The Fellowship of the Ring

Brief review. I felt slightly bad about the relatively low rating I have given the frontrunner of modern fantasy, but I think it should reflect how much I enjoyed it and was compelled to carry on reading it. I am probably on well trodden ground, but here goes.

Tolkien is not that great a writer. He creates an incredibly complete world with myth and history and a great deal more, and there are legions of Tolkien scholars who have ensured the consistency of the whole thing and noted the precious few places that there is a mistake. I think that Middle-Earth is certainly one of the most complete universes I have come across in fantasy. Unfortunately, what I have seen of it is still not enough. I think the books occupy a strange middle ground between a universe where you can know everything - there is a truly complete history - and ones which are content to leave you wondering. Westeros and Essos, by way of comparison, are certainly less fleshed out than Middle-Earth. Much of the history is not written, but just alluded to; many of the languages really consist of just a few words in comparison to Tolkien's tour de force that is Elvish. Yet in reading, the impression you get is not significantly different. There is still a great deal of unknown surrounding Middle Earth, and filling in the gaps with cryptic references to Valinor and Light, not to mention anythng east of Mordor, is no more satisfactory than ASOIAF's oblique mentions of ancient kings. In both cases the reader feels that there is so much more to be said.

The characters of the Fellowship are often equally bland. Aragorn is a mighty king when it suits him, but helpless the rest of the time. I don't think he mentioned any desires of his ever, not even like for food or to sit down for a time, except when he returns to the king-place with Elendil and whoever and when he makes a reference to Arwen/Eowyn - don't even know which one he likes because they haven't even been met. Legolas and Gimli are stereotypes of elves and dwarves respectively, with little individuality. Boromir is practically a non-character. I don't think Tolkien realises that saying "Boromir had a greedy glint in his eye" several times leading up to his attempt on the Ring is not actually great suspense. Gandalf is boring - he is super powerful in all respects other than those in which he needs to be. The hobbits: Merry and Pippin are just non-characters. Sam is one dimensionally devoted to Frodo, and Frodo just seems clueless the entire time. There was a brief moment when he had some resolve at the Breaking, but he was still stupid then.

There's a whole thing on heroism I'll talk about once I finish the trilogy, since that was why I started in the first place. In any case, I think this book was impressive in its scope and historical importance, and contains enough that you won't dislike reading it, but I didn't find it exciting by any other means.