Okay, I’m reading the first book of the Lord of the Rings, and of my friends, am not the only person to notice that the beginning is very, very slow. Between the First book and the Second, I (as a class assignment) have to reread Ender’s Game… So is the second book as hard to get into as the first?
By “second book,” do you mean The Two Towers or the actual “Book II,” the second half of Fellowship of the Ring? If it’s the latter, the story picks up quickly. However, if you’ve already finished Fellowship of the Ring and haven’t been drawn in yet, you probably won’t be. I prefer books V and VI (Return of the King) personally – gigantic battles and heroic deeds galore. But you need everything prior to that for understanding.
-Psi Cop
I mean Two Towers. I was enthralled by the second half of the first book, and I was wondering how quickly the second book (or 3rd and 4th) pick up.
Well, I think Tolkien made a deliberate decision to have the first part of the first book be kind of slow. The hobbits wander and wander through the woods and fields and hills seemingly endlessly. But he wanted to set the scene, to get you to feel that Middle Earth was a real solid place. And he wanted to establish the intimate portraits of the hobbits before he sent them out into the wild world and epic adventures of the rest of the books. As you read, pay attention to the subtle changes as the style becomes more and more like an old Norse or Greek myth.
I concur with Psi Cop. The first half of FotR is different from the rest of the work. If you liked everything from about Bree on you will probably like the rest of Lord of the Rings.
The second (and third) volumes don’t really pick up, because they’re already picked up. They’re not sequels in the usual sense of the word; they’re continuations of the same story. I’ll admit that Tolkien isn’t the greatest at beginnings or endings, but that’s for the whole trilogy.
And be prepared for things to slow down a bit in the 2nd half of TT. Slogging thru the dead marshes and around the outskirts of Mordor isn’t quite the rush that Moria, Lorien, and the river Anduin was. Not bad, just a different pace again (imho)
I’m rereading the series now myself, and just finished the chapter “The Old Forest.” Although I’ve read the trilogy (and also The Hobbit many times and absolutely love it, I admit the pace of the first volume drags a bit, especially the section between Frodo’s departure from Bag End and his arrival at Rivendell.
But I continue to be staggered by Tolkien’s achievement. He really did create a whole world; his map of the Shire identifies many place names that are never mentioned in the books, but his attention to detail was such that I have no doubt he had stories and family trees and etymologies to go with every single place name depicted on that map.
So even when the story lags, that’s okay, because the detail in the writing makes me feel like I’m looking through a window into an honest-to-Hod, fully-realized world, not just reading a boring story.
Admittedly, the outskirts of Mordor are a bit of a drag (but then, aren’t they supposed to be?), but it’s worth it to get to “The Choices of Master Samwise”.
I agree that the Fellowship of the Ring was quite slow, but I think The Two Towers was a rollicking good time all the way through. Speaker For the Dead, keep with it, and don’t throw the book across the room when you get to Tom Bombadil. He goes away. Things do get really fun later.
What do you have against Tom? I mean really, he’s pretty cool.
As for the OP goes, I must say that I found the whole story interesting from beginning to end, so I guess I can’t really judge what you’d like, but I think the Two Towers picks up to a suitable pace.
Have you read the Hobbit? Many may disagree with me, but I think it is essential reading before you read the Lord of the Rings. I think it stays more consistantly interesting. The Hobbit introduces you to the world of Middle Earth in a much easier manner and then you enjoy the Lord of the Rings because are already at home in the world. What I particularly enjoyed was the way in which it was told from a different perspective, broader and more aware of what is going on. Don’t let anyone tell you it is just a kid’s book, it is, but it is also something more.
It definitely picks up. I’ve read on several places on the web that Tolkien has said that he was still in a The Hobbit mode when writing the beginning of FOTR, and it didn’t really take until Book II (the second part of FOTR) to get into the movement of the books.
I think what’s great about The Two Towers and ROTK is the pacing between the different story lines. I almost hate to start reading about Pippen and Merry, because I want to read more about Sam and Frodo. But when the Pippen and Merry line pauses, I want to keep reading that, and wish that the Aragorn line would sod off. I think the reason I didn’t enjoy the trilogy that much when I first read it is because I would pick one story line, and scan through the others until I got back to that one line (I think I focused on Sam and Frodo). I didn’t have clue #1 as to what was going on anywhere else.
My only advice is to pay attention. If you feel you aren’t, then put the book down for a while, and when you pick it back up in a few days, start that chapter over.
Have fun!
Munch:
I can see this. I’m up to the entrance to Moria now, and I’ve noticed, among other things, that Frodo and his folk are exclusively referred to as “hobbits” in Book I (the first half of Fellowship of the Ring. We never see the word “halfling” until the Council of Elrond, when Boromir describes his dream. As I recall, as the story wears on we see “halfling” more and more and “hobbit” less and less.
I’d say that’s because “halfling” is not a term used in the north, where the Shire and Rivendell are. It’s exclusive to the south, where it is common in Gondor (though they think of halflings as mythical until they actually meet some). The word for “hobbit” in Rohan is directly translated as “hafling”. I don’t recall the Rohirrim word’s spelling, so I’m not going to try to give it.
As J.R.R. himself said, Middle-Earth is largely of linguistic interest ;).
Sure, sure, Saltire, I never meant there wasn’t a good reason for the change in terms, but it is also nicely illustrative of the general change in tone too, right?
Of course. I was expanding on what you said, not disagreeing. I wanted to show how there are usually at least three reasons for everything in Tolkien, even when he only wrote down one.
“Holbytla”, the Rohirrim word for Frodo’s folk, is translated (into Gondorian Westron) as “Halfling”, but it more literally means something like “burrower”.