Tag Archives: J R R Tolkien

Book review

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892 in what is now South Africa. His father died just four years later in 1896 and his mother not much longer after that in 1904. After university Tolkien served in the first World War in which he saw almost all his former school friends die. I rarely have much time for commentators who draw parallels between the personal experiences of authors and the events of their novels, but I am going to make an exception here. Orphaned at such an early age the appeal to him of fantasy worlds must have been compelling. I can picture Tolkien in the trenches of the First World War, covered in mud and lice, looking out at the devastation of no-man’s-land, and remembering spring back in England. This must surely have influenced this poignant scene in The Return of the King in which Sam and Frodo look over the wastes of Mordor and fondly remember the Shire.

“Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It’ll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields… and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”

The scenes as the hobbits return to the Shire after their adventures, changed physically and psychologically, and for Frodo never quite fully recovered, can also be seen as an allegory for challenges faced by the troops returning from the front after the war. All the hobbits survive the war, as do all their friends except Boromir and Theoden – in reality the cost of the Great War was far deadlier.

As with The Two Towers, The Return of the King consists of two separate books telling the parallel stories of Frodo’s journey into Mordor, and the battle of Minas Tirith, the principal city of Gondor, the kingdom of men in Middle Earth. These stories are told through the separate and diverging tales of the surviving members of the fellowship. Gandalf and Pippin travel to Minas Tirith to rally the defence of the city from the imminent storm from Mordor. The city is in chaos with Denethor the Steward having to all intents and purposes having abdicated his role, leaving it to Gandalf to rally the defence of the realm. Merry stays with Theoden while he raises the Rohirrim to ride to Gondor’s aid. Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, accompanied by the Rangers of the North, take the ‘Paths of the Dead’ to recruit the ghosts of Dunharrow, bound by an ancient curse to fight for the King of Gondor, to fight on their side. By this route Aragorn slowly reclaims his throne – the Return of the King. The Army of the Dead defeat the Corsairs of Umbar, Sauron’s fleet, and uses their ships to sail to the relief of Minas Tirith. The arrival of both the Rohirrim and the Southern forces turn the tide of battle against Sauron’s forces, but the critical blow is struck by Éowyn, who having travelled to battle in disguise, kills the Lord of the Nazgûl. There is a short pause for the dead to be buried. Gandalf and Aragorn call a war council, and announce an audacious plan to march on Mordor, to distract Sauron and give Frodo and chance of finishing his quest. It is before the Black Gates that this breathless chapter of the story closes,

In the parallel Ringbearers plot-line, Sam rescues Frodo from Cirith Ungol, where he has been taken after being paralysed by Shelob. Their journey across the barren wastes of Mordor is arduous and exhausting, and they are tracked every step by Gollum. This is where the novel is probably the hardest to read – Tolkien does an astonishing job of conveying the physical difficulties of crossing this wasteland, leaving the reader exhausted. But their luck holds, and the attack on the Black Gates clears their way to Mount Doom, which astonishingly is unguarded. At the last, Frodo is unable to resist the Ring and claims it for himself. Gollum has followed Sam and Frodo all the way, and chooses this moment to bite off Frodo’s finger with the Ring still on it. Celebrating wildly, Gollum stumbles and falls into the volcano, taking the Ring with him. Sauron power is switched off like a light, and is kingdom crumbles. His armies collapse and are swept away by Aragorn’s forces.

Finally the two parallel storyline can combine. Sam and Frodo are rescued from Mordor by the ever reliable eagles, and in the days that follow Aragorn is crowned King. He weds Arwen, daughter of Elrond. Éomer is crowned King of Rohan and Éowyn marries Faramir, Prince of Ithilien. While this might all seem a little trite and convenient, Tolkien handles the material well and it doesn’t seemed forced. The journey back to the Shire is a procession via some of the locations visited on the outward journey, including spending time with a now aged Bilbo in Rivendell. But when the hobbits finally arrive back in the Shire they find it has been taken over by men. Sam had had a vision of this happening when he was in Lothlorien. The hobbits raise a rebellion and scour the Shire of men, who it turns out had been organised by a spiteful and vindictive Saruman. This reveal is a little in the spirit of Scooby Doo, but the damage done to the Shire is easily put right. These final scenes are when the novel is at its most allegorical. The construction of houses and factories, and the cutting down of trees across the Shire are a clear metaphor for the industrialisation of rural England. But the damage done derives not from just Saruman’s evil but by the new comers to the Shire, foreigners with alien ways. It’s hardly surprising that a Oxford professor born in the reign of Queen Victoria would have old-fashioned views on development and immigration, and to be fair to Tolkien there are plenty of other moments in the novel’s where he takes a more progressive stance. In the novel’s final chapters Frodo, Bilbo and Gandalf join the last of the elves to set sail from the Grey Havens across the sea in a metaphor for death.

