It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: someone has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them.’ And so here we are 20th Feb 2019 and I've finished Book 2. I must admit I had wondered if after such a gap from reading LotR and watching the films so many times if I would enjoy the book(s) as much, I think I can now 2/3rds of the way through safely say that somehow the film experience has made me love the book more (if that is possible).

He included songs and poems, stating more than once that true magic lies in both (as is represented by the elves for example). His nature descriptions are not only sweeping and vivid, but also utterly beautiful. His dialogues, while being quite wordy, are fluent and artistic. Not all the party have been fully tested. With them travel four young hobbits, the most unlikely of companions for such a journey. They are the overlooked, the forgotten about, the race that is casually discarded and considered insignificant in the wider world. And perhaps this has been the downfall of society in middle earth previously. The forces of darkness exploit everything they can get their hands on, from giant spiders to rampaging trolls, from dragons to orcs, from men of the east to the undead, Sauron tries to wield it all. This is something the forces of good have not fully considered until recently. Within the bosom of the hobbit beats a strong heart of fortitude and resilience. Most important is the fact that Tolkien was a wordsmith. He was not only a scholar at one of THE most famous universities in the world; he was not only fluent in several languages; he was not only keen on any mythology you can think of. He combined all of that in his writing. Apparently, he didn't write it to get published, thinking nobody would be interested, and thus wrote to his heart's content. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world’), пееш песни, любуваш се на новите неща и очите ти са грамадни като палачинки в стремежа ти да обемеш всичкото това ново, което ти се случва – това ще да е периодът на младостта. По-нататък обаче постепенно осъзнаваш, че на плещите си носиш истински тежко бреме, че имаш отговорности, че провалът вече означава твърде много, означава всичко. Песните вече са осезаемо по-малко, пееш си от дъжд на вятър и то по-скоро за кураж и за да си спомниш миналото, когато нещата бяха простички, а не за да се веселиш. И тъй както в живота има моменти на надежда, но има и стремглави пропадания в непрогледни глъбини, понякога си сам сред гмежта, а понякога има приятел, който да ти подаде ръка, и правиш крачка след крачка, и продължаваш, защото знаеш, че тази битка е твоя и няма кой да я води вместо теб. И се осланяш на мъждукащото упование, че един ден ще можеш въздъхвайки да кажеш „Е, върнах се“.Authors who inspire a movement are usually misunderstood, especially by those they have inspired, and Tolkien is no exception, but one of the biggest misconceptions about Tolkien is the idea that he is somehow an 'innovator of fantasy'. He did add a number of techniques to the repertoire of epic fantasy writers, and these have been dutifully followed by his many imitators, but for the most part, these techniques are little more than bad habits.

