Level
Lord of the Rings is a very beautiful book. One thing that hits me on every page is the tremendous loss every character feels. It's as if even as Tolkien wrote this book, he felt the world he created slipping from his fingers. I feel sad reading his descriptions of this world because I can almost feel how sad he must have been to see a bit more of it pass with each page he wrote.
Every character in this book is a phantom. A shadow of the former glory that they all dream about yet know is long gone.
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Another level that I never understood about this story until now, is that there is no Lord of the Rings. Every character in this story is a slave to the ring in some way. And also the Ring has more power because once it is gone, so goes the last thread of the glory days of Middle earth. It can be seen as the last remnant of a world the fellowship characters wish they could live in, but that they know must be destroyed.
I'm on the last chapter of Fellowship. The last thing that really makes me feel a connection to this book is knowing that Tolkein never planned to write it. He planned to write about the glory days of his middle earth, and that became a book that was never finished because he became so enslaved in writing about the last days of his world. I can picture his agony that must have gone into every page, the great desire to finish the book and go back to writing about the time he loved. Yet the urge to stay in the story as long as he could because when the last page was done his world would be gone forever, no matter how many pages he filled in his other books. This book must have a piece of his soul on ever page.
Every character in this book is a phantom. A shadow of the former glory that they all dream about yet know is long gone.
____________
Another level that I never understood about this story until now, is that there is no Lord of the Rings. Every character in this story is a slave to the ring in some way. And also the Ring has more power because once it is gone, so goes the last thread of the glory days of Middle earth. It can be seen as the last remnant of a world the fellowship characters wish they could live in, but that they know must be destroyed.
I'm on the last chapter of Fellowship. The last thing that really makes me feel a connection to this book is knowing that Tolkein never planned to write it. He planned to write about the glory days of his middle earth, and that became a book that was never finished because he became so enslaved in writing about the last days of his world. I can picture his agony that must have gone into every page, the great desire to finish the book and go back to writing about the time he loved. Yet the urge to stay in the story as long as he could because when the last page was done his world would be gone forever, no matter how many pages he filled in his other books. This book must have a piece of his soul on ever page.