writerofrunes

End of Book 1. Excellent.

Hello, everyone. I know it has been a while since I posted. I decided that, during the Christmas season, I would take a break from Lord of the Rings in order to finish up my school semester and then spend time with my family. Now that we're back at school and reasonably settled, it's time to start back in on this project.

Let us do so with a few thoughts on the entirety of the first book.

As I have mentioned several times already, this portion of the story seems to be largely devoted to establishing the innocence of the hobbits, their world, and their lifestyle. So many idyllic scenes and settings are sprinkled amongst these pages that we accept the happiness of the hobbits immediately, despite their ignorance to the dangers of the world. There are, however, numerous moments of danger, menace, horror, and general unease in this book. And the tone of the narrative is moving in a more and more ominous direction as we draw nearer to the end of Frodo's initial journey and the beginning of his actual quest.

Frodo is an element of the story that I would like to talk about a bit more. In this particular phase of the story we find a distinct disparity between the books and the movies. It is one of my larger regrets that the movie chose to portray Frodo as, for all intents and purposes, a youth. While this does give the audience an embodiment of the innocence that the hobbits feel during this phase of their journey, it makes Frodo far less admirable for having to be taken care of like a child. Frodo's lack of competence during this phase of the movies does allow for a greater range of character development across the trilogy (for those who are wondering, he does take on a more somber and learned tone as the movies go on.) However, I still feel as if we are losing some manner of anchoring characteristic in Frodo that makes him an actual person instead of "the audience's eyes" in the story by implementing this choice. (Brief definition. "The Audience's Eyes" is a term I am using to a character in a movie whose experiences, emotions, or opinions are more or less designed to reflect what the director wants the audience to think, feel, or believe at any point in the story.)

To contrast, thus far in the book Frodo has displayed an equal share of competence and foolishness, which makes him a far more relatable character. Much like ourselves, he has his dumb mistakes and ignorant notions (such as his attempt at distracting the patrons of the Prancing Pony, which led to even greater problems when he grew too confident.) However, he has also had his acts of heroism to help balance out those moments and give us a reason to believe that he can carry this through to the end (such as his confrontation with the Nazgul at the Fords of Bruinen where he defies them despite being weak from the wraith-wound.) That, ultimately, is what I feel we lose by the movie's portrayal of Frodo. We have very little confidence in his ability to carry out the brave things he promises to do. And I suppose this is fitting, as it did allow them to emphasize Sam's faithfulness to a degree that would not have been possible otherwise, but we still have to believe that Frodo can carry his burden to a certain point. I'm just not sure if I get that kind of resolve from the movie's portrayal.

Regardless, we continue. For those who want to know, my plan is to read one book a month. The first few weeks will be devoted to Lord of the Rings (with daily chapter reflections,) while the second half of the month will be devoted to my other reading (George R.R. Martin, C.S. Lewis, and a smattering of others for those who were wondering.) Then, at the end of each month, I will post my reflections on the book as a whole before diving into the first chapter of the next one. Thus, I should be finished with this project by... the end of June. Yes.

Stay tuned,
-Mac