The Lord of the Rings has come in for some criticism for its portrayal of the role of women. The Fellowship is indeed an all-male boy’s club. You could try and explain this by seeing the LoTR as a dramatisation of the First World War – there were very few women in the front line. But Tolkien appears to notice that the earlier novels are dominated by male characters, and responds by introducing several strong women. Of these Eowyn is the most significant. She subverts the expectations of her family and her people by refusing to accept the submissive role allocated to her by Théoden and later Aragorn:

“A time may come soon,” said he, “when none will return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”

She answered: “All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death.”

“What do you fear, lady?” he asked.

“A cage,” she said. “To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire.”

This passionate refusal to accept her traditional gender role of care-giver is moving, and not at all undermined by her eventual choice to become Faramir’s wife – she has by then done great deeds, including riding to war against the direct orders of her king, and slaying the Witch King of Angmar:

“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”

Eowyn is admittedly not the complete feminist role-model. She pines after Aragorn, and at times seems more interested in following him that going to war, the latter being the way of remaining by his side. But this is high fantasy from the 1950’s after all, and a big step forward compared to the female-free zone that is The Hobbit.

I mentioned in my review of The Two Towers that some of the most moving, powerful lines from the Peter Jackson films were taken directly from Tolkien. The same applies to The Return of the King. Sam and Eowyn’s lines quoted above have a huge impact, and Theoden’s speech to the Rohirrim is a genuinely hairs on the back of the neck moment:

“Arise, arise, Riders of Théoden! Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter! Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered, a sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises! Ride now, ride now! Ride to Gondor!”

It’s been a genuine pleasure to return to Middle Earth for a few weeks. I know the length of the novels (over 1500 pages) and the songs can be off-putting for some, but for anyone who has only seen the films the novels will be particularly worth the effort as whole new layers of depth are revealed.

Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, by J R R Tolkien, 1955

Aside
Book review

The Two Towers, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and sequel to The Fellowship of the Ring, is in effect two shorter novels – The Treason of Isengard, which follows Aragorn and the remainder of the fellowship in the battle against the forces of Saruman, and The Journey of the Ringbearers/The Ring goes East following Sam and Frodo as they travel further into the badlands beyond Gondor. In the Peter Jackson film these two storylines are intertwined, with regular cutting between the two – Tolkien took the bold choice of keeping the two entirely separate. I doubt if an author writing today would make this choice: it requires patience on the part of the reader who has to wait several hundred pages before finding out what is happening to the Ringbearer.

The Two Towers - Wikipedia

In the past I have been a little confused about which were the two towers in question, but that seemed a bit slow of me. On a re-read it is completely clear: the towers are Orthanc, Saruman’s base, and Barad-dûr, Sauron’s tower in Mordor. Or so I thought. But the internet tells me I am wrong. Apparently Tolkien invented the novel’s title whilst under deadline pressure and wasn’t happy with it, recognising its ambiguity – there are a lot of towers in Middle Earth! Eventually he settled on them being Orthanc (Saruman’s tower) and Minas Morgul (in Mordor, but not Sauron’s principal base). This is genuinely puzzling – there are two main bad guys in LoTR, Saruman and Sauron. They even have contrasting colour emblems – the white hand of Isengard and the black everything of Barad-dur. One is defeated in The Two Towers, the second in The Return of the King. Rather than just being Saruman’s servant, as I had originally supposed, Saruman plans to take the One Ring for himself, and challenge him for control of Middle Earth. So the two towers are the twin centres of evil in Middle Earth, and both have to be defeated. There’s a structural symmetry in having the two towers represented by Saruman and Sauron’s bases which is lost with any other allocation. Of course the defeat of Saruman ends up as a surprisingly straightforward affair, a warm-up act for the much trickier task of bringing down Sauron in The Return of the King. This tower-related ambiguity doesn’t matter a great deal one way or another, but the anomaly is surprising – Tolkien devised his world with such extraordinary detail that for this fairly significant issue to be left unresolved grates a little.