El hecho de que estos escritores puedan crear todo un universo entero, una mitología de personajes, lugares e historias es algo realmente poderoso y muy difícil de imitar y considero que son autores tocados por la genialidad y difícilmente puedan ser igualados en la literatura. Of course, sci fi and horror have their prodigies and milestones too, but they can go and splitter in many different subgenres, focus on psychological elements with characterization, or just epic battle and splatter, but fantasy is extremely genre standard focused regarding what to deliver and hasn´t that much room for experiments, kind of traditional in what it should deliver. And Tolkien set the standards for it, showed how to do it, and helped to inspire the production of dozens of great series, hundreds of average ones, and an innumerable amount of fanfiction. Of course, his inspiration came from the millennia of storytelling that formed the works he took for his reinterpretations, so any aspiring fantasy author could see her/himself as an ancestor of a tradition to not just pass the stories themselves. But the much more important part, the ability to tell them, to use tropes and creative writing to hypnotize readers and eat away their lifetime with multi k behemoths of fantasy series. Perhaps the one place where political events in Tolkien's own life affect the narrative is in the episode at the very end of The Scouring of the Shire. Here we see History catch up with the Idyllic and somewhat isolated Shire where violence (the sad, pathetic revenge of Saruman on Bilbo and Frodo for having thwarted his plans) rages across the land, nature is destroyed, and industrialization arises. This represents the Industrial Revolution but also the coming of age for Tolkien himself in WWI and, I would argue, the bombing of Oxford during the Battle of Britain during WWII that he experienced first-hand as well. It is interesting that this is included as a coda after the main action of the epic is already concluded, as if he had this one other thing to say before sending Gandalf, Frodo and Bilbo off to Grey Haven with the Elves, thus definitively ending the pre-Modern Middle Earth (and by extension Medieval and Revolutionary Europe) and entering into the Modern/Industrial Age. I have read LotR many times over the years, in fact it is I think the book I have read the most in this world, which i suppose makes it my favourite book, albeit closely followed by half a dozen others (shout if you want to know or take a gander at my favourites shelf). The, some may say a bit too intense gaytrix style, Frodo Sam relationships gets tragic, because as so often with substance abuse, both body and soul get ruined by it and the ones who suffer are family and friends. One could go one more meta step and say that it´s not just addiction, but ideological contamination too, that extremism and faith poison the minds of normally friendly people who carry their toxicity home and make living together hell. Because, all in all, it´sHe INVENTED several languages for this book - complete with grammar and all. Linguists have marvelled over Tolkien's affinity and mastery for generations and I feel the same. Many authors use made-up languages but not a single one of them actually sat down and drew up one as whole as Tolkien did. Pippin being a “young” hobbit: 29? You are quite old. Wow, child of Minas Tirith, at least Pippin didn’t die at the ripe age of childbirth

Y el viaje de Aragorn por el Sendero de los Muertos inexorablemente remite al descenso de Eneas a los infiernos en la “Eneida” de Virgilio.Most of my standards for comparison also derive from this tome. I have yet to encounter a mentor character in fantasy who can compare to Gandalf, or a fictional love story that can compare to the tale of Aragorn and Arwen. I have yet to encounter a setting as detailed or writing as flawlessly eloquent as this. And those are only a few examples of aspects in which I consider The Lord of the Rings to be superior to all others. The books are racist; they are sexist. They are not perfect. And I must criticize the elements of The Lord of the Rings that make me uncomfortable and deserve no praise. But my complaints and the complaints of critics make Tolkien's achievement no less great. I put "just" in my marking of 5 stars and I think it is only just a five star read. Nothing is really "wrong" with this book, it just isn't as good ad the previous 2 in my opinion. Yes the battles are more epic, the journeys are more dangerous, the stakes are even higher (the safety of the the world) and the finale in Mordor is unbelievably dramatic but for some reason, despite being truly emotional about many scenes, yes there were tears rolling down my face, I still felt it was for some reason just not quite as good. Horror, Sci-Fi, or crime had no similar big bangs (fringe theory, by the way, to provoke and insult even more additional people than with just the human degeneration gag above lol) but different founders, prodigies, and subgenres, while fantasy was, stayed, and will be very genre compliant, not to say a bit inflexible in contrast to other genres with much vaster differences, especially sci fi, my bread and peanut butter. So one could say that close to every, no matter if grimdark, YA, high, epic, romantic, etc. fantasy, is always quite the same with some variations of magic systems, the balance of focus on protagonists or antagonists, tone, and the rare establishment of the one or other sub sub genre. This body of work is, of course, the genre-defining classic of modern fantasy --especially epic, or "high" fantasy -- which popularized the genre as the publishing market force it is today, exerted enormous influence over practically all subsequent fantasy authors (including R. A. Salvatore and Terry Brooks), and set the conventions readers would come to expect: a pre-technological setting, an epochal struggle between good and evil whose outcome is determined by magical factors, and a demand for personal moral growth on the part of the characters thrust into a pivotal role in that struggle. And Tolkien's depictions of wizards, elves, dwarfs, dragons, etc. became the template for all subsequent portrayals of these creatures.