Paranoid Fish reviewed The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien
Second Try
3 stars
When I first tried to read “Lord of the Rings” I was only a kid, perhaps twelve years old, and I got very bored during the first half of volume two, so I didn’t read any further and forgot about it for a while. Looking back now, I was maybe a little bit too young back then. So now, forty years later, being someone who just can’t stand having only read half of a famous book, I’m back again at it; but I must say, it is still quite boring at times. Even though it’s considered “High Fantasy”, there’s still a lot of Sword & Sorcery in it (which I usually don’t like very much), there are endless descriptions of walking through landscapes and of military operations, and there is, to my taste at least, still too much glorification of heroism. I will definitely finish it this time, but it …
When I first tried to read “Lord of the Rings” I was only a kid, perhaps twelve years old, and I got very bored during the first half of volume two, so I didn’t read any further and forgot about it for a while. Looking back now, I was maybe a little bit too young back then. So now, forty years later, being someone who just can’t stand having only read half of a famous book, I’m back again at it; but I must say, it is still quite boring at times. Even though it’s considered “High Fantasy”, there’s still a lot of Sword & Sorcery in it (which I usually don’t like very much), there are endless descriptions of walking through landscapes and of military operations, and there is, to my taste at least, still too much glorification of heroism. I will definitely finish it this time, but it is straining and less fun than I thought. Still, what’s impressing to it, and that’s what I think made it so famous, is Tolkien’s love for details in imagining middle earth, his verbose world building; his storytelling however I find rather lengthy and mediocre. (Disclaimer: Written by a non-native speaker without any use of AI – may contain mistakes and awkward formulations)