The Treason of Isengard

The first book in The Two Towers follows Merry and Pippin, who you will recall had been captured by orcs and are being taken to Saruman’s fortress in Isengard. Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn are running after them. The orcs’ journey is intercepted by some of the Riders of Rohan, and in the battle that ensues Merry and Pippin escape into nearby Fangorn forest. Here they meet Treebeard, leader of the Ents. Ents are a cross between trees and trolls, and when roused to anger they can be particularly dangerous, as Saruman is about to find out. He has been chopping down lots of trees down to fuel his furnaces, and the Ents, prompted by Merry and Pippin, decide to do something about it.

Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas are told by the Riders that the orcs they were following have been wiped out in battle. Unable to quite believe this includes the hobbits, Aragorn tracks them into Fangorn. The stage is set for the big reveal: in the forest they meet a white wizard who they initially believe to be Saruman, but who is in fact (spoiler alert) Gandalf. He tells them of his struggle with the Balrog, which seems to have given him even more magical powers – he is now Gandalf the White (it is suggested that this gives him a position of supremacy over the other wizards in Middle Earth, not least Saruman). Tolkien leaves the resurrection of Gandalf a daringly long time, making the impact of his return all the more powerful.

Leaving the search for the hobbits – they are reassured they are in safe Entish hands – they ride to Edoras, capital of Rohan. Theoden, king of Rohan, has been magically enslaved by Grima Wormtongue, who we later found out has been working undercover for Saruman. Theoden is restored by Gandalf and calls his army to war. Rohan’s armies and people fall back to Helm’s Deep while Gandalf goes to seek reinforcements. (Peter Jackson takes some liberties with this part of the storyline, but retains the essential spirit of the narrative.) The scene is set for a siege of Saruman’s army of orcs; the city nearly falls until Gandalf returns with said reinforcements. The victorious army of Rohan and our surviving Fellowship members now travel to Isengard, where they are reunited with Merry and Pippin. Saruman’s fortress has been destroyed by the Ents, but Saruman himself is refusing to leave his Orthanc. Gandalf counsels that he be left to rot there. But the victory is tainted by an unfortunate incident with a palantíri, another Middle Earth maguffin. Palantirs are magical crystal balls that allow people to communicate over long distances (mobile phones in other words). Pippin takes a peep into the palantir and is locked onto by Sauron, who can read his mind. Gandalf takes Pippin urgently to Minas Tirith capital city of Gondor, to prepare for war, leaving the Riders of Rohan to follow on as soon as possible.

The Ring Goes East

Book 4 is the sequence is also subtitled The Ringbearers go East. Note the interesting use of the plural – at this stage only Frodo and Gollum are ringbearers, although in The Return of the King Sam also wears the ring briefly. The narrative picks up immediately from the end of the Fellowship. Sam and Frodo are trying to find their way out of the hills they are stuck in, but are hopelessly and dangerously lost until they discover Gollum has been stalking them. They capture him and persuade him to lead them to Mordor. In Ithilien, the land that borders Mordor to the East of the Great River, they are captured by Faramir, brother of Boromir. Faramir is leading a raiding party trying to find out more about Sauron’s invasion plans. Although Faramir finds out about their quest, he forgoes the temptation to take the ring back to Gondor – he is stronger than his brother in that respect. Gollum leads them safely into the mountains that surround and protect Mordor, but his cunning plan is finally revealed – he has been leading them all this time into the lair of Aragog sorry Shelob, a huge, ancient spider. She stings or bites Frodo apparently killing him. Sam fights her off. Faced with the awful choice of staying with Frodo’s unresponsive body or pushing on with the quest, he decides to take the Ring himself and try to reach Mount Doom. It is not long before he finds out that Frodo was only paralysed by Shelob – she likes her meat kept fresh – and the novel closes with Frodo taken prisoner by the orcs guarding the pass into Mordor, and Sam’s position seemingly hopeless. He does have the ring safe in his possession though.

