Sunday, March 6, 2011

A book review on The Fellowship of the Ring

                                                     All that is gold does not glitter,
                                                       Not all those who wander are lost;
                                                       The old that is strong does not wither,
                                                       Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
                                                       From the ashes a fire shall be woken.
                                                       A light from the shadows shall spring;
                                                       Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
                                                       The crownless again shall be king.

The Fellowship of the Ring was a book written by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is the first of a trilogy describing the history of the war between Sauron and the rest of middle earth. My mother had been telling me about The lord of the Rings my entire life. So ever since I first turned the pages of the prequil, The Hobbit, I have been hooked. The Fellowship of the Ring is no different, it is entertaining and an epic.

As England had very little mythology of it's own Tolkien tried to invent it. His effort was a triumph! The story was completly origional (which is more than you can say for books written now) and is the greatest epic since Homer. The story is about a young hobbit named Frodo who is given a quest to take the one ring (a ring made with the greater part of the power of the dark lord Sauron) and destroy it in the crack of doom. It sounds easy enough, unless you consider that the dark lord does not want the ring destroyed and sends armies to recover it or that the crack of doom is in the heart of the enemy teratory.

Frodo is not alone on this journey, he is joined by eight faithful companions such as the wizard Gandalf or the elf Legolas. Frodo is a hobbit. He is brave, selfless and the most unlikely person to be chosen for the task. Representing the Hobbits are Frodo's friends Sam, Merry and Pippin. Sam is fiercely loyal to Frodo. Merry is the son of the master of Bucklandand cousin to Frodo. Pippin is the of the Thain in Tookland and also a cousen of Frodo. Hobbits are smallish relatives of men that are between two and four feet tall. Hobbits like the unadventrus lifestyle of farming and eating. They have at least seven meals a day and live in underground houses in hillsides. Gandalf the Grey is a wizard. He wields emmence power and is very knowlagible about many things. He also leads the fellowship. The wizards were sent by the Valar (gods) to help the peoples of middle earth in their fight against Sauron. Legolas is an elven prince who wields a bow and is chosen as one of the represet the elves. The elves are an imortal race created before men and have become estranged from men by this time in the history of middle earth. Gimli represents the Dwarves as one of the nine companions. Dwarves are a sturdy and strong race that are skilled in mining and metalwork, but too often succumb to greed after what they mine for. Representiong men are Boromir and Aragorn. Boromir is the proud son of the steward of Gondor (The last city defending middle earth against Sauron). Aragorn is one of the central charicters of the story. First introduced as Strider, Aragorn desteny is bound up with the story of the one ring.

Tolkien has created a new world, complete with its own extensive history and its own languages. Unlike most books today, Tolkien put a large effort into describing the distintcion between good and evil. He states it is impossible to be both good and evil or to use evil against evil. Several times Frodo tries to give the ring to those that are stronger than him and they return it to him saying that they would be more powerful, but they would also become corrupted. 

6 comments:

  1. Hi Solomon -- You make a big claim for "The Lord of the Rings" -- calling it "the greatest epic since Homer," so I would've liked to see a more detailed justification for that assessment. You spend most of your time on plot summary here and if you decide to choose this post to revise (everyone will be choosing one to revise in a few weeks), shorten your plot summary to a 3-4 sentences and spend most of your time analyzing the techniques and themes the author uses that set it apart from and above so many other epics.

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  2. Lord of the Rings must be pretty good, if it's better then Homer. Why? you should explain that a bit more, as my mom said.

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  3. This Is very descriptive but like Mrs. Holly said its kinda focused I think you should try and even out your descriptiveness. this was a very interesting post to read and I am looking forward to reading more.

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  4. I agree with what they all said so I don't have anything to say sorry!

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  5. "Greatest epic since Homer"? That is a pretty lofty claim, with little more than plot summary to back it up. There is perhaps some support in the final paragraph, but it feels like the post ends rather suddenly - the last sentence, in particular, seems out of place.
    This post is quite informative and makes a perfectly good book 'report'; I would just like to see more 'review'.

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  6. It seems like you described the story really well.

    "So ever since I first turned the pages of the prequil, The Hobbit, I have been hooked." Is a fragment... so try to connect it to the previous sentence or stand alone.

    Try to add some more analysis rather that plot (report vs. review)... and basically what everyone else said.

    You can do it! :)

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