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Summary: Truely Magical, The father of the fantasy genre.
Review: The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book of all time. It is a beautifully discriptive epic with so many themes which creates in the mind not just pictures but masterpieces of the world Tolkien created. On the one hand it is simply the classic tale of Good versus evil with the good triumphing against all odds. It is also about how the great and strong with all their power are helpless in the face of great danger, must rely someone apparently weak, it shows how everyone has hidden depths. It is a tale of great friendship and loyalty especially between Frodo & Sam, it shows how we all need friends. The charater of Aragorn shows how we must look beyond appearances. With Golum we can see how even those we regard as evil can still have good in them. There are darker themes too, Boromir and Saruman are examples of how temptation of power can ruin us. There are many more than this but I think I've made my point.
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Summary: The greatest book that has been and will be written
Review: Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln! I have never been so blown away by a literary piece in all of my life(which hasn't been that long, but I digress.) I don't know where you get off, "Doc", but you need to see if you still have a pulse or not, because I find it impossible for any(that's right, ANY) human being that is still playing with a full deck to call this masterpiece a waste of time. For an english professor, you strike me as someone who needs to be deported. But to resume my review of the book *ahem* excuse me, this holy grail of ink and paper. Uh..nope, I'm spent from ranting about the good doctor. Good book, that's all. Thank you.
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Summary: My Favorite Story: The Lord Of The Rings
Review: What can I say, this is the best story I have ever read! It's a classic! And even though it can get a little slow and monotonous at times, it's a book that everyone should have to read. I mean, Tolkien has created a whole world through his writings! It's like a bible, with the Lord Of The Rings as the New Testament, and The Silmarillion as the Old. I am reading these books to my sister now, and she loves them just as much I do. These books are one of the best classics of all time! =)
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Summary: Tolkien had WAY too much time on his hands.
Review: Tolkien had WAY too much time on his hands. Just think about it - spending all that time creating imaginary worlds, peoples, languages and events? With a huge appendix explaining it all? It's insane! Talk about wasting his time! Tolkien would have used his time much better if he had used it to cut the grass for an elderly lady, work as a volunteer in a soup kitchen, or collect money for the blind. Anyone who has the time to make so much time in his imaginary world, let alone write a stack of books about it clearly has WAY too much time on his hands.
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Summary: A classic that's great for all ages
Review: I remember when I first began reading the Hobbit, when I was 7 or 8, absorbed immediately by the young, innocent hobbits. Like me, they were drawn into a world with strange races, people of every shape and size, all with their own hopes and desires, languages and cultures. I was hooked.I've reread the series many, many times since then, and have had the joy of seeing my own son become completely enamored with it. I still name characters 'Aragorn' when I play computer games, because he became such a symbol to me of honesty, integrity, perseverence against all odds. Some girls dreamt of handsome princes. I dreamt of a man who, while not 'fair of face', was the protector of innocents, the defender, the one who strove and fought without reward. In a world where so many books are full of sex, gratuitious violence, disrespect, infidelity, etc. etc., it is amazing to go back to this book that was researched to the Nth degree and promotes that honesty and justice, after hard work and effort, does finally win out in the end. It's not a sugar-coated book, though. There are betrayals, there are sad scenes and suffering. If anything, the book does a great job to show that no matter what someone looks like, or where they come from, they have the same basic longings and needs. If someone comes to think that dwarves and elves and hobbits and such are all able to work together, then our silly concerns about 'shades of grey' in humans' skins seem amazingly shallow. If you haven't read this yet, please do. It is one of the best written and thoroughly researched books of the past few centuries. JRR developed whole cultures for his characters, and that depth really shows. His writing style is amazing. The epic leaves you wishing he wrote a 9-parter instead of the works he did. Still, even what we have is more than enough to keep me re-reading ...
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Summary: J.R.R. Tolkien and his Middle Earth
Review: I am actually reading "The two towers" and I'll say this is really good. I see no racism at all, but... When I began reading this book, I started thinking that hobbits were in fact jewish, and that he suggested the think of the Dark Lord... I inmediately turned it off. I must say our minds are too corrupt and bad-thinked as to really appreciate the natural magic and fairy-tale of this trilogy. Once you get it and don't worry about second interpretations, you enjoy it the most. However, I must say there IS a second message in "Lord of The Rings". Tolkien makes a comparison with the rings that are a temptation to humans and dwarfs (I have a spanish editions where is translated as "enanos"), but shows to us the elves as the only ones that resisted it. He shows how there are two races (Ents and Hobbits) who scaped the plans of Sauron because of his nule participation in wars: they don't fight the evil. But then he shows as how this races are vulnerable to new attacks. What does he mean? Act as a good person and don't fall into temptation of evil.
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Summary: All-time classic... one of the 1900's literature milestone..
