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Adventurous, that is one word that I us to explain Return of the King. True friends will be there until the end. This is really reflected in this book. I believe that everyone can relate, because you have been down and out, but there was someone there for you. Out of nowhere young Frodo Bagins was given the human race in his hands.
In a little village called The Shire where all was quite lived hobbits. In the fires of mount doom Sauroman a ring to rule them all other rings that were given to kings, elves, and dwarves. Frodo has the ring and on his way to Mordor to destroy the ring. To help him along the way is his long time best friend is Sam Wise Gamgey. Along the way they have picked up a guide named Gollom or (Smegal). He helps them to get to Mordor but also causes some trouble.
His friends Gandalph, Legolas, Arogorn, and Gimli are fighting to keep the human race from being destroyed. Arogorn the heir to the throne of Gondor has taken the sword to become king. He has been told to "become who he was born to be... "
Once Frodo and Sam get to Mordor there friends distract Sauroman's army so that Frodo and Sam get in side the volcano to distroy the ring but there is a surprise, which I can't tell what that is.
There are three other books before this one like The Hobbit, Fellowship of the Ring, and The Two Towers. I recommend that you the other books before you read this one so that you know what is going on before Return of the King. I would recommend this to anyone looking for adventure, and excitement these are the books to do so. In the books you learn more about the characters and the impact that I has on their lives.
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Here we find it to be the concluding book of a trilogy. The tension of the book is still building while we find the characters excately were we left them in the TWO TOWERS. A fight for the whole of Middle-Earth. As we get into the book we find that the shaky allience between sam, frodo, and gollum is crumpling fast. We also see that the rest of the middle-earth hero's are on the way to help were it is necissary. In this book there is a great deal of passion, pain, loss, and love.
This book is the reason why so many readers have come back to this book over and over again. WE find that the ending is rightly built up and that the characters finally come together. A great story that anyone and everyone should read.
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I think Tolkien envisioned the trilogy not as three separate books but one gigantic novel (along the lines maybe of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, except you know, with Balrogs and stuff) which might be why people who treat the series as three separate novels tend to get bored early on, while the rest of us are urging them to keep going. Because the series as a whole does follow the classical arc of a novel, with the first book consisting of the exposition and setup, the second book the rising action and this last portion being the climax (or climaxes, as it turns out) so that when read straight through the structure makes a whole lot more sense. Tolkien does epic like no one else had done before, thrusting the heroes into impossible situations and making the whole affair so epic that it hurts. Immortal people and run of the mill working class folk mingle and fight and die together, while the fate of everything hangs in the balance. My favorite type of epic fantasy is the kind where the heroes are essentially running for their lives throughout the whole story and there's a palpable sense of "Geez if we screw this up everyone dies" permeating every page . . . Tolkien pulls this off masterfully, all the while retaining a sense of wonder and an eye for humor at the small things that leads you to believe that these are just regular people involved in extraordinary events. Thus, the third novel wraps up the final plots, with Aragorn and company fighting off Sauron's hordes, all the while having no idea where Frodo and Sam are, or if they're even still alive, waiting for a sign that the Ring is either destroyed or that Sauron has it and they should start looking for other lines of work very quickly. Meanwhile, Frodo and Sam continue the longest walk ever in epic fantasy (really, when you look at the map and the scale, that was a haul they made, on foot!), with an untrustworthy guide and the evilest inanimate object ever created. The grandeur and despair practically leap off the page, with the heroes literally dragging their way to the end of the quests and when the truimph eventually comes, it's more than earned. But even after the celebrations are finished and it's time to go home, there's still one more task left to complete, with a key scene left out of the movie but utterly familar to those who have read the book, and a chilling fate for the last remaining villain in the series. If Tolkien did one thing, he brought a sense of humanity to epic fantasy and successfully captured the feeling of little ordinary people caught up in great things. None of this would have worked half as well if he hadn't constructed a ridiculously detailed history of everything and it's the weight of that prior history that informs the novel, even though only like a tenth of it is actually referenced in the story, it hovers there and acts as a living force on the narrative itself, so that the reader really gets the impression than an Age of the world is passing into history. The ending gets me every time and I can't imagine how it could be anymore perfect, bringing home the point that after all the epic stuff is done, the monsters are vanquished and the kings are brought high, everyday life goes on, beautiful in its simplicity. After the main story is over, there's a slew of appendices, for those not convinced how much crazy detail Tolkien went into to give himself a firm foundation to base the story on. The first few are the most interesting, one for giving us a fairly good history of the Ages and the events that led up to the War of the Ring, as well as what was going on while the narrative focused on the characters. Even better there's a chronology of what happened after Aragorn became king and the events of his reign, detailing the fates of everyone in the Fellowship. It has the feel of real history and it's just as fascinating in its own way as this world. Not perfect, this series is the closest we've gotten to a perfect epic fantasy in terms of emotional scope and historical feel, mixing the high and the mundane and it goes to show that the majority of epic fantasy has only been a pale shadow of what Tolkien did here, so great was his influence (granted there's bit a lot of entertaining shadows, but nothing I've read has surpassed it yet). So you can like or dislike this all you want, but if you're at all interested in fantasy you can't risk ignoring it. Probably going down as one of the greatest novels of the last century (if there's any justice) this was well worth the time to reread and I'm certainly glad I did. The memories of a ten year old just don't do it justice. People who have only seen the movie, by all means, don't stop there. The real heart of the story is here.
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I am a senior in high school, and usually don't enjoy reading that much, because it is hard for me to find a book to get in to. I read The Lord of the Ring The Return of the King by J.R.R Tolkien, I read this book for the sole purpose to have something to read for class. I picked it because it was the only book in the library I recognized. I saw the movies so I thought it would be an easy read. But I read the book, I saw that it had more in it and was much better than any movie.
Well as most of you know, The Return of the King is the last chapter in one of the best trilogies ever made. This is an excellent book to read, so if you loved the movie you will love this book too. It better than the movie because it is more in-depth on what the other characters are doing. Like showing what Marry and Pippin where doing during their time as loyal followers of Denethor lord of Gondor and Theoden lord of Rohan. It also shows a little more to what everyone else was doing during their journey. The one thing I didn't like was lines of dialogues which got boring sometimes. Overall, I liked the book and I would recommend it to everyone.
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I've got all three audio books for The Lord of the Rings read by Rob Inglis. His inflections and pacing are excellent, the audio quality is outstanding.
As far as an unabridged verbatim recital (read: no sound effects, no adlibbing, etc.) of the book goes, this is top grade material and well worth the price! I highly recommend it for audio book lovers and lovers of the series.
This makes for a great cd set to keep at your work desk or in the car..or even, like me, in your collection for listening to while exercising or doing chores around the house!
A little pricey but you definitely get your money's worth!
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