The first time I ever read The Lord of the Rings, no sooner had I closed The Return of the King upon finishing it, that I dove for my copy of The Hobbit and began rereading without a millisecond of delay. As I am known as an obsessive person, this was looked upon coldly by my non-Ringie family. When people asked “What are you reading?” and I replied “The Lord of the Rings”, the response I got most often was “Again? How can it be that interesting?”. I really wasn’t sure. All I knew is that it was my new favourite book and didn’t put much thought into it.
A bit later, I made a convert of my mum, when, after I had forced her to watch Peter Jackson’s Fellowship of the Ring and Two Towers, she couldn’t wait for the end and stole my copy of The Return of the King. Upon her finishing it, although it did not spark an immediate, fanatical reread, she remarked that it was one of the best books she’d ever read. And this coming from my formerly anti-Tolkien mum!
So what made The Lord of the Rings so enthralling? As I was putting some thought into this, I had some vague recollection of a British Literature textbook that I had read which listed qualities of an epic. According to Jan Anderson and Laurel Hicks, an epic has these traditional qualities: it is about a great national hero, it is written in lofty language, it contains supernatural elements, and it explores the struggle of good and evil.
Tolkien easily fulfills these qualifications. His characters are well developed, and one almost instantly makes a “connection” with one or more of them upon reading. Another virtue is his manner of writing. Although The Lord of the Rings has only been written in the last fifty years, roughly, you could almost believe that you are reading a history preserved from an ancient past. Its poetry and flow carry the story, while embellishing it and endowing it with a “tale of old” feel. Add in Tolkien’s magical Middle-earth and his compelling struggle over the One Ring, and he has more than won the rank of “epic”.
While explaining this to people helps me justify my obsessive reading and rereading of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and to impress non-Ringies, my first impression was still just as correct: they are just great books. It may be cool to label them epics, but you certainly don’t have to delve into an entire analysis to appreciate them. So give me my dilapitated, over-read, falling-apart-at-the-spine copies of The Lord of the Rings. I only finished them again about a month ago… It’s probably time I read them again!
by shirehobbit
