The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I would agree with C. S. Lewis’s assessment of The Lord of the Rings: “Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a book that will break your heart."

First, I loved the sense of solemnity, or “pomp” in the old sense of the word, that emerges in Return of the King, especially in regards to Aragorn’s transformation from Strider into the King of Gondor. We Americans are so democratic/egalitarian that we don’t fully understand the solemnity of a monarch coming into his realm. But I love the scenes where Aragorn is crowned and where the city honors him. The language is formal. The ceremoniousness is appropriate. The tradition is deep. (It’s surreal reading these scenes while Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are running for president.) There’s something good about formality and tradition and grandeur in a monarchy that we democrats (small "d") can’t really understand.

Second, the language. Tolkien has a wonderful sense of poetry in his prose. I enjoyed the poems he mixes in here and there, but even more, I love the way Tolkien elevates his prose to heighten a character’s emotion during a significant point in the story. Throughout the work, in scenes where a character experiences something unusually powerful, Tolkien adds figures of speech—metaphor, alliteration, formality. It reminds me of the way some of Shakespeare’s characters change from prose to iambic pentameter when they express powerful feelings.

One modest example is Sam’s attempt to describe Galadriel to Faramir: “I wish I could make a song about her. Beautiful she is, sir! Lovely! Sometimes like a great tree in flower, sometimes like a white daffadowndilly, small and slender like. Hard as di’monds, soft as moonlight. Warm as sunlight, cold as frost in the stars. Proud and far-off as a snow-mountain, and merry as any lass I ever saw with daisies in her hair in spring-time.”

A better example is Theoden’s summoning of the riders of Rohan just before they charge into the forces of Mordor besieging Gondor. As Theoden calls them to battle, his words have the alliteration of Anglo-Saxon poetry:

“Now is the hour come, Riders of the Mark, sons of Eorl! Foes and fires are before you, and your homes far behind. Yet, though you fight upon an alien field, the glory that you reap there shall be your own forever. Oaths ye have taken: now fulfil them all, to lord and land and league of friendship! . . . Forth now, and fear no darkness!”

Finally, throughout the series, I have also appreciated Tolkien's sense of place. The journey from the Shire finds its meaning in the simple, quiet goodness of the Shire itself. I love the scene where Pippin and Merry meet each other at long last in Minas Tirith, after the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Pippin notes, "We Tooks and Brandybucks, we can't live long on the heights."

"No," said Merry. "I can't. Not yet, at any rate. But at least, Pippin, we can now see them, and honour them. It is best to love first what you are fitted to love, I suppose: you must start somewhere and have some roots, and the soil of the Shire is deep."

There’s so much more. This series helps us appreciate the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. What a glorious, magnificent book.


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