I began reading this book immediately after finishing The Hobbit and the was taken aback by the difference in writing style.

The Hobbit is very clearly intended to be a children’s book, having a narrator with a very playful language style. Starting into Fellowship, it felt rather dense and dry by contrast, think grandpa Bilbo telling a story vs. history book. The prologue and first chapter were quite uninteresting and I felt overloaded with lore and family histories. It wasn’t until Gandalf was telling Frodo about the ring that I really got into the story. A very foreboding chapter, I enjoyed that a lot.

The whole Tom Bombadil arc I found pretty bad. I particularly dislike this character’s demeanor and he seems way too powerful. Him telling the hobbits they can call for his help if they are ever in need and that being used half a chapter later was very disappointing. Setups like that shouldn’t have their payoff so closely after just to never be mentioned again (I hope Tom isn’t in any of the later books). The whole section could easily have been removed as it has no consequences other than the hobbits getting swords.

The rest of the story was pretty good and I don’t have too much to say regarding it.

Some thoughts about the characters:

  • I really liked Strider/Aragorn, from his mysterious introduction to him leading the fellowship towards the end, he seemed wise, collected, and always interesting.
  • Merry, Pippin, and to some extent Sam are don’t do very much after leaving Rivendell. Multiple times I forgot that they were even with the party still and was surprised when one of them occasionally does do or say something. Sam became more important later, but leaving Merry and Pippin behind in Rivendell wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
  • For some reason I keep thinking of Boromir as a dwarf, it just seems a rather dwarven name to me. I found his character arc quite good, especially with the development at the end, I like tragic characters.

I noticed two moments in this books, which I’m pretty sure were stolen by the Hobbit films. The first is Gandalf intimidating Bilbo back to his senses after he refuses to give up his “Precious” when leaving Bag-End. The way this scene is described in the book is very similar to Gandalf calling for order at the dinner table at the beginning of the first Hobbit film. The other moment is Galadriel’s speech before refusing to take on Frodo’s burden, which reminded me a lot of the “You have no power here” when banishing of the Necromancer/Sauron in the second Hobbit film. I liked both of those moments in the Hobbit films, but now I will reserve judgement until I have seen how their original source was adapted in the Fellowship film.

Another interesting thing I noticed relates to one of Gandalf’s most popular quotes: “You shall not pass”. I was surprised to find out that this phrase is never uttered in the book, instead he says “You cannot pass” four times among other phrases. My assumption is that this is a quote from the film instead, which I don’t mind. There are plenty of “shall”s in the book, used by Gandalf and other characters.

Overall I really enjoyed this book, by the end I had completely forgotten about Tom Bombadil.