I know I keep coming back to the Peter Jackson films, but what struck me on this reread was that the moments the films really have an emotional impact is when the language is drawn from Tolkien’s original lines in the novel. For example, Aragorn’s song about the Riders of the Mark:

Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning

are given to Theoden in the film before the battle at Helms Deep. Or when Sam and Frodo reminisce about the Shire, and wonder if one day their tale will be remembered:

“Still, I wonder if we shall ever be put into songs or tales. We’re in one, of course, but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: “Let’s hear about Frodo and the Ring!” And they will say: “Yes, that’s one of my favourite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn’t he, dad?” “Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that’s saying a lot.”
‘It’s saying a lot too much,’ said Frodo, and he laughed, a long clear laugh from his heart. Such a sound had not been heard in those places since Sauron came to Middle-earth. To Sam suddenly it seemed as if all the stones were listening and the tall rocks leaning over them. But Frodo did not heed them; he laughed again. ‘Why, Sam,’ he said, ‘to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you’ve left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. “I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn’t they put in more of his talk, dad? That’s what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn’t have got far without Sam, would he, dad?”‘
‘Now, Mr. Frodo,’ said Sam, ‘you shouldn’t make fun. I was serious.’
‘So was I,’ said Frodo, ‘and so I am.

Which is played out almost verbatim in the scene early in the film between Sean Astin and Elijah Wood. The touching relationship between Sam and Frodo is at the heart of the second book of The Two Towers (and even more so in The Return of the King). Tolkien handles this comradeship sensitively and honestly, not afraid to show the love and affection between the two hobbits.

As the novel that bridges the opening and closing of the story of the One Ring, The Two Towers inevitably runs the risk of lagging. If as a reader you are engaged in Tolkien’s world-building and mythologising, the novel can’t be long enough. If you are not it will probably drag. Certainly there are new elements – this is not just travelling, being rescued, more travelling – although I can’t deny there’s plenty of both, as you would expect in any quest epic. We know following Boromir’s death at the end of The Fellowship that Tolkien’s character’s plot armour is not impenetrable, so Gandalf’s return will be a genuine surprise for many less cynical readers, and we will fear for Frodo after his encounter with Shelob – perhaps Sam is the hero of the story after all? There is less incessant poetry in this novel than the first (perhaps Tolkien’s editor had a quiet word with him?) which is certainly an improvement. It is important to remember that Lord of the Rings is just one very long novel that for the sake of convenience was originally published in three parts, so judging the Two Towers on its merits alone is pretty unfair. I think Tolkien does a good job of keeping the plot moving even after having torn up the original fellowship goes to Mordor script. This allows him to explore Middle Earth in more depth, and to develop storylines for all the hobbits, Merry and Pippin in particular, rather than just having them for light relief.

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, by J R R Tolkien, 1955

Aside
Book review

A while back I wrote a blog post about the different ways one can read a book, trying to answer the question – what does it actually mean to say that you have read a novel? I found ten different flavours of reading, but I missed number 11- possibly the best way of reading a novel is to do so collectively. I don’t mean with other people in a book club (I suppose that would be number 12), where you get together at the end, admit you didn’t finish it, and then drink some wine. Nor do I mean a group reading in a big circle, taking turns (13). No, I am thinking of reading a novel at the same time as your friends, meeting them the next day, and comparing notes. That’s the way I first read The Lord of the Rings many years ago and I recall it as a special experience. My friends had spotted things I had missed, they had read chapters I was yet to reach, they interpreted events differently from one another, and of course we all made wild guesses about what was going to happen. We enthused about Tolkien’s world-building, his characterisation, his descriptive powers, moaned about his poetry, and disagree fiercely about things such as how irritating Tom Bombadil was. There was a freshness and authenticity to our reactions that was precious to me (see what I did there?)

