Let's Bust a Recap : The Lord of the Rings

Y'all. I know I wrote a novel-length post on Friday, and today we're diving right back in with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. These are the books I have finished the most recently, but I am ready to talk about them, and I can't promise that this will be a concise post either. So for that, sorry. But also: not sorry. 

Also, we're definitely going into spoiler territory with this one. The Hobbit is 85 years old and The Return of the King is nearly 70, so I don't feel too bad about this, but if you've been holding out on this classic saga to read it for yourself: reader beware.

And while we're issuing warnings, we're going on a deep dive into my history with Lord of the Rings so if you're not interested: I get it. 

Why all the drama for these books, Hannah? Fair question. It goes way back for me, so buckle up.

Way back when I started this blog, I talked about my LIFE LIST OF BOOKS I WANT TO READ BEFORE I DIE. It's a real thing and it's very serious and The Lord of the Rings has had a permanent and prominent spot on it since I was a literal child. I grew up loving C.S. Lewis. My dad read us The Chronicles of Narnia before we could embrace them for ourselves. I wrote papers on Lewis in high school and college. And his books even now show up on every single annual book list I make for myself. He and Tolkien are inseparable in my mind, and I've been equally aware of The Lord of the Rings since I was very young. I've read The Hobbit and loved it. But for whatever reason, The Lord of the Rings has always intimidated me. I'm not sure if it's the sheer length, my history with the film franchise (don't worry, we're getting to that), or the fact that the few times I tried to start reading it, I gave up very quickly. But this trilogy definitely falls in the Big Fish category, and I had a hard time pulling the trigger. (And yes, we mix metaphors around here. I apologize for that, too.) I have literally pulled them off the shelf every single year since I started making my book lists, and every single year, they haven't made the cut and have gone back to their spot on the shelf. 

Every. Single. Year.

But 2022 is the year that all changed. I attribute this in part to the fact that my sister-in-law read them last year, and I had a serious case of FOMO over it. So this year, they were the first books I pulled and they were non-negotiable. I pulled The Hobbit as well, just because I know it and I love it and I figured it would be a good way to ease into Middle-earth before tagging along on Frodo's epic adventure. My husband committed to reading them, too, because he's been in the same boat with me of wanting to read them but putting it off. He even borrowed his sister's copies so we wouldn't have to share. 

Speaking of my husband, let's go ahead and circle back to my experience with the movies. Peter Jackson's blockbuster adaptations of this trilogy were coming out while I was in high school, and at first I couldn't be bothered with them at all. I didn't want to watch them without having read the books. And on top of that, I wasn't dying to watch a bunch of bloody orc wars, and elves and dwarves and other mythical creatures on this quest. So while all my friends and my brothers were wearing these movies out and dying for the next installment, I was just living my life, you know? 

But when The Return of the King came to theaters, the family I was nannying for at the time was beyond excited to see them and convinced me to go with them. So I brilliantly decided to try to marathon the first two before we went to see it. 

Bad idea. 

I cannot emphasize this enough: if you've never seen these movies, take them slowly. I couldn't stay awake, and finally had my brother give me the Cliffs Notes version right before leaving to see the culmination of Peter Jackson's paramount work in the cinema.

I was so lost. I had no idea what was going on, and I stood up to leave the theater no less than three times because I sincerely thought the movie had ended. I volunteered to do every single bathroom run with the kids and after we left, I wrote the movies off forever. 

Fast forward eight years, and now I am dating my husband. These are his favorite movies. And I'm not saying it would have been a dealbreaker for him if I had refused to watch them, but I'm also not saying it wouldn't have been. Ya feel me? He tells me that I'm going to watch them and not only that, I'm going to watch the extended versions. There are extended versions?! Oh yes. And that's what I was going to watch if I wanted to stay in this relationship. So for one whole week shortly after we started dating, I went to his house every single night and we watched half a movie at a time with his younger siblings. After each part was over, they would all quiz me on what was going on and who the characters were and ask me how I felt about every single aspect of the story.

Y'all. When I say that is one of the all-time best weeks of my entire life, I'm not kidding. I fell in love with the story, the movies, the actors: all of it. I gave them to Cody for his birthday the first year of our marriage, and we watch them at least once a year. And now my husband and I have been happily married for ten years so there's that. 

Hannah, for the love of Frodo, are you ever going to get to the point? That's fair. 

If you're unfamiliar with The Lord of the Rings, it is the tale of a fellowship of men, hobbits, a wizard, a dwarf, and an elf who undertake the mission to destroy the One Ring of power in order to prevent the dark lord Sauron from taking over Middle-earth to rule by his wicked power. It was meant to be a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's book entitled The Hobbit, but it grew into something much bigger. In The Hobbit, we get to go with Bilbo Baggins on his adventure to win a share of treasure being hoarded by the dragon Smaug. In The Hobbit, Bilbo acquires the One Ring, and in The Lord of the Rings, he passes it to his cousin Frodo who ultimately ends up destroying it and saving all of Middle-earth in doing so. Tolkien is considered a pioneer and authority on the high fantasy genre, and The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written with over 150 million copies sold. 

