The Lord of the Rings

Since the movie marketing machine of U.S. economic imperialism sprang into action, there is little need to explain much about The Lord of the Rings to people. I am one of the lucky ones who got to read it without any preconceptions of what the world and the characters looked like.

Even before the movies, it was one of the most widely revered books written in the English language. It won a number of polls on the greatest book of the twentieth century, and if I were to consider a book in isolation from the culture in which it exists, I might agree. I have not read this book since at least the mid-nineties, but I almost don't need to, as I always, in some small way, have some part of me in this world.  When I visited Wales and first set foot in a castle, in my mind I was also partly setting foot in Middle-earth.

This book transported me to another world, where elves never died, the good triumphed, and evil-doers inevitably faced justice. Many books attempt to modify reality; Tolkien created reality anew, if not in all its complexity, then closer to it than any before, or perhaps after him, have. His mastery of the language is evident on every page, though one fears his subtle use of words might be lost on a generation that reveres action rather than substance in their entertainment.

Anyone who has seen the movies will be aware that there is voluminous action in The Lord of the Rings, but to see the novels as based on action misses the point. Indeed, perhaps this is what Jackson got so wrong in the Hobbit movies. He cut many of the quieter moments of the book, and added even more action. Action in a book that we have some part in the creation of through our imaginative choices, is also different to being fed someone else's conception of it in film. Reading about a battle is not the same as watching someone have their leg severed in the movie; in reading there is never any point where the real world has to intrude.

The Lord of the Rings is a fantasy of the purest order, fantasy from a world rent with world war, fascism, and the seeping destruction of the natural world.

Tolkien is a literary genius; one should read this book to admire a wizard of language in the full flight of fantasy.