JRR Tolkein, The Two Towers

I dragged through parts of this book. I started it already sold on Aragorn, so the first half of it was quite enjoyable. And I loved Treebeard - such a creative character and race. Then we got to Frodo and Sam. They're traveling toward Mordor with Gollum and I feel like not much is happening and it's just going on for chapters. I didn't understand how the little nuances could be character development and I didn't think much of these characters (except Gollum, but he's still a bit of a mystery) so I really lost a lot of my interest. I stopped at a point here for a week long break because I didn't want to try to push myself through it.

Turns out I just postponed dragging through it until this weekend. But! It got better when they met Faramir - he's an absolutely interesting character and I want to read more about him right away. And then Sam actually steps up at the very end Sam takes a big developmental step and I found myself actually cheering for him. It's a far more impressive step in the book, so I didn't really love it in the movie in past viewings.

So overall, I liked The Towers. Not my favorite book, but I'm certainly interested enough to finish the trilogy.

J.R.R. Tolkein, The Fellowship of the Ring

This was actually a reread. I first read it during Winter Break my freshman year of college (Jan 2003). The movie had recently come out and I can't remember if I had watched the movie yet or not. I had received the entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy for Christmas and all my friends were reading it. I remember really liking it and I'm pretty sure that I only stopped after this one due to the spring semester starting. In the last year and a half, I've been hearing all about how awesome The Lord of the Rings is and we decided to kick off 2009 by reading it for book club.

After having seen the extended edition of Fellowship twice in the last four months, I was more than ready to go back through and reread it slowly. I really took my time reading it instead of trying to keep up with anyone else's pace. I also spent a lot of time reading in the airport and on the plane this past week to finish it. I didn't really remember much from the last read so I really enjoyed it this time. There was so much that I hadn't picked up on. It was more fun to see that the other people in book club who have read it before are picking up on quite a lot themselves. Fellowship seems exceptionally layered with so much that I could probably reread it every few years and continue to pick up more with each reread. I assume that will be true of the last two books in the trilogy as well.

One of the debates we've had so far is why Fellowship ends where it does in the book instead of in the place it ends in the movie. In the movie, we see the orcs attacks and Boromir dies before Sam and Frodo leave the Fellowship. In the book, Boromir doesn't die until the beginning of The Two Towers. I really like the ending of the book better since it leaves you with the importance of Frodo and Sam and their mission to destroy the ring.

I've started The Two Towers and I'm really excited to read my way through the whole trilogy.