And let me tell you: with good reason. 

My husband and I eventually decided to just read them aloud together, and we loved them. I wanted to hit these right out of the gate while my resolve to read them was high, so The Hobbit was the first novel I read this year, and upon finishing it I immediately started The Fellowship. But after the first chapter, I stalled. I wanted something cozy and familiar while the world outside was wrapped in snow, and then I had to read books for book club, and I ended up setting The Fellowship aside. Cody started it as well, and also stalled. Sometime towards the end of February or early March, we decided to join forces and read them aloud, and while that meant going through them more slowly because we had to wait for times that we could be together to read, it was the best decision. It feels like a fitting way to get my introduction to the books reading them with the man who made me fall in love with the story in the first place. And we both now have an even deeper affection for this story. By the time we came to the final chapter last week when Frodo leaves Samwise to go to the Grey Havens, I was sobbing so hard Cody had to take over reading. This story is so beautiful and powerful, and I truly cannot say enough good things about it. I am genuinely sorry I didn't read The Lord of the Rings sooner in life because it's a book I would have already read again. 

As for the movie adaptations, Peter Jackson did a magnificent job with them. I was a little worried that my love for The Lord of the Rings adaptations was misplaced after Cody and I went to see the first two Hobbit movies and hated them. (I was so angry after the second one, I still have never seen the third one.) But he was much more faithful to the books for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and the care with which he handled it shines through. We can still enjoy the movies after reading the books which is a relief. And hilariously, after reading The Return of the King, I'm now disappointed at how rushed the ending of the movie is. I'm not sure why Jackson decided to give Aragorn such a struggle with his identity; in the books Aragorn is very sure of himself and his place in life, and he is the undisputed leader of the Fellowship unlike in the films where it seems more like Gandalf holds that role. I wish he would have done better by Faramir and Éowyn, and I'm disappointed that Beregond was not portrayed at all in the films, but overall, a fantastic effort to bring this epic to life. 

It's very hard to choose a favorite character overall from this brilliant tale, but after being immersed in Middle-earth and becoming more intimately involved with every character for the better half of this year: my love and esteem for Master Samwise Gamgee is unmatched and unrivaled. He is the true Hero among heroes, and I will love him till the day I die. (And maybe even after. I think these books have possibly won a spot in Heaven.) I'm so glad I went to Middle-earth this year, and I hope to go back before my life is through. This trilogy gets all the stars and my highest recommendation with the advice to push through The Fellowship (it was a little slow to get started) because it just keeps getting better and better. 

Have you read (or seen) the Lord of the Rings? Who is your favorite character? And what books have you been reading lately?

Let's Bust a Recap : The Three Musketeers

I did it. I made it to the end of this never-ending book. And in all fairness, the second half went much faster than the first, and the last 20 chapters or so were downright spellbinding. But for all that, I'm still not sure I can forgive Dumas for that tedious build. I mean, technically, I started this monster in March, and hey-o, it's August. Oy. 

Let's start by talking a bit about the author, Alexandre Dumas. He lived from 1802 to 1870, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. His works have been translated into nearly 100 languages, and his novels have been adapted since the early 20th century into something like 200 films. Although Dumas was wildly successful during his lifetime and came from an aristocratic background, he did deal with discrimination due to his ancestry although that didn't slow him down with the ladies. Despite being married, he had at least 40 mistresses and 7 illegitimate children. 

Which brings me to one of my biggest hangups with The Three Musketeers. Even though it's historically the tradition of upperclass Frenchmen to go around having as many affairs as they want (as the author himself clearly had plenty of experience with), it certainly doesn't make it morally acceptable and, for me, it was downright repugnant. I could not get into any of the "romance" of The Three Musketeers because it was all extramarital. Ugh. It was very hard to have any sympathy for Madame Bonacieux's predicament, and I absolutely couldn't care less about any of D'Artagnan's heartbreaks throughout the novel. Same goes for the poor little Queen and her unfortunate lover Buckingham. About the only characters I could get into were Athos (what a rockstar despite his propensity for alcohol) and Monsieur de Tréville (not exactly a major character, but maybe that's why I liked him--I didn't know enough to give me a reason not to like him). 

But getting back to some more facts about the novel itself, The Three Musketeers was first published serially between March and July of 1844, and, from what I understand, Dumas got paid by the line (hence that tedious build I mentioned earlier). The Three Musketeers was actually a collaboration between Dumas and Auguste Maquet who worked with Dumas on many of his novels. Although Maquet took Dumas to court in order to get authorial credit and more money, he never received a by-line (but he did succeed in getting more money). 

