BOOK REVIEW- THE LORD OF THE RINGS My first book review will be about my absolute favorite book of all time: the Lord of the Rings. ‘The story Is separated in three volumes, The Fellowship of the Ring (1954), the two ‘Towers (1954), and The Return of the King (1955), all written by J.R.R. Tolkien, ‘ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Ronald Revel Tolkien was born on the third of January 1892 in Bloemfontain, South Africa, and died on the second of September 1973 in Bournemouth, England. He is still considered as one of ‘the greatest English writer ever, and even though his fame mainly comes from the Lord of the Rings, he is also known as the writer of The Hobbit (which has had a lot of success too), the Silmarilion and Roverandom, fm He wes, all in the same time, poet, writer, philologist (philology being the sclence of study of languages in written sources), and English language and Literature professor in the Pembroke College, Oxford, PLOT AND CHARACTERS ‘The story takes place in Middle Earth, another world we could say, even if it is similar to ours in some ways. Itis inhabited by Men, but also other races such as Dwarves, Elves, Orcs, Hobbits, the Ents, and other less famous such as Malar (spirits with great power. The Wizards are Malar).In this Middle Earth, 2 deeply buried fear has been awoken, The Great Ring, the Ring of Power, forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to take control of the world three thousand years before, has been found. It was taken from its master when his body was destroyed as he was overthrown by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, and taken by Isildur, a Man, heir to the throne of Gondor. ‘When Isildur was ambushed and slain, the ring was lost, but was eventually found again, then re-lost. And now, the Ring has awoken, and his master, whose spirit remained on Middle Earth, is trying to get it back. At the beginning of the story, the Ring isin the hands of Frodo Baggins, a Hobbit from the Shire (a place that Sauron had never cared about until then}, who will, with the advices of the Wizard Gandalf, take it to Rivendell, and then to the dark land of Mordor, to cast it into the fire it was forged in, that is the volcano of Orodruin, the only way to destroy it Of course, a single Hobbit (a race of child-sized people, with hairy feet and a great passion for beer, mushrooms, and eating in general) would not be able to do this task alone, pursued by the Nazgils, 9 invincible beings sent by Sauron to get his Ring back, an army of Orcs, and Saruman the traitor Wizard. So he gets the aid of his friends, the Hobbits Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took (Pippin) and Meriadoc Brandybuck (Merry), Gandalf the Wizard, the Elf Legolas, Gimli the Dwarf and the Men Aragorn, heir of lsildur, and Boromir, who is to be the Steward of Gondor. xen rig DageradMY POINT OF VIEW | really enjoyed this book, of course, for many reasons. | found the plot really interesting. Of course, this type of plot with a main antagonist who wants to take control of the world may seem cliché, but at the time the book was written, it was ‘new. That said, Tolkien really managed to create a very well developed dark atmosphere. There is always something dark and evil chasing after the fellowship. The Nazgal, Saruman, Gollum... There is, always a danger tracking the protagonists, and makes the reader never feel bored by the story. Secondly, and mainly, the world Tolkien depicts is not only well detailed. itis probably the best detailed world ever created by a writer for a book. You could read the book and every appendixes at the end a dozen times (as | did) and still not exactly know who is who. Some details are ‘not even included in the Lord of the Rings that you will have to find by your own means if you really are interested, which include the history of Middle Earth or information about the races of this place. ‘The author also created a lot of languages which all have their own grammatical subtleties, pronunciation and sometimes even their own alphabet. He also created an incredibly complete etymology of almost each and every place name in his world, and sometimes even of the names of his characters, such as Gamgee he gives a full explanation and origin. But there is a couple things you need to be aware of before starting to read the book. The first is the length. Because if you don’t feel ready to read 1031 pages ofa single story written in an English that may not be easy to read, don’t try because you will be disappointed. Secondly comes the characters. Their personality, except for the four Hobbits, is not really developed, the author focusing more on their relation to the plot and to their personal story and family. So if when you read a book, you are really attached to the fact that every single character has a strong personality, you may not like this aspect. If both of these problems mean nothing to you, I can only recommend you to read this book if it is not already done! CINEMA ADAPTATION ‘The Lord of the Rings has had a few cinema adaptations, the most famous being Peter Jackson's. The three opuses are among the most awarded films in the history of cinema, with The Fellowship of the Ring (2001, 4 Oscars), The Two Towers (2002, two Oscars) and The Return of the King (2003, 11 Oscars, which is a record the film shares with Ben Hur and Titanic). ‘The series was starring many of the greatest actors of the time such as Orlando Bloom (as Legolas), Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn), Elijeh Wood (Frodo) and Christopher Lee (Saruman).