The Two Towers
Ratings1,496
Average rating4.4
This is really the second volume of a single novel divided into three volumes for publishing purposes, so it's probably more appropriate to review the whole thing than to review each volume separately.
You are doing yourself a disservice to this book if you don't listen to the audiobook with Andy Serkis as narrator
I found this book harder to follow than Fellowship, but Tolkien doesn't fail to continue building this world and keeping the reader intrigued, desperate to read what is on the next page.
Summary of Trilogy: A hobbit named Frodo Baggins must go on a journey with his friend Samwise Gamgee to destroy a ring that, if it were to fall into the wrong hands, could be the end of the happy world they know. They are helped by a crew that includes two more hobbits, a wizard, and elf, a dwarf, and a couple of humans. It is a tale of friendship, self-sacrifice, and bravery.
4/5
With The Two Towers I had the same struggles as with The Fellowship of the Ring. However the story picked up pace. There was a sense of urgency at times. Which resulted in more enjoyable reading experience for me.
Here I felt that all the information shared in the first book was a good foundation to continue the story.
Having read this book, it also improved my thoughts and opinions on the first.
It still had its dull moments. The characters are still quite shallow (but I did not expect this to change)
Beautifully written book! Perhaps Tolkien's style has grown on me
The Lord of the Rings is my favorite book, and The Two Towers might be my favorite volume of it.
This was slower than the first book, and while The Two Towers is my favourite of the movie trilogy, I preferred The Fellowship of the Ring over this one BUT I canNOT bring myself to give it any less than 5 stars I mean come on
This book gets four stars from me for the sole reason that I absolutely adored the last half of the book. The LOTR trilogy FINALLY met my expectations.
It's funny, in the movies, I skip past the parts with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum because I find those scenes boring. However, to my complete shock, I found the parts with Aragorn and Co. the boring parts in the novel instead!!!!! It's completely backwards!
As a whole, the LOTR reads much differently from The Hobbit. I absolutely adore The Hobbit (maybe I just prefer “Bilbo's” penmanship over “Frodo's”), so I've been struggling to enjoy the LOTR. However, I did sense that magical feeling that I got from reading The Hobbit return as I read the chapter when Merry and Pippin encountered Treebeard. It was a breath of fresh air for me, but it unfortunately didn't last long.
I think the problem is that Tolkien (for the first half) was “telling” me what's going on mostly, and there were some scenes I found “unnecessary”. Like the part where The hobbits reunite with Aragorn and Co. and they're going back and forth about telling each other's tales (because they don't want to discuss it and instead find every excuse not to by eating and smoking). Perhaps I'm just impatient, but the first book of the trilogy and the first half of this book I found very boring (not including the parts with Boromir and the Ents).
Before I began reading the second half with Frodo and Co., I was filled with dread, but I quickly got into the story for the first time, much to my excitement! Faramir didn't disappoint! I absolutely love his character, and Sam too! Frodo was a badass as well when he confronted Shelob in her lair and spoke Elvish through Galadriel! That chapter was certainly exciting! The imagery it invoked prevented me from putting the book down and I stayed awake most of the night to read it.
For the first time, I'm truly enjoying the LOTR. I'm looking forward to the final book and crossing my fingers that the excitement from this book carries to the next!
Oh, dear, what a delight this has been!
I still struggled with the writing style a bit in the beginning and it made me read it a bit slower, but this book is so so lovely, that I couldn't possibly give it anything below 5.
P.S.: It's funny how in the movie I was more excited about Aragorn and company's adventures, while in the book, I enjoyed following Frodo and Sam way more.
Takeaway: Genre defining book, theologically more revealing than I think Tolkien intended.
There is nothing that I can really write that hasn't been already written, and written better, about the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I am not a superfan. I have read the Hobbit three times I believe, but I think this is only my second reading of the trilogy and my previous reading was more than 20 years ago.
I decided to start the series because the Andy Serkis narrated audiobook was on sale at Audible. I had previously listened to the Rob Inglis version of The Hobbit, but several friends have raved about Serkis' version. Inglis' version is excellent, but I do think that Serkis' version is probably a little bit better. My only complaint about the Serkis version is that when listening with headphones, which is how I tend to listen, the dynamic range was a bit too broad. I understand why the dynamic range is wide, but I tend to listen when I am walking or doing chores around the house, and changing the volume is annoying.
I alternated between audio and kindle. I listened to good portions of the first and third books while reading the second almost exclusively. Song is so much a part of the writing that I am tempted to say that the books should be listened to primarily, but audiobooks do take longer than reading. I don't know how they prepared for the songs, but the singing portions were very well done with appropriate melodies and emotion. It does communicate a very different culture and I think that is part of why the songs are so important to the books.
