The Silmarillion

I finally finished reading The Silmarillion by J. R. Tolkien. It is the prequel to  The Lord of the Rings book series.  Yes, I did read The Lord of the Rings book series. One of the reasons why it took a long time to read was because I was getting confused between The Lord of the Rings and the Narnia book series, and The Silmarillion is hard to read. I had read an article about the hardest books to read and this is one of them.

Big Warning: there is lots of violence and some sad parts.

In this book, there are several tales that intertwine together. It starts out where Middle Earth is formed from a void and songs make up the land, trees, and flowers (similar to the Narnia book series). Then an elf gets jealous of the beautiful things and he splits up the other elves with a song of his own. He does some evil things. One of the tales was of some jewels that were very special. The evil elf does take them and he ends up getting put in a cage for a little while. The jewels do get lost forever. Later on, the evil elf’s second in command takes over and he makes rings to give the men, elves, and dwarfs. He also makes The One which the hobbits find.

I really did like this book. Now I’m reading The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel. There is a movie based on The Case for Christ and I am watching it this weekend. 

The Return of the King

I finished reading The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is the last book of the Lord of The rings book series. Yes, I did watch the movie.

Big Warning: there is lots of violence (of course because it’s a war) and some sad parts.

Since most people have either read or seen the movies, here’s a short summery:
After the group defeat Saruman, one of the hobbits gets pulled to look into the magical ball. Gandalf gets worried so he decided to take that hobbit somewhere safe for the time being. During their stay there, the steward becomes crazy (because he has a magic ball too) and tries to himself and son (who is hurt from battle). Gandalf takes over in the battle. Meanwhile the other hobbit becomes a squire to a king. When they join in the battle, the hobbit wants to join too. But he is turned down until the king daughter brings him into battle. Aragon decides to journey into the path of death to get the undead to help in the battle. They do and the battle is won. Aragon also challenges Sauron by saying he is the king. Then Sam does find Frodo and he helps him up the mountain to throw the ring into the fire. But Gollum fights for the ring. Gollum and the ring fall in the fire. Everyone is reunited again. Aragon accepts the crown and they go visit their friends one last time on the journey back to the Shire.

Differences between book and movie:
1. Gollum doesn’t pit Frodo against Sam.
2. They go back to see their friends near the end of the book.

I liked this book. I’m reading next The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien.

The Two Towers

I finished reading The Two Towers by J.R. R. Tolkien. It is the second (third if you count The Hobbit as the first) book in the Lord of The Rings book series. There is a movie based on the book and yes, I have seen it.

Big Warning: there is some violence.

Since most people have either read the books series or seen the movie, here’s a short summary.

The ring company is broken. The journey is three parts. The captured hobbits, the hunter tracking them, and the ring bearer. The captured hobbits escapes into a forest with talking and walking trees. The hunters tracking them lose them until Gandalf shows up. He was grey and now white. Gandalf tells them about where the escaped hobbits went to. They end up saving a kingdom with Gandalf’s help. The escaped hobbits become part of a war with the trees and Saruman. Then they found out Gandalf is now back. The ring bearer and his friend has help with Gollum to make it to Mondor.

Here’s differences between book and movie:

1. One big difference is in the movie, the escaped hobbits has to talk the trees into starting the war. In the book, they don’t, Treebeard and the trees decided on their own to go to war.
2. There is no love story. Aragon doesn’t mention his age in the book.
3. Gandalf doesn’t know how Saruman is talking to the enemy in the book until he finds the ball. In the movie he already knew.
4. Some of the events are messed up in the movie.
5. Aragon isn’t the one hurt in the attack in the book. In the book it is the dwarf who gets hurt.

I liked this book. Now I’m reading The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.