I feel I’ve just done that above! I may see if I can write something a little more considered, perhaps with examples, as I do feel my views on this subject warrant a bigger outlet than just this post.
I’ve also started thinking about where I will go with my writing when this book challenge is over. I’ve been enjoying it so much that I’ve more or less decided to do it on a regular basis, i.e. each year select a new list of books and blog about them – with a different focus each time. And perhaps my focus for Year 2 could be fantasy…
It’s worth saying at this point that I also plan to bring together these blog posts into a book, which I will publish when the year is over. In addition to the original posts, I’ll be adding 3-month updates to each one, reporting on whether the changes I said I’d make have actually stuck; and I will also (fingers crossed) be commissioning some wonderful illustrations to accompany each entry.
One last comment on the real-world application of the above musings. We’re rapidly approaching a general election here in the UK, and this would seem a perfect opportunity for me to put my vote where my mouth is. Will I choose a party who represents what I believe to be good and right, regardless of their chances of getting in? Or will I opt for one who stands the best chance of being elected and thereby being in a position to make a practical difference?
I may or may not share my voting decision with you, but I will be certain to apply the lessons from this post in the way I reach that decision.
Over to you…
Has this post inspired you to read the book for yourself?
If you’ve read it, do you agree with what I’ve said? Did you have insights that I’ve not mentioned?
Please share in the comments below!