Another LOTR Read-Along: Three is Company (FOTR 1, 3)

Now we hit the place where the book begins to be substantially different than the movie. (Or, really, where the movie began to trim things, though the extended edition does have Frodo and Sam seeing elves at one point.)

And so the adventure really begins! Frodo says goodbye to Bag End (sniffle sniffle), and he sets off for Crickhollow. Is that not the coolest name for a house? I would love to have a house some day near a creek and a hollow so I could name it that.

But I digress. Not only do Frodo, Sam, and Pippin begin their journey, but we get introduced to the Black Riders too! I prefer to call them 'Nazgul,' but 'Ringwraiths' sounds cool too. They are ultra creepy, and I can see why they kind of get copied in other fantasy novels. It amuses me how Pippin fixates on the way the Black Riders sniff after Frodo -- when he says, "But don't forget the sniffing!" (p. 77), I always laugh aloud. Dear, dear Pippin.

And we meet our first elves! I have to admit that the Elves are not my favorite Middle Earth race. They're a little too cold or remote or reserved or something. Yes, too reserved for me to be friends with. But they fascinate me, nonetheless. And I do like their way of speaking. Not so much Elvish itself, though it's cool, but just their almost oratorical style.

There's a lot of poetry in this book, as you'll have discovered now. I will tell you a dreadful secret: I read the short poems and skim the long ones. I'm fine with you doing the same if you don't want to read the really long ones (which we haven't gotten to yet, these were all short).

One thing to keep in mind as we read is that Tolkien basically made up what we think of as "fantasy" today. There were fairy tales and "fairy stories" for kids back then (like The Hobbit), but the fantasy genre of today is rooted in The Lord of the Rings. It was pretty much the first fantasy book for adults to be at all successful or taken seriously.

Favorite Lines:

The road wound away before them like a piece of string (p. 72).

They passed slowly, and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes (p. 78). "A star shines on the hour of our meeting" (p. 79).

Sam walked along at Frodo's side, as if in a dream, with an expression on his face half of fear and half of astonished joy (p. 80).

"The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out" (p. 82).

"But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger."
"And it is also said," answered Frodo: "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes" (p. 82-83).

"Courage is found in unlikely places" (p. 83).

"...may the stars shine upon the end of your road!" (p. 83).

Discussion Questions:

What do you think of the elves?

Who do you like better so far: Frodo, Sam, or Pippin?

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Shadow of the Past (FOTR 1, 2)

What always surprises me in this chapter is how much time passes between Bilbo leaving and Gandalf figuring out that the ring is, well, The Ring. This is probably because I saw the movie before I read the book, and in the movie, there are maybe a few months between the two, or so it seems to me. But here we learn that it's seventeen years!

Anyway, things start heating up a bit in this chapter. Things are changing in and around The Shire, and we learn all about how the Ring was forged, something of the power it wields, and the twisty path it took from Sauron's hand to Frodo's. We also get to hear about some other characters we'll be running into more soon, like Aragorn and Saruman and Gollum.

And we get into one of the bigger themes of the book: pity/mercy versus punishment/justice. Bilbo pitied Gollum and did not kill him when he had the chance, even though Gollum was planning to kill him. Gandalf says: "It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity" (p. 58). He goes on to say, "the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many" (p. 58).

We also see the beginning of another major theme here: being chosen for something you don't believe you can live up to. Frodo says, "I am not made for perilous quests," and I can agree with that to some extent: he's a hobbit, used to a comfortable and quiet life in the country. Gandalf insists, however, that "you have been chosen, and you must therefore use such strength and heart and wits as you have."

Favorite Lines:

Everything looked fresh, and the new green of Spring was shimmering in the fields and on the tops of the trees' fingers (p. 45).

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us" (p. 50).

"Well, well, bless my beard!" said Gandalf (p. 62).

Discussion Questions:

What do you think about the theme of mercy/pity versus punishment/justice? Can anyone deserve mercy?

Have you ever felt like Frodo, that you can't possibly do what you must do? How did you get through that time?