Chances are you are more familiar with the Peter Jackson films than the original Tolkien novels. The films are wonderful, respectful of their source material but at the same time making sensible changes so allow the films to run at a reasonable length. Certainly the film of Fellowship of the Ring is largely consistent with the novel, with the one significant change being the omission of any reference to the slightly creepy Tom Bombadil.

Lord of the Rings epic scale and themes ensure that it is often read as an allegory, but in the novel’s prologue Tolkien goes out of his way to dismiss the idea that it is anything other than a story. He specifically scotches the idea that the novel is about the Second World War, not least because it was conceived and largely written long before the war started.

A few things that struck me on this re-reading. First, it is quite striking just how often Gandalf goes missing. He flits in and out of the narrative time after time, usually for very long periods. He does exactly the same thing in The Hobbit of course, walking out on Bilbo and the dwarves just at the moment his presence is most needed, but here he is missing from the Shire while researching the origins of the ring for several years after Bilbo’s parting, missing again while the hobbits travel to Bree and beyond, only meeting up with them at Rivendell, then finally of course after that unfortunate incident with the Balrog in Moria.

The other thing that struck me, and this is probably because I have just finished re-reading the Harry Potter series, is how influential the Lord of the Rings seems to have been on J K Rowling. The Harry Potter novels borrow fairly relentlessly from a wide range of sources, and a series set in a school for wizards at first seems very dissimilar to an epic quest novel, but dig a bit deeper and the parallels begin to pile up. Dumbledore and Gandalf are almost interchangeable, the one ring seems a lot like Sauron’s one and only horcrux, Nazgul and Dementors look a lot alike, as do Dobby and Gollum.

In the unlikely event you are unfamiliar with the novel, Lord of the Rings is a three part quest novel set in a mythical Middle Earth peopled by Elves, dwarves, wizards, and halfling creatures of Tolkien’s own imagining, hobbits. It follows chronologically around sixty years after the events of The Hobbit. Bilbo has been enjoying the benefits of his comfortable wealth. He has never married, but he has adopted his nephew, Frodo, who now lives with him. On his 111th birthday he throws a party for the whole neighbourhood and announces he is leaving the Shire to go wandering. He leaves the invisibility ring to Frodo, completely unaware of the ring’s significance. Tolkien’s master-stroke is to take something that doesn’t play a major part in The Hobbit – it is a McGuffin to help Bilbo escape from Gollum and the goblin caves, but doesn’t play any significant role in the rest of teh story – and turn it into a powerful dark-magic object which can decide the fate of Middle Earth.

Gandalf eventually works out the ring’s significance, and tells Frodo he must take it away from the Shire. Gollum has revealed that the ring is in The Shire, being held by a hobbit named Baggins, and the Dark Lord Voldemort sorry Sauron has sent his Dementors sorry Nazgul to find it. Gandalf goes to consult the leader of his order, Saruman, leaving Frodo to set out in the company of his sidekick, friend and gardener Sam Gamgee, and his cousin Pippin Took. It is not long before they are intercepted by the Black Riders, but some passing Elves scare them off. Their journey is to be blessed with a series of such fortunate encounters. Meeting up with Merry Brandybuck they leave the Shire, taking a shortcut through the Old Forest, where they are again rescued, this time from the clutches of an aggressive Willow, by Tom Bombadil. In the net stage of their journey that get lost in a fog and caught by barrow-wights, but Tom is on hand to rescue them again.

In Bree they meet Strider who rescues them from the BlackRiders and takes them to Weathertop where they are again attacked by the persistent Black Riders. Although Frodo is wounded with a cursed blade, Strider fights off the Nazgûl, and after a series of close shaves which on the page aren’t repetitive but in summary certainly seem as such, they finally reach Rivendell, an elf-sanctuary and home of Elrond. Gandalf, having escaped the clutches of Saruman, is there to greet them. While Frodo recovers a Council is summoned to decide the fate of the Ring. We learn the history of Sauron and the Ring’s importance is confirmed. The Fellowship of the Ring is formed, nine walkers to mirror the nine Black Riders: Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Strider, now revealed as Aragorn, heir to the kingdom of Gondor, Gandalf, Gimli the Dwarf, Legolas the Elf, and Boromir, son of the Steward of Gondor.

