Mar 16, 2001 10:38 PM
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IGNORANCE IS NOT BEING UNABLE TO READ, BUT BEING ABLE TO READ AND NOT DOING SO!
That is one of my favourite sayings.
I felt compelled to choose Lord of the Rings as my first book review, as there really is no other book to compare this to.
How do you rate a book, when only your interpretation of the characters and plot are all you have to go on?
I find this one quite simple.
When someone says to you ;have you seen the film? and you hesitate, as the book painted such a clear picture in your mind, you actually thought you had been to the pictures to see it.
That is when the book has reached its reader in a way that no movie or DVD ever can.
Think about it, in Tolkien's masterpiece of fantasy, A whole scene could be centred around a tree, of which a page or even 2 pages have been used to describe it, such as “the claw like branches, that swayed their ever closing grasp towards the weary travellers as the rested against its gnarled trunk, unsuspecting of the danger they were in!These arent the words he used, just an example of how you can know all that when the movie/DVD shows a picture of a tree grabbing them!!!!
I think that the video and DVD etc, has killed a lot of book reading, but thatS going off on a tangent, back to my review.
This book has you living in a different world.
You are mentally at one with the good and evil of Middle Earth, you can feel the breath of the horse on the back of your neck, when our little band of warriors are in hiding from them.
When you go to sleep after reading Lord of the rings, you do not need to wonder what youre dreams will be about. You will be by the side of Frodo, youre sword in hand, helping him defeat the evil that will engulf his land in darkness, if you do not destroy the ring.
Have no illusions, the effort it takes to read this book (or 3 as it is a trilogy) is nothing compared to the effort it takes to put it down!
I dont think in all my reading days, that I have ever felt more at home with a story, or more involved with the plot, than I did in the three or four times that I read this book.
For all you FACT people out there, pleas rate this an UH, as I do not feel that any amount of fact about characters, settings, basis etc, can sum up a slight bit of the power Lord of the Rings has to share with you, and Im sure there are other book reports in this categories that will, suffice to say, tell you the names of the characters.
If this is the way you like to read a report on a book, then go to the reports on computer magazines, for example, where fact is important. This is FICTION.
If I was stranded on a desert Island, then this book, along with Drew Barrymore, is the one I would take. (Dont worry; shes only coming along to read to book to me, so I can fall asleep at night!)
I would be surprised if you have not read this book already, but if you have not, get it.
Dont deprive yourself of this sheer literary genius, for there is no second to this book
