Book Review: The Fellowship of the Ring

I have decided that since my novel has been idiotically labeled as fantasy I will endeavor to read and objectively review certain works of that ridiculous genre. My goal here is simple: to show how shallow and meaningless the Fantasy genre is, and therefor prove beyond any doubt that my world-shatteringly important novel cannot possibly belong to said genre. This is a monumental task which I undertake, and so I shall begin at the beginning, with the work that started it all; John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring.

In brief, this is the story of physically and mentally weak half-humans who have willingly submitted themselves to the tyranny of societal obligation. The story begins with capitalist hero Bilbo Baggins planning a lavish birthday party for himself and his freeloading nephew Frodo. Every half-human in the village is invited to behold the greatness of Bilbo's wealth, and Bilbo calls in all his markers, even securing the services of a wizard, to ensure that the lazy villagers are suitably impressed. At the party our hero hands out extravagant gifts to all his guests, which on the surface may seem an altruistic misstep, but in actuality is a brilliant way for Bilbo to impress upon his inferiors just how much better he is than they. He then proceeds to give a speech in which he cleverly insults everyone, then disappears, thereby ensuring that he gets the last laugh. At this point of the novel I am still a fan of Bilbo; he is a rich half-man who has learned how to live his life for himself and use his vast wealth to get what he wants when he wants it. The other mediocre half-humans envy his power and importance, and like all Takers try to elevate the value of their mediocrity so as to devalue Bilbo's greatness. But Bilbo has stood strong against their vile attempts to tear him down for sixty-odd years, laughing in their pitiful faces all that time. I have only one small worry; Bilbo's soft spot for his do-nothing nephew.

After the party we discover that Bilbo plans to leave the village forever, and to bequeath his vast personal fortune to Frodo, who has done nothing to earn it. All he plans to keep is one small ring. While packing Bilbo is confronted by the wizard Gandalf, who forces him to leave the ring to Frodo. All my respect for Bilbo is now gone. Not only has he given everything he owns to his lazy nephew, but he has also allowed himself to be dominated by someone else's will. On the other hand I feel that Gandalf has potential; the way he used his great personal power to break Bilbo's will impressed me. Sadly this impression would not last.

Bilbo is now gone from the story, and it is at this point that we begin our journey with the pathetic Frodo. To be brief about it Frodo discovers that the ring his uncle left him is in fact extraordinarily powerful, and instead of taking that power for himself he decides to travel with his friends, Sam, Merry, and Perry, to the collectivist enclave of Riverdell, where the fate of the ring, Frodo's personal property, will be decided by people who have no ownership claim to it. Along the way they run into trouble and have to be saved by the powerful hippie Thomas Bombadil. Bombadil refuses to journey with the half-humans, presumably because he needs to tend to his marijuana plants, and thankfully we never see him again. Before the group reaches Riverdell we are introduced to two more characters of note; Aragorn, a failure constantly whining about about his family's lost glory rather than making something of himself, and Glorfindel, an incredibly powerful elf. Once at Riverdell Frodo bows to the demands of a council of bureaucrats, who decide that the ring of power should be destroyed. Why this should be done is never clearly explained; all we are given is some leftist jibber-jabber about the corrosive nature of power. A group of disparate persons, the titular fellowship, is chosen to take the ring to a volcano and throw it in. Startlingly Glorfindel is not chosen to be in this group, though the much less powerful elf Legoland is. Only one person from amongst this fellowship is in any way intriguing. Boromir is the prince of some place or other, and he wants to use the ring to destroy his enemies. Of course the pantywaists who comprise the rest of the fellowship shout him down. They would rather see the ring destroyed than allow Boromir, or anyone else, to achieve personal power and distinguish themselves from the pedestrian masses.

What follows in an insipid and uninspired story of weak-willed people constantly sacrificing themselves on the alter of the Greater Good. Only one character, the ostensible antagonist Sauron, acts in his own rational self-interest, while we the readers are treated to several hundred pages of disturbingly short-sighted protagonists and their naïvely altruistic philosophies. One can only hope that as this story continues into the next two novels, which I will not read, Frodo will finally wake up and utilize the ring for his own personal profit, or failing that, Sauron will regain the ring, which belonged to him originally, and destroy those who oppose him. Likely though the story will not end that way. How exactly it will end I do not know, or care to know. What I do know however is this: if Bilbo had left the ring to the Sackville-Bagginses instead of his worthless nephew Frodo none of us would have had to suffer through this travesty.