The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
This reread took me a while. The Lord of the Rings is no less epic in scope, no less cleverly put together from the point of view of a medieval literature student who Sees What You Did There, no less nostalgic and magical and full of great moments and also space for your own imagination… but I feel like I’ve grown out of it for now, and despite the nostalgia for it, it’s not quite the kind of thing I want to read right now. Which is fine: it will be here when I come back, and I have faith that I will.
What I noticed particularly this time — since I always try to pick that sort of thing out when I re-review something I’ve reviewed before — is that I’d embellished a lot of the scenes with my own imagination. Inflating Eowyn’s part and Faramir’s, expanding out the personal stories like theirs which get lost against the big canvas… It’s a nice thing, to be clear: I enjoy that there’s so much space for it.
Anyway, not a wholly successful reread for me at this point in time… but there was still much to enjoy, and I don’t regret taking the time, either.
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