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Following
The Fellowship of the Ring and
The Two Towers, The Return of the King is the
conclusion to the famous epic: The Lord of the Rings. Fastest-paced of the three volumes, The Return
of the King narrates the war which marks the end of the third
Age of middle-earth and which opposes Sauron, the Dark Lord, to the
alliance made by those who refuse to yield to his power...
At the beginning of the book, the company is once
more scattered. To escape the Lord of the Nazgūl, Gandalf,
with
Pippin in front of him, rides Shadowfax at great speed to Minas
Tirith. Pippin, feeling himself indebted to Boromir who died saving
his life, offers his service to his father Denethor, steward ruler
of Gondor. The city prepares to war, but the expected help is not
here yet and the spirit of the folks of Gondor is low. They are
hoping for the arrival of the men of Rohan (Rohirrim) and for the return of Faramir, other son of Denethor...
Meanwhile, Merry offers his service to
Théoden, king of Rohan, who departs for Minas Tirith with the
Rohirrim. Aragorn will not follow them
even if his destination is the same: he has a
plan that will take him through the path of the Dead, a name that
scares even the bravest. He is in haste:
he has looked in the stone of Orthanc (the Palantir) to defy Sauron
and show him that the heir of Isildur is ready to fight him. He
hopes to buy time for Frodo by focusing the Eye on his deeds.
Aragorn, still accompanied by faithful Gimli and Legolas,
stop in Dunharrow by Eowyn, the Lady of Rohan, who led her
people in retreat. She is infatuated with
Aragorn and wants to follow him on the perilous way to Gondor but he
refuses...
Meanwhile, in Gondor, the situation worsens:
the city is besieged and not all the help has come yet.
Faramir has arrived but he soon falls under the attack of the enemy.
As if this weren't enough, Denethor seems to be losing
his mind... In this terrible confusion, one of the biggest wars of Middle-earth is being fought. In
the midst of the battle, there will be terrible losses and desperate
acts of bravery from the most unexpected characters... Will Gondor
be saved? The issue of the battle is for the reader to discover...
Meanwhile, in Mordor, Samwise will have to
save his master whom the orcs hold prisoner in the tower of Cirith
Ungol. Afterwards, they will try to complete the hardest and final
part of the quest. Since the dark armies and the Eye have been lured
to Gondor, the enemy that they will have to fight is the most
terrible, because it hides within themselves. As they approach the
place where it was forged, the power of the ring increases and is
heavy on Frodo's mind. Will Sam and Frodo reach Mount Doom before
the Eye becomes aware of them? Will Frodo be strong enough to resist
the spell of the ring? In Mount Doom the story will reach a climax
in which Gollum's important role, as prophesied by Gandalf, will
finally be revealed...
Then, in the final
chapters, the fate of the characters we met in the trilogy and
learned to love or hate will be sealed. The reader has not heard
the last of Saruman for instance... While disgrace and death is the
doom of some, power, popularity or
even a wedding await others. The rest, in a
symbolic voyage, will end up sailing
away from Middle-earth...
The Return of the King is less
slow-going and more action-packed than
The Two Towers. The
simultaneity of actions is very well-managed by Tolkien. I enjoyed
the "feminist" touch introduced with the character of the Lady of
Rohan, who, Joan of Arc-like character, wants to take the arms
instead of staying in the house...
Appendixes complete the volume, and I must
admit I have read only what interested me, namely the story of Arwen
and Aragorn and the tale of years, where the fourth age was
concerned (I was more interested in the "future"
of Middle-earth than in its "past").
But there is also plenty of information on the kings and kingdoms of
Middle-earth, the dwarves of Durin's
descent, and family trees (that I
carefully avoided, since I have complained about the amount of unwanted (by me) genealogical information
in the previous reviews...). There is also
a part on the languages of Middle-earth, their spellings and
pronunciations, that is certainly very interesting, but I've done enough reading of linguistic
books in recent years and I don't feel
I could read anything like that for fun anytime soon. Of course, Tolkien being a philologist, his great dream was not the
creation
of The Lord of the Rings but a history of the Elvish tongues,
that he was made to understand had no hope of attracting a
readership (no kidding?). Fortunately for us, he was discouraged
from
this project and wrote The Lord of the Rings instead...
There were magical moments while I was reading The Lord of the
Rings and there were moments when I wanted to put the book down and
move on to something else. But I am happy I did not give up: it paid
off in the end. It was a rewarding journey on the whole...
Rating: 
© Discussing Books,11/18/2002 |
Critiques