This is an unusual quest – to destroy a found object, not to locate a treasure. Their first challenge is to cross the Misty Mountains. When they prove impassable they decide to go under the mountains, through the Mines of Moria. But these proves equally dangerous and orc-infested, with the added complication of a Balrog, a fire demon, which Gandalf tackles single-handedly. When I first read The Fellowship I was far less cynical than I am now – the usual rule of fiction, that unless you see someone die they aren’t dead, was not so well known in those days. Now I suspect few readers will think Gandalf is gone for good.

Next on the quest is a few days of refuge in the Elven forest of Lothlórien, where they meet the Lady Galadriel. Female characters in the trilogy are few and far between, but those who do appear are significant and powerful. Galadriel permits Frodo and Sam to look into her pensieve sorry fountain to see visions of the past, the present, and a possible future. They leave Lothlorien by river to the hills of Amon Hen. Here the Fellowship is sundered, setting in train the parallel storylines that are followed in the sequel, The Two Towers. It was a bold narrative choice Tolkien made here, having invested so much in creating the fellowship to then break it up before the quest is complete.

Tolkien’s absorption in his world is absolute, and this translates into a compellingly realistic fantasy (oxymoronic, I know) novel on the grandest of scales. His world-building is extraordinary. Some readers may not have the patience to invest so much time in the journey and I confess I often skipped the poems and songs that are such a persistent feature of the novel – does anyone enjoy these I wonder? Lord of the Rings came top of the poll conducted by the BBC in 2003 to find the UK’s most popular novel, helped I am sure by the popularity of Jackson’s trilogy of films. It requires a degree of commitment and the ability to suspend disbelief, but if you can get beyond those barriers Lord of the Rings deserves its place in that poll, and will leave you with memories of adventures in which the weak overcome evil, which after all is really all we ever want, isn’t it?

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, by J R R Tolkein, 1954

Aside
Book review

The Hobbit, or There and Back again, by J R R Tolkien 1937

It was a pleasure returning to Tolkien’s ‘The Hobbit’ after a break of several decades (plus the three Peter Jackson films of course). It’s a lovely young person’s novel – the description on the blurb of it being a children’s novel is a little imprecise for my liking, as anyone under the age of approximately 10 may not appreciate the length of the text, or some of the moments of peril and violence. To be honest, I suspect the complete absence of any female characters whatsoever might be off-putting to younger female readers as well. 

The novel famously opens with a description of the habits and domestic life of Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit with a family line inclined to most un-hobbit like adventuring. Gandalf the wizard (as opposed to all those other Gandalfs you know) uses Bilbo’s comfortable little home to host a gathering of dwarves setting out on a long-planned quest to recover their family treasure and home from the dragon, Smaug. On Gandalf’s recommendation, Bilbo is recruited as the expedition’s burglar. And so the quest begins the long journey east, past peckish trolls, to the last Homely House in Rivendell, which Tolkien does a wonderful job of making sound so alluring, across and into the Misty Mountains, where  Bilbo finds a certain ring, through Mirkwood, and on to the Lonely Mountain, their final destination.

It is an epic journey, full of wonderful adventures. Tolkien packs a lot into a short book. The final resolution is darker than one expects, as the novel grapples with the reality of the quest, its risks and danger, rather than simply using magic or another narrative trick to resolve the travellers’ problems. There is a very serious consideration of the problem of what to do when your dreams come true, how to be brave when your friends go astray, and how to honour your responsibilities to others. If that makes it sound worth it is anything but. 

The quest format is enduringly popular for good reason, and Tolkien writes with considerable economy – the events of the novel occur at a rapid pace, with little of the self indulgent diversions that marred the films. The one obvious exception to this is the fairly awful poetry that Tolkien seems unable to resist. 

The novel builds brilliantly to the climactic Battle of the Five Armies. Here younger readers’ sense of peril will be put to the test, because while the narrator takes care to reassure us of Bilbo’s eventual fate, some of his fellow adventurers are not so lucky. This is a great introduction to fantasy literature for younger readers, and as the genesis story to the much weightier ‘Lord of the Rings’ it is a good starting point for anyone thinking of pitching into the trilogy. Adult readers will enjoy the quest as well – I know I did. 

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