I am a closet nerd. No, that is not the secret, and considering I have trumpeted my nerdiness right here, the adjective "closet" is of questionable accuracy. I am a hugely dedicated, my wife would say borderline obsessive, consumer of fantasy fiction. Nope, that’s not it either. From stand-alones such as The Hobbit through to series by David Eddings as a pre-teen, I launched into authors such as Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobb, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan, JK Rowling, George RR Martin & Steven Erikson, with hundreds of books between. I love the fantasy genre.
The recent release of the film version of The Hobbit brings to mind my guilty secret. The Lord Of The Rings trilogy is a good story in desperate need of an editor, and I place it far down the list of fantasy books that I would recommend to a friend. There, I’ve said it: my secret is out.
Ugly = Bad
I will let three brief examples tell the tale of the whole. Firstly, it takes forever for the book to truly get going. Secondly, the ending seems to go on and on and on. Thirdly, there is no nuance: good guys are attractive or cute, bad guys are ugly. My three year old nephew can tell which side everyone is on.
The hobbits don’t truly exit the Shire until Chapter Six, and then there is a period of muddling about on the edge of the Shire with Tom Bombadil, meaning they don’t get on with the story until Chapter Nine! In my fancy-pants edition of the first book, which is 427 pages in total, they leave the Shire on page 125 and are rid of Tom Bombadil on page 165. It takes almost one third of the book to get out of the Shire! They then meet Strider, visit elves, form the Fellowship, lose Gandalf, go through the mines, are betrayed, separated, fight a troll, meet a balrog and all sorts of other exciting things. The movie The Fellowship Of The Ring (the first of the trilogy) was by far better than the book. I can’t think of any other film adaptation that surpasses the original book form, but I also can’t think of any other books with as lengthy and pointless a plot digression as Tom Bombadil (Chapters 6-8).
My "fancy pants" edition
As drawn out as the start of the trilogy is, the ending borders on the ridiculous. There are at least four end-points that Tolkien sails past. When Frodo and Sam were saved by the eagles as Mount Doom is about to blow up is a good finish point. When Sam and Frodo were presented to Aragorn would also be a great spot to finish, as would Aragorn’s entry and coronation in Gondor. The marriage between Aragorn and Arwen again is a logical place to finish, but the story sails on, and on and on.
There ends up being some eighty pages of loose-end tying from when Frodo and Sam are saved by the eagles until Frodo finally jumps on the ship to the Havens. This final finale is undoubtedly great for everyone who has read a book and gotten to the final fifty pages and wished that the end wasn’t so close, but the story doesn’t need any of it. True, we wouldn’t know that Sam married Rosie and they had a daughter, that Saruman was killed by Wormtongue, that Faramir married Eowen, that Bilbo lived to be older than the Old Took, and many other tidbits, but we didn’t really need to know any of that either.
There ends up being some eighty pages of loose-end tying from when Frodo and Sam are saved by the eagles until Frodo finally jumps on the ship to the Havens. This final finale is undoubtedly great for everyone who has read a book and gotten to the final fifty pages and wished that the end wasn’t so close, but the story doesn’t need any of it. True, we wouldn’t know that Sam married Rosie and they had a daughter, that Saruman was killed by Wormtongue, that Faramir married Eowen, that Bilbo lived to be older than the Old Took, and many other tidbits, but we didn’t really need to know any of that either.
So my secret is out. Tolkien’s book isn’t as sharp as it could be, nor is it the finest example of the fantasy fiction genre. It is, however, the source of inspiration for many modern writers, and the entry point for so many tragic followers of the genre, and its importance is undeniable. Also, it is a very fun, comforting old story, and when I found myself sucked in to reading large swathes of it (yet again) whilst researching this blog entry, I start to wonder if I’ve been a little harsh.