I was musing on Twitter that war is my least favorite part of the trilogy. And by the end, there are far fewer battle scenes than I had remembered, probably because the battle scenes are so memorable from the movies. It is the quest and friendships that make the story, not the battles.
As I said I am not a Tolkien scholar. I have never read a biography of Tolkien and I have never read a commentary book on the Lord of the Rings, although I do have Fleming Rutledge's book and plan on reading that one. But I have understood that Tolkien did not think he was writing a “Christian” story and did not like people suggesting that there were Christian allegories in the books. That being said, I think that there is a lot of theology. Christian obligation and calling to do good and work toward justice, even if it is personally difficult is throughout. The concept of the way sin breaks not just personal, but social systems is very well illustrated. And the way that even good people with real virtue can be corrupted by access to power. The right use of power and the corruption that power brings is a very significant theme. I think there is some irony to Tolkien talking so openly about power and systems in the trilogy and the fact that there is so much controversy about the “Marxist” roots of that discussion today. There is also a nearly Christian sense of providence or election throughout the books without any referenced God or prophecy that was directing.
One critique is how much Tolkien uses the colors black and white to mean good and evil, and then references how people look to correspond with their goodness or evilness. The bible also uses black and white colors as a reference to good and evil, but the people of scripture were various shades of brown. There was no one in scripture that we would today call “White”. But the trilogy frequently speaks of the beauty and light skin and hair of virtuous characters and of the dark skin of the evil characters. In the context of our racialized history and racial hierarchy, the uniformity of Tolkein's descriptions suggests that there was an underlying understanding of race that was connected to sin in the books even if it was not explicitly described as racialized.
Early on in the books, the fighting was almost entirely between humans/hobbits/elves on the one side and orcs/trolls/other evil creatures on the other. That led to a more lightness, joking quality to the fighting. As time went on, the horrible reality of war was more clearly described. The way that war can impact people over a lifetime was communicated and as many have suggested, I do think Tolkien's experience with WWI was carried through. The broad anti-industrial language also likely reflects the reality of pollution in the UK during Tolkien's life. But I never really understood what these factories were doing other than creating pollution. They did not seem to be producing good, but only darkness. And maybe that was the point.
I think I probably need to read this trilogy again because it is designed to have layers of meaning. I know many people have read it 10 or more times. I won't ever read it that often. But I do think that I need to read it at least one more time. Maybe with my kids in a few years.
It's a book that require a lot patience. The rhythm unfortunately goes up and down because of details descriptions and the multiple characters.
If u like the story but doesn't have much time, watch the films. They are epic and very very similar to the book.
Por desgracia es un libro que necesita leerse despacio y mucha paciencia. Me encanta la historia, pero no como está narrado. Me quedo con los filmes de momento. Ojalá en el futuro pueda terminar la saga.
I think by universal standards of writing this book is a 5/5
I think by the standard set by The Fellowship of the Ring, this book is probably a 3.5/5. It has shining moments, of course, but they are strung together much less elegantly than The Fellowship of The Ring. The time spent with Aragorn and co. felt a lot less fantastical and magical (for lack of better terms) than the time spent with Frodo and the time with Frodo in this book wasn't quite as good as it was in Fellowship. Perhaps its because Frodo knows not much more than the reader on a first read, while the others know much more?
Again, amazing book by the standards of other works, but by the standard Tolkien set in Fellowship I was a bit let down. Hopefully I'll enjoy Return of the King more after I take a break to read some other stuff on my tbr
I always thought this volume was my least favourite amongst the three, but I've changed my mind. This is an absolute stunner!
I savoured every second of the story.
Some of my favourite things about this book:
1. The relationship between Gimli and Legolas. It grows over the second half of book one and has evolves so beautifully in this book.
2. I really enjoyed the pacing and the way the plot unfolds. I loved how it starts out with the ents and their complicated words and lore and songs, the action sequences that follow, the descriptions of the cities and landscapes, the part where they meet Faramir, the creepy tunnels with Shelob, absolutely everything! There was not a dull moment!
3. We get so much more of Gollum. His monologues are some of my favourite scenes in both the movies and the books. The constant internal struggle between good and evil...gosh, just so brilliant! We loves it! Yes we does!
The Two Towers:
Absolute brilliance.
Soooooo good! I freaking love this series. I love Tolkien's writing style so much.
It's very descriptive and whimsical. It really helps with picturing scenarios in your head (especially if you haven't seen the movies yet). While reading this book I can see scenes from the movies clearly in my head.
I really adore the characters. Such a fun group (Gimli, Pippin and Merry for the win)! ♥️
Time for the last part. I'm not ready for this series to end ;-;