"Flashes of Splashes" by Elizabeth McCleary

Sometimes when I get really busy in Real Life, I don't have time to sink my teeth into a novel, so I grab an anthology of short stories because I know I can read individual stories here and there, as I have time.  If you like doing that too, and you're looking at your calendar for the next couple of months and thinking you're going to be awfully busy... then this might be the book for you.

Flashes of Splashes is a collection of flash-fiction stories, which means they're all VERY short, only a couple of pages each.  They all involve water in some way.  Thirty-one very different stories (well, two of them actually tell the same story from different sides) about water.  Many of them are speculative fiction -- fantasy or sci-fi.  Some of them are totally grounded in reality.  Most of them have a surprise twist at the end that makes you see the story in a new light.

My six favorites were:

~ "B is for Bubbles" -- it made me chuckle

~ "G is for Gulf" -- I loved the ending

~ "V is for Vortex" -- it surprised me

~ "Z is for Zawn" -- it's about pirates!

~ "Dancer" -- so sweet

~ "Water" -- I loved the twist at the end

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for a few mild curse words.  I will probably marker over them and then let my 10-year-old read this if he wants to.

Top Ten Tuesdays: Where You Lead, I Will Follow

This week's TTT topic from The Broke and the Bookish is "Ten Characters Who Would Make Great Leaders."  I'm tweaking that a little to list off my top ten characters who lead so well, I would follow them.  So here we go!

I've put them in order by first name because... I have to have some sort of order.  Also, I spent like twenty minutes trying to decide if I should put Bard or Boromir first, and failing to come to any satisfactory conclusion.

+Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Bard the Bowman from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Boromir from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Faramir from The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Captain Frederick Wentworth from Persuasion by Jane Austen

+Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

+Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter books by J. K. Rowling

+Captain Jack Aubrey from the Aubrey/Maturin novels by Patrick O'Brian

+Robin Hood, especially from The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle

+Roran Stronghammer from the Eragon books by Christopher Paolini


Um, yeah, there's a lot of Tolkien here.  Probably because I'm re-reading LOTR right now!  I just started another LOTR read-along, so if you're interested in joining that, you're hereby invited to do so!

Did you do a TTT list?  What leaders did you talk about?  Leave me a link to your list if you want to!

"As You Wish" by Cary Elwes with Joe Layden

I vividly remember the first time I saw The Princess Bride, even if I don't quite know when it was.  I know it was, at the very latest, July of 1992.  My mom, my brother, and I went to visit my aunt at her house one afternoon, just to hang out.  One of my cousins was there, a boy two years older than I was who very kindly did not tend to dismiss me for being younger or for being a girl.  He had made some sort of dessert that involved pudding and crumbled cookies.  For a special treat, he and my aunt offered to introduce my brother and I (and my mom) to a movie they absolutely loved and thought we would love too.

My brother, my cousin, and I all sat on the floor in front of the TV.  My mom and aunt probably sat in chairs -- I don't really remember that detail.  And we ate our dessert and watched The Princess Bride and by the end of the movie, I knew my life would not be the same.  Some stories are like that -- there's my life before them, and my life after them, and those lives are different.

Fast-forward about twenty-five years, to 2017, when my brother and I went to see The Princess Bride on the big screen.  We took my son, who is ten, and who had never seen it before.  Wonderful.

So anyway, I've wanted to read this book since it first came out, being a devoted fan of The Princess Bride.  (My brother and I named our second dog Westley after the title character.)  When I knew for sure that I'd be seeing it on the big screen this fall, I got this from the library, intending to have it all read before we went so I could regale my brother and son with fun stories from the production. 

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuut life intervened.  Been kind of a weird fall for reading, in that I've been in the middle of several long books for a long time, and had very little reading time overall.  But I wedged this into my reading time, now I've finished reading this at last, and wow, I totally loved it.  The whole book is joyful, a celebration of how much fun it was to film this movie.  It's peppered with reminiscences from all the surviving cast members, the director (Rob Reiner), and the screenwriter (William Goldman, who also wrote the original book).  

Basically, if you love the movie, you will enjoy this book.  Especially if you enjoy learning about how films are made.  

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG for a couple occasional mentions of alcohol use and some mentions of rude humor and so on.  I don't recall there being any bad language, but there might have been some.