Review: Yes; I think Tolkien can be compared to Shakespeare. They write very differently, I admit, but Tolkien was a poem-ist himself. Very good one, too. But to the review... Classic. If you'd have to select ONE book for the trip to stars, to the dull environment of a space-ship, you should pick this one up. I've never seen a book that has greater storyline ( well, you can see the basic structure of Good vs. Evil, but it's so much more than that! ) and it has as lively world as ours. You'll fall in love with every character, and that makes this book more than just another fantasy book... The world of Middle-Earth ( based on early earth, the times when Man wasn't domimant, and there still were hobbits and great wizards... ) is described so lively ( from the Creation to the beginning of Fourth Age ) that you really think you live there. This experience mirrors from future: this is the virtual-trip of today, and you don't need no helmet. This book'll suck you in, from the beginning ( differs where you start.. I'd recommend the Hobbit, then the LotR trilogy and Silmarillion... moving to the book of unfinished tales ) to the end. But speaking about this trilogy: you'll be sad when it ends. Won't give any details of the end, thou', but you'll drop tears; is it happy or sad drops. This is very complex book ( or a world ), if you think about it, and you must explore it to take the full advantage of the Experience. To fully respect the master behind the pen, the Tolkien who was... The epic tall-tale ( wich will be remembered... I'm not praising Tolkien for nothing, I can without any regrets say that this trilogy will be remembered like Shakespeare's Romeo and Julia ) tells about the One Ring ( yes, everything wraps around THE one ring, in the end.. all the EVIL ), and how it passed along trough time, to its final doom and the death of all evil... sounds simple and clichè? By all things good, it isn't.. far away from simple, you'll see... So, one day, the ring gets in hands of Bilbo ( you'll notice how, where and when ) Baggins, who doesn't know the powers behind the plain gold ring. But it's slowly getting the hand of Bilbo's mind, slowly turning him obsessed to it. Gandalf the Grey, great wizard, doesn't yet understand the powers of the Ring perfectly, but has a suspection. Trough many ancient tips of wisdom and the gossip around the world, he makes a conclusion, that Bilbo has to get rid of the ring. It's the source of power to all evil, Sauron, the physical form of Darkness. But Bilbo has become more and more obsessed to ring, and has hard time to let it go... so he must disappear, go far away from the ring, to forget it. It has marked his soul forever, and never he can really forget the Ring... So he leaves Hobbiton, the small peaceful village, and leaves the ring to Frodo, his brothers son. Gandalf warns Frodo about the Ring, and its magical powers, and advices him to go on a long journey, to Rivendell. Months after Frodo leaves with his closest friends, Samwise and Pippin. So the journey begins... slowly the dark horrors behind the ring starts to unravel... The darkness is slowly getting hint of where the hobbits are... Read the rest, but I can promise it to be a very exciting book, without too much violence and great dialoque...
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Summary: A book above the rest
Review: The Lord of the Rings is one of the best books i have read and wish i had read it earlier. It is like the One Ring itself, once you get your hands on it, you will not be able to let go of it. Instead of letting children watch all the sex and violence in today's movies, they might be better off reading such a book full of imagination, strength of character, values and so on. Very few literary works give such a vivid description of human society and human character. I have read the Indian mythological stories 'Ramayana' and 'Mahabharata' several times and would put 'The Lord of the Rings' along with them in the highest class of great books. I can't wait to read this story to my daughter when she is old enough.
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Summary: The Best In Fantasy And Adventure
Review: For the reviewers who think that kids only read "trendy" books, they're wrong, and shame on them for thinking so. Reason ? I'm a kid and I have read all of these books (ALL), and I've watched the movie version of the Hobitt, which is nothing compared to the book. I can't wait for the trilogy to come on in theatres in the following years! What I like most about the books is the incredible amount of detail it gives the reader, and how it skillfully avoids to describe graphic violence and such. As for the book being racist, it's not. It just depends on how you think of it, but trust me, if you REALLY read the book, you'll forget about the flaws (which are not many), and find a truly fantastical piece of work, so please, don't pre-judge just because of the reviews, find out for yourself what the book is really all about...
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Summary: on Tolkien's "racism"
Review: I'm a fan of Tolkien, but still I must explain his works contain some things that justify calling them a bit... not racist, but at least not "politically correct" enough. Of course this is far from being the main theme of LOTR, nor it makes the book less remarkable. For example, it would be silly to deny that Nabokov's "Lolita" indeed has something to do with paedophilia; nevertheless it is a great book which is by no means immoral. The same holds for Tolkien's "racism". A reviewer here has pointed out that some "bad guys" are white and black riders are black not because of their race. This is absolutely correct. However there are other things which are far from being politically correct. These things have nothing to do with black or white; they become obvious in the author's dealing with peoples and languages rather than single persons in the story. Perhaps the most striking thing is the languages that Tolkien invented - and remember he was a linguist so he knew very well what he was doing. When he needed a scary, evil language of Mordor, he created something that any linguist will immediately recognize as an agglutinative language, probably akin (and sounding very similar) to Turkish and Tataric. And when he needs a language for High Elves, he takes Finnish and Welsh as the base. It's not a random choice - try to swap these languages's roles and you see immediately that this is impossible, it destroys the whole book at once. Like it or not, but certain languages do sound "good" and "bad" to a western ear, and Tolkien made use of this throughout his book. And now imagine you are Turkish; do you think you will really enjoy Tolkien's language allusions so much? Now again, I must add that this does not make this book less enjoyable. Just be aware that some things in it may not be as obvious and natural to people in other cultural backgrounds as they are obvious and natural to you. Perhaps the book's message would have been purer and more universal if Tolkien chose to build his nations and languages absolutely from scratch, without any reference to our world's nations and languages; but I very much doubt that in this case his book would have enjoyed such an immense popularity.
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