The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien

So I finally finished The Two Towers. It took me 10 days, but it felt much longer. Just like the movie, I just cannot get into the second book. I know a lot happens in both of them, but for me, the book and the movie just drag on and on and on.

Five Sentence Summary

(Source: Kelsey Darling)

The fellowship has been separated and Sauron is gaining power! Gandalf is dead, as is Boromir; Merry and Pippin have been carried off by orcs; Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn head off in search of them; and Frodo and Sam have split off from the rest in hopes of getting the ring to Mordor. The trio, while looking for Merry and Pippin, while on their way to King Théoden, run into an old friend who helps change things for the positive. Merry and Pippin make friends with an ent who also brings a positive change of tides. And Frodo and Sam take in an untrustworthy companion who gets them where they need to go...for a price.  

I guess my biggest issue with the book is that it splits the story up into each group, and you run through the course of their story, and then you move to the next group. So it starts with Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn following the hobbits trail. And then they discover Gandalf is not dead. And then there is the battle for Helm's Deep. And then they are reunited with Pippin and Merry. And then it goes back to the beginning from when Pippin and Merry were separated from the group, and their trek with the orcs and the escape, and then when they meet Treebeard, and the ents attack on Isengard, and then being reunited with the trio. And then you go ALL the way back to the Frodo and Sam leaving the group and following their journey. This really killed me. All three groups have some downtime where they're just walking and nothing is happening. Tolkien could have switched between the three groups, and I believe that would have helped any lag in the story.

But I guess what really makes the book hard for me is how dark the book is. Not in subject matter, although it is that too. No, like physically dark. Because of all the warring going on, the scenery is always shrouded in darkness. A lot of travelling happens a night. The sky is constantly described as dark. I know that I am not physically travelling through Middle Earth, but Tolkien is a writer who transports the reader to Middle Earth, and the darkness really wears you down. 

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Also, it might be that because I am not a fan of the movie, and I have seen that countless time, but because it is not my favorite out of the trilogy, maybe some of that negativity rubbed off on my feelings for the book. 

What The Two Towers does have are ents. These are some of my favorite creatures in the realm of Middle Earth. They talk slowly, and they are in no hurry; the appreciate the finer things in life, though it is a dwindling breed as the ent wives have gone missing. But they are also fierce and formidable. I would never want to anger an ent, let alone the who race of them, as Saruman has done.

"They found that they were looking at a most extraordinary face. It belonged to a large Man-like, almost Troll-like, figure, at least fourteen foot hight, very sturdy, with a tall head, and hardly any neck. Whether it was clad in stuff like green and grey bark, or whether that was its hide, was difficult to say. At any rate the arms, at a short distance from the trunk, were not wrinkled, but covered with a brown smooth skin. The large feet had seven toes each. The lower part of the long face was covered with a sweeping grey beard, bushy, almost twiggy at the roots, thin and mossy at the ends. But at the moment the hobbits noted little but the eyes. These deep eyes were now surveying them, slow and solemn, but very penetrating. They were brown, shot with green light. Often afterwards Pippin tried to describe his first impression of them....

A queen look came into the old eyes, a kind of wariness; the deep wells were covered over. 'Hrum, now' answered the voice; 'well, I am an Ent, or that is what they call me. Yes Ent is the word. The Ent, I am, you might say, in your manner of speaking. Fangorn is my name according to some, Treebeard others make it. Treebeard will do.' (p. 64)

(Source: Giphy)

I also enjoy the fact that Legolas and Gimli make a game out of slaying orcs. For some reason, I thought that was just something made for the movies. None the less, I enjoyed their witty banter. I think that is why I would have liked the chapters interwoven, because there is not much joy in Sam and Frodo's chapters.

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 Another bit that I assumed would have been just for cinematic comic relief was Sam and Gollum's conversation about potatoes. Again, I never would have imagined Tolkien writing a scene about potatoes, but I guess that man had a sense of humor.

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It's not a bad book, in any way. It is just a very long journey with a lot of characters, places, and moving parts, and very little joy. But it as Mr. Samwise Gamgee said:

"And we shouldn't be here at all, if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and song, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were wonderful things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been landed in them, usually-their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on-and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same-like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in. (p. 362)

Not only is it true in the book, it is true in life. 

Rating: 7/10

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien

Series: The Lord of the Rings (Book 2 of 3)

Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Classics

Dates Read: January 20-30, 2019