This is my tenth book read and reviewed for the Adventure of Reading Challenge 2017 hosted by Heidi at Along the Brandywine.  I signed up for the "Wrangler" level of 10-12 books, so I've hit the low end of that goal.  Let's see if I can read and review two more adventurous books by the end of the year to hit twelve :-)

Another LOTR Read-Along: A Long-expected Party (FOTR 1, 1)

This chapter delights me. I love learning about the customs and day-to-day life of other cultures, and every culture in Middle Earth is so thoroughly thought-out that they seem completely real. Sometimes I almost forget this is fiction and not a sort of sociologically and linguistically inclined history.

Aren't Hobbits just the best? On their own birthdays, they give other people presents. They know How Not To Be Seen. They're good at gardening and farming. I want to be Hobbit, I admit it. (I also want to be one of the Rohirrim, but we haven't gotten to them yet.)

Did you notice all that foreshadowing going on in this chapter? The Gaffer warns Sam Gamgee that he'll land in trouble too big for him, Gandalf's real business is described as "more difficult and dangerous" than conjuring cheap tricks, etc. Very subtle and nicely done.

Don't you want to see some of Gandalf's fireworks? They sound magnificent, and way better than even what they conjured up in the movies.

I don't know how many of you have read The Hobbit, but just thought I'd mention a random cool thing. The first chapter of The Hobbit is called "An Unexpected Party." The first chapter of this is "A Long-Expected Party." So fun.

Favorite Lines:

Before long the invitations began pouring out, and the Hobbiton post-office was blocked, and the Bywater post-office was snowed under, and voluntary assistant postmen were called for (p. 26).

The art of Gandalf improved with age (p. 27).

"I might find somewhere where I can finish my book. I have thought of a nice ending for it: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days" (p. 32).

"I am as happy now as I have ever been, and that is saying a great deal" (p. 35).

"It was a compliment," said Merry Brandybuck, "and so, of course, not true" (p. 38).

"Look out for me, especially at unlikely times!" (p. 40)

Discussion Questions:

Frodo, Bilbo, and Sam are all unlike other hobbits. What are some clues in this chapter that tell us that? How do other hobbits view them?

Another LOTR Read-Along: Prologue: Concerning Hobbits

Welcome to Another LOTR Read-Along!  As you know, I'm adapting these posts from the course I'm teaching my niece for high school.  The truth is, I'm actually using a lot of things from my first LOTR read-along to teach her, so if you compare these posts with those, you'll find a lot of similarities.  But I think I've got almost entirely different people participating here from that original foray, so I'm assuming that won't be a problem :-)

Today, November 1, is also the beginning of Nanowrimo.  I know a lot of people are participating in that, myself included.  To make this read-along feasible for several of our participants, I am only planning to do two chapters a week until December.  Then I'll up that to three a week until around Christmas, when it will dip again.  After New Year's, we'll go back to three posts a week (give or take) until we've finished the trilogy.  Hope that works for you!

If you've never done one of my read-alongs before, you might wonder how this works.  I'll post about each individual chapter with my own thoughts and observations, as well as some things I've learned in other books.  I'll always include my favorite lines and a question or two to get discussions going.  You then respond in the comments with your own thoughts, discuss what I've said, and engage each other in conversation.

Let's go!

Ahhh, Hobbits. Aren't they delightful? I love how Tolkien speaks of them as if they're real, saying they "are becoming hard to find." Helps me slip into the fictive world so easily.

Please don't get scared away by all the place names and different breeds of Hobbits listed here. You don't need to remember them; I won't quiz you on them. Anything and anyone important will get brought up again later. 

I don't know about you, but my house is full of mathoms, and I love the description here of them.

Favorite Lines:

But in the days of Bilbo, and of Frodo his heir, they suddenly became, by no wish of their own, both important and renowned, and troubled the counsels of the Wise and the Great (p. 2).

...they were, perhaps, so unwearyingly fond of good things not least because they could, when put to it, do without them... (p. 5).

...they liked to have books filled with things that they already knew, set out fair and square with no contradictions (p. 7).

Discussion Questions:

Do you usually read prologues and/or forewords?  Did you find this one useful or enjoyable?