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Review Summaries
"A ordinary hobbit called Frodo Baggins gets caught up in fight to destroy the powerful One Ring, before the evil Sauron can get hold of it, and use it to enslave the free creatures of Middle Earth."
Legolas-S, Resident J.R.R.Tolkien Scholar
"The Fellowship of the Ring is the first of three books in The Lord of the Rings series. It is the tale of Frodo Baggins, the unwilling heir to the One Ring: the great Ring of Power. The Ring must be distroyed before it returns to the hands of it's maker, Sauron. But Sauron has sent out his Nazgul, the nine Ringwraiths, to hunt for the Ring. Frodo and a small group of companions are given the task of taking this Ring to Orodruin, at the very heart of Sauron's kingdom, to distroy it."
F.B.-B., Resident J.R.R. Tolkien Scholar
"The Ringwraiths were searching for a hobbit. Frodo Baggins had to take the Ring Bilbo found and desctoy it. Otherwise the evil Sauron would destroy all the good things in Middle-earth. Frodo adn his friends go on a journey ot the Mount of Doom, the only place the ring can be destroyed at. "
irina, Resident J.R.R. Tolkien Scholar
"As LOTR regularly wins polls as the twentieth century's favorite work of fiction, it is now rather difficult to say anything new about it, except that professors of English who appear on highbrow chat shows to review literature rather reprehensibly still prefer 'realists' of the Thomas Hardy and George Eliot ilk). Chronologically (in Middlearth time and in order of publishing), 'The Fellowship of the Ring' is the first book of the great Lord of the Rings trilogy and follows 'The Hobbit'. Of course The Hobbit itself is largely aimed at children, although the themes mature as the story matures, whereas LOTR is four-squarely adult. However, it should be realised that Hobbit is essentially, as Tolkien's friend C.S. Lewis put it, 'merely a fragment torn from the author's huge myth'. The inchoate romance of the whole of Middlearth and its inhabitants came into being over a very long period, and formed a superlatively coherent whole well before he thought of publishing.
As an heroic romance, the book was launched into a post-war Britain that largely expected fiction to be a 'slice of reality', as in the Hardy/Eliot tradition. We had turned our back on books of this type. So far as romances of imagined worlds, real heroes, real villains, and epic themes went the science fiction sub-culture of dime novels and cheap comics was the brightest spot on the literary horizon! All the greater the shock then, when this luxuriously and profligately original masterwork, a veritable new Odyssey, re-established the genre at a stroke.
The story starts quietly, and even a little childishly, in the Shire of the hobbits, who are quite English and very much the sort of creation that an Englishman of the Midlands would create, although they are not an allegory of the English (I speak as a Midlander). Events rapidly gather pace and the serious and high nature of the quest becomes apparent, the great master-ring created by Sauron being in the seemingly accidental possession of one Frodo Baggins, hobbit-at-large. The Ring is too terrible a weapon to be mastered for good and used against Sauron, yet the Lord of the Rings is utterly set on claiming it back. Therefore, hard though the thought is, the weapon that is the Ring must be destroyed. A trusty band, a fellowship, of adventurers must be assembled to carry out the quest. There are many subtleties in this book, and the characters are not all they seem. The heroes of the fellowship have mixed motives, Boromir especially. The climax of the Fellowship of the Ring largely revolves around the chaos caused by the Boromir's inner dilemma and his unwise actions. Even Gollum the sneak is not yet entirely bad and has the occasional good impulse. As if the Black Riders and hordes of orcs were not bad enough the story breaks off with a classical cliff-hanger, as the quest must go on even though the fellowship be riven by argument and conflict. As the plots and sub-plots multiply so does the tension. A must read?, to be sure. More than once, certainly. But not before the next two installments...
"
Michael JR Jose, Resident J.R.R. Tolkien Scholar
"A group of huminoid friends reluctantly enroll themselves in the deep plot and politics of a many aged and large scale epic battle. The outcome is deeply dependend on the friends choices as they find themselves the possesor of the one item that will bring ruin to all the land if possesed by the Enemy. The one ring."
Oscar Andrews, Resident J.R.R. Tolkien Scholar
"This is the story of an ordinary hobbit, Frodo Baggins, with a most extraordinary ring. Everyone wants it, including the evil Sauron, who sends dark riders after Frodo to get it. Frodo flees, but he's alone on the road with his witless hobbit friends. They somehow manage to make their way to Rivendel and regroup, and agree to start on a long trip to destroy the ring. Frodo is given suitable escort but is hounded every step of the way by the enemy."
Steve, Resident J.R.R. Tolkien Scholar
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Overall Review
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Plot
Composition of Book Descript. of chases or violence - 10% planning/preparing, gather info, debate puzzles/motives - 20% Feelings, relationships, character bio/development - 30% Descript. of society, phenomena (tech), places - 40%
Tone of book
- suspenseful (sophisticated fear)
FANTASY or SCIENCE FICTION?
- fantasy world/fantasy past
Tech./$$$/Info hunt
Yes
Stealing/recovering/destroying
- magical artifact
Mental/magical powers focus
Yes
magical powers:
- bad magical powers hunting non/weaker magical(s) (fantasy)
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Main Character
Identity:
- Male
Profession/status:
- unemployed
Age:
- 40's-50's
Has magical/special powers?
Yes
Magical/mental powers of main character:
- Invisibility
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Physique
- healthy but a geeky weakling
Main Adversary
Identity:
- magical being
Age:
- long-lived adults
Profession/status:
- dictator
- mage/magician
Has magical powers?
Yes
Magical/mental powers of main antagonist:
- fire/thunder/weather cntrl
- mind control
- can cast all sorts of spells
How much of work is main antagonist actually present in:
- almost none
How sensitive is this character?
- hard edged
- mean, arrogant
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Setting
Terrain
- Water
- Mountains
- Forests
Earth setting:
- during "Tolkien" (fairytime) times
Takes place on Earth?
Yes
Style
Person?
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
- moderately detailed references to deaths
How much dialogue?
- roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
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