A Long-Expected Reread.
I have been meaning to reread The Lord of the Rings for well over a decade and I am so happy that I have returned to these books not late, nor early, but precisely when I was meant to. My first experience in Middle Earth was watching Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Two Towers on the big screen when it was first released, and despite having never seen The Fellowship of the Ring or heard of Tolkien’s works I was immediately engrossed. At age nine, I fast became a Lord of the Rings super fan, but have always remembered reading the books and finding them slow, heavy, and overly descriptive. That could not be further from my experience picking up The Fellowship of the Ring again as an adult. It was truly a great gift to read Tolkien’s words all these long years later and be inspired and moved by his wisdom on the power of loyalty and friendship, unparalleled world-building, deep philosophical grappling with the nature of good and evil, beautiful descriptions of nature, the importance of making the most of life, and a seamless melding of language, literature, history, mythology, and theology into one of the greatest stories ever told.
QUOTES:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
“It depends on what you want,” put in Merry. “You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin- to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours- closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the Ring. We are horribly afraid- but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.”
“As they listened, they began to understand the lives of the Forest, apart from themselves, indeed to feel themselves as the strangers where all other things were at home.”
“Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror.”
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”
“The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.”
“He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
“Despair, or folly?’ said Gandalf. ‘It is not despair, for despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not. It is wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope.”
“But if hope should not fail, then I say to you… that your hands shall flow with gold, and yet over you gold shall have no dominion.”
The Once and Future Lit 