A Masterpiece

I just finished reading the Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. I have read this book several times, but not since the movies came out.

I had forgotten just how good it is. It’s a complete masterpiece, inspiring and beautiful. I liked the movies but they pale when compared to the book (and that is often the case, isn’t it?)

“Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron: here is a book which will break your heart”

– C.S. Lewis, speaking of The Lord of the Rings

10 thoughts on “A Masterpiece

  1. i’ve always started these books, but never finished…

    but i think i will start again, and finish.

    that quote…oooooooh girl, that’s good. and no, you’re not a girl, but you understand.

    🙂

    mb = cool.

  2. Thanks Kate! Your “ooooh girl” line was LOL 🙂

    The books aren’t for everyone. And – this is a generalization, keep in mind – in my experience guys like them a lot more than girls.

    I’m also very glad I read them before the movies (actually, I read them two decades before the movies – but I’m as old as gollum 🙂

    If you read them let me know

  3. I read the first one after the first movie and the second and third ones before the first movie.

    I’m glad to have read them all, but I don’t think I liked any of them so much that I might read them again. I say that now, but who knows? Maybe when I have a kid of my own, we’ll read them together . . .

  4. i didn’t have the same fortune to read the books before i saw the movies, (i’m in the middle of The Two Towers), but i whole-heartedly agree that the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien far surpasses any cinematic wonder.

  5. I don’t know how many times I’ve read them…but oh how I love them.

    Funny thing, we’re re-watching all the extended dvds of the trilogy now. We finished Fellowship the other night, and for the first time ever, I cried for Boromir. I’ve been so long thinking of him as a jerk – I never really saw him as a tragedy. He was a good man – a heroic man -but flawed… I never would’ve expected to see something new in that story after so much familiarity… Weird!

  6. Wow – your Boromir experience is almost exactly like mine! I remember not liking him at all the first time I read the books. But he truly was brave and noble. Just too proud – that was his weakness and that is why he couldn’t resist the ring.

    I should have known you’d be a LOTR fan – too cool 🙂

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