The Three Musketeers follows our young Gascon gentleman D'Artagnan in his quest to become a Musketeer in the King's Guards. He secures the friendship of the three most famous and popular Musketeers, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, and (although we have to endure a lot of buildup to figure it out) they ultimately work together against the diabolical Milady which is the main conflict and storyline of the novel.

Like I've said (several times now), the first half is long, wearisome, and (in my opinion) boring. It was very hard to stay awake anytime I sat down with it. The second half was much more entertaining, and at the end I couldn't put it down and even stayed up till midnight one night last week reading page after page until I just couldn't keep my eyes open another second. All in all, I could take it or leave it. As far as recommendations go, meh. If you are going to read it, stick it out because the end is very good. If you aren't going to read it, I really don't think you're missing much and you could spend your time on much better literary pursuits. If I had to rate this one, I'd give it a 3 out of 5 stars. Not phenomenal, not terrible. 

Have you ever read The Three Musketeers or anything else by Dumas? What did you think? The Man in the Iron Mask and The Count of Monte Cristo are both on my shelf and my Life List, but now I'm not looking forward to them quite as much. I'll probably take a break from Dumas next year and maybe try him again in 2019. Has anyone read both The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo and, if so, is The Count of Monte Cristo better, worse, or about the same? 

Books & Big Fish

In my post this past Friday, I alluded to the shelf-full of new books we got on our anniversary weekend. Lest you think I'm exaggerating...

...the new books we got literally filled a shelf. Sixteen new books. Can you be addicted to books? Because if you can, we definitely are. I just looked it up. There's a term for this. We're "bibliophiles". We don't just love books, we love to collect them. You'd think we'd have run out of shelf space by now, but I have an easy solution for that: buy more shelves. I decided to do an entire post about the books we recently acquired so that I could also talk about this idea I have that some books are like fish. Before I get into that, let me tick off the books we got. From left to right:

• Aesop's Fables : (a beautiful hardcover 1968 edition)
• Villette : Charlotte Brontë
• Jude the Obscure : Thomas Hardy
• The Age of Innocence : Edith Wharton
• Anna Karenina : Leo Tolstoy
• The Brothers Karamazov : Fyodor Dostoevsky
• Sons and Lover : D.H. Lawrence
• Catch-22 : Joseph Heller
• The Old Man and the Sea : Ernest Hemingway
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn : Betty Smith
• A Wrinkle in Time : Madeleine L'Engle
• Poem a Day, Vol. 1 : edited by Karen McCosker & Nicholas Albery
• Atlas Shrugged : Ayn Rand
• The Pearl : John Steinbeck

...and then a couple of French books for Cody because he's going on a missions trip to French speaking countries soon. I know this seems excessive, but we got half of these at our local used bookstore at a 1/2 price sale. 8 books for $17? Yes, please. The 1/2 price sale just happened to fall on our anniversary weekend. WE CAN'T CONTROL THESE THINGS! I mean, it's not like we could skip our annual Barnes & Noble anniversary date just because we already bought 8 books that day. Let's not be silly.

But getting back to my fish analogy: I think of certain books on my Life List as "big fish" books. In fact, I think of my Life List as a whole as a "big fish". Go with me here. If you've ever been fishing or listened to an avid fisherman tell stories, he'll often recount tales of the "big one". Big fish are elusive things. Oftentimes they get away. But when you actually reel one in, you feel an undeniable sense of pride and accomplishment. 

That's how I feel about a huge classic. Moby Dick (pun unintentional but fully embraced), The Count of Monte Cristo, Gone With the Wind, Les Mis, The Brothers Karamazov, Anna Karenina--these are Big Fish books for me. My Life List is a Big Fish because it's constantly growing. The goal to read all of Shakespeare or a biography on every president: Big Fish. Will I ever read all these books and plays, all the classics and all the poetry? Probably not. There are so many books and so little time. These goals are elusive and slippery. But it's such an adventure tailing the treasure and slowly reeling it in. Since starting this blog and creating yearly book lists for myself, I've managed to catch some of my Big Fish. Vanity Fair, Theodore Roosevelt, and Great Expectations to name a few. I've also discovered that some of those fish I'd been trailing weren't such a challenge after all like The Last of the Mohicans. 

My Big Fish this year are The Three Musketeers and Tess of the D'Urbervilles. The Three Musketeers is already proving its Big Fish status by putting up quite a fight. But it's going to make it that much better when I'm finally able to say I finished it. 

fishing in the Keys : 2007

Is this the craziest analogy you've ever heard? What are some of your Big Fish books?