The Lord of the Rings

(I'm going to apologize ahead of time to those of you who are unfamiliar with the epic story of The Lord of the Rings. Not only will you have a hard time appreciating this blog post, but you are seriously missing out.)

You only need to talk with me for a short time to understand my passion for The Lord of the Rings. Actually, it's one of the few subjects I can actually go on and on (and on!) about. I'm not usually a talkative person, but ha! If you start a conversation about The Lord of the Rings you would never guess that. I do try to be courteous to those poor people who aren't as fanatical as myself, though. Which is why I gave you that warning at the beginning. So you can leave now if you don't want to read a whole long post about The Lord of the Rings.

Now, a few of the things I love about this story: First of all, the story itself. As a story-lover, I think I kind of look at The Lord of the Rings as the ultimate story. Yes, it is long, and Tolkien uses a lot of description, but honestly, the story is set in a fantasy world--it needs to be described. The Lord of the Rings has all the elements of a good story: well-developed and lovable characters, a clear goal and a hard time getting there, and unexpected twists along the way. It also has a positive theme, a very clear good vs. evil set-up. Many people have called it an allegory, but I don't think that is what it is meant to be, although it does still contain many elements of 'The Great Story'. I think all good stories do. I would analyze the theme more for you, but I don't particularly enjoy that sort of thing and prefer to just enjoy the story. :)

As I mentioned before, the characters are excellent. All the ones that need to be well-rounded are so. The good guys have faults (except for maybe Sam...) but they are still endearing and intriguing and I always want to get to know them better and learn about their history and how that has maybe impacted who they are.

Which leads me to another point. I think one of the biggest things I love about Tolkien's work is how extensive it is. His real passion was language and mythology, and that played in hugely to his development of Middle-Earth and its history. The best part is that all that history is written down! There is such a wealth of details in The Silmarillion and the appendices of The Lord of the Rings. I am a researcher at heart, so I love being able to have a question about some character or event or something and then go look it up to find out the answer! It's awesome! :D And I usually end up discovering (or rediscovering) things I wasn't even looking for in the first place. I'm going to go back and reread The Silmarillion sometime soon. And The Lord of the Rings. Yes. That too.

I could go on about this for quite a bit longer, but I said what I really wanted to say, so I won't keep you. If you love The Lord of the Rings as much as I do and feel like talking about it for extensive amounts of time, please comment or email or whatever! If you haven't read The Lord of the Rings, you have my pity, and please get to it as soon as possible. It's well worth your time! Thanks for bearing with me either way! ;)