Tolkien wrote the book, I think, pretty much on his own. I just finished another re-read of it and I love it more than almost any other book out there. I have no idea how much genius could be contained within one mind and this book is the perfect example of that.
Still, I do find that there are a few things I am not a fan of. I probably would change:
Remove Tom Bombadil. I agree with the movie on this one. It not only interrupts(or pauses) the story, I feel like it is really lame and poorly thought out. They meet him, he can not be affected by the ring, and sends them on their way. Then…he comes and saves them immediately and then we don’t see him again.
I respect that even Tolkien realized he better have them address Bombadil in the council of the ring. They suggest giving it to him…but realize he would forget about it or misplace it.
Make it so that the Hobbits are aware of the potential Scouring of the Shire before they get there? The whole “Sharkey” business isn’t needed. Just go back and deal with it. I like this chapter, but it feels somewhat unfinished to me.
Gollum falling/tumbling to his death in Mount Doom. I don’t know the filmmakers got it right, but I do think the book could use a revision here to find a better way to have this aspect of the story playout. I mean, Frodo can’t push Golllum in, Frodo can’t fall to his death with Gollum…but I think there may be a better option than the version we get in the book. It kind of feels like “God killed him” to me.
I have more thoughts I’m sure, but I’ll cut it there. However, I will recommend something to everyone.
Phil Dragash made the greatest audiobook I have ever heard and it is the Lord of the Rings. He does ALL the voices and mixed in Howard Shore’s music throughout. I have a copy because he put it on his website free of charge(he did not get the rights).
It is a crying shame his version is not more widely available. It is the absolute best version of LotR I have ever experience and I have listened to it twice in two years. I heard it is up on archive.org, but I am not sure. A truly incredible achievment. If you can find a way to grab it, do so. I told my wife, “In a way…it’s the most full experience of Lord of the Rings I’ve ever had.” It’s a pity not everyone can have it.
But if you’re not happy with that, consider it instead “the Ring killed him”. On the slopes of Mount Doom, Frodo used the Ring, in the way it was meant to be used, to tell Gollum that if he tried to take the ring again, he would himself be cast into the fire. Which is exactly what happened. Think of it as a lesson in the short-sightedness of evil.
Sadly, I think this is simply unexamined cultural prejudice from the times he grew up in (and was still living in, come to that). The good (and white) people live in the northwest part of the continent (i.e. Britain and maybe western Europe), and they are beset by different-looking people from the east and south. Also the good people are closer to Valar (or were, before it became impossible for humans to get there).
There is some sense in the book that the Southrons and Easterlings were not originally bad (i.e. not necessarily bad by nature) but that they got corrupted by Sauron over hundreds or thousands of years. It’s small comfort on this issue.
As for Gollum, he had exactly the perfect end that he needed to have for this story. It was the ring that killed him – once he finally got it back, he was so delirious that he had no idea where he was or what he was doing, and he danced over the edge. He was addicted to the ring, and sudden access to it was like an overdose of euphoria.
JRRT did write about ‘faithful’ nonwhites, particularly the ‘swarthy’ folks led by Bor who allied with the Eldar and fought and died combatting Morgoth’s host.
The druedain were also described as swarthy folks, who were of the Edain and even came to Numenor for a time, before moving back to Middle earth. Ghan-Buri-Ghan was one of their descendants.
And his ‘black’ numenorians were not dark skinned, but were called black because they’d been corrupted by Sauron.
Frankly, he was pretty progressive in his treatment of race and gender for his time. And he’s notable for dissing the Nazis in the 1930’s and writing he regretted not having any jewish ancestry.
Having never been able to sustain interest long enough to finish LOTR or the Hobbit, I guess I’d make the prose easier to wade through and make both works less of a sausage fest.
Watch or read this sometime with a disability activist for many suggestions on places to revise unwhole/physically asymmetrical = bad. Also, more women who actually do things.
LOTR is better in this respect than The Hobbit, at least; and maybe better (or at least no worse than) most other adventure novels written up until that time?
I saw a (female) commentator on YouTube who was, at least, pleasantly surprised at the lack of “toxic masculinity” in LOTR.
Actually, I mis-wrote. He wasn’t bad in the legal sense, he was, at the end, insane. He behaved badly, because he was driven insane by Sauron (rather than corrupted, in my opinion). Sauron fed him images of disaster for the forces of the West, made everything seem hopeless, and his own weaknesses and pride did the rest.
I believe we get one reference of, “The Dwarves will soon be too busy fighting wars in their own land, if they are not already” or something.
Yeah, I’d agree. Listen, if you cut the Beren and Luthien storyline and shove it in the appdendix, maybe just abandon it entirely and have him fall for Eowyn.
Faramir was made up when Tolkien realized he needed a character there(It’s in his letters I think). I guess hooking him up with Eowyn was a way to give them both endings.
