The Fellowship of the Ring

I don't know that there's much I can say about The Fellowship of the Ring. The Lord of the Rings is one of the great novels of the 20th century, no question about it. It has so much richness that it warrants revisiting from time to time. Even though you know the end, and have seen the wonderful movies, a rereading will not disappoint.

This time around, I listened to the audio version read by Rob Inglis. This is an unabridged reading of the original text, not a dramatization, so there's no music or sound effects. But Inglis does a brilliant job of bringing the story and characters to life.

One thing that struck me, which I guess is a pretty obvious point, was the picture of addiction painted by the draw of the One Ring for its bearers. Kelly and I were house parents and spiritual directors of Manna House, a ministry of Mission Waco, for a while, and saw first-hand how drug and alcohol addictions can control a person. The Ring, possessed by Gollum for many years, reduced him to an unrecognizable, withered creature. Does that sound familiar to anyone who has been around drug addicts?

Bilbo found the Ring, and held it for many years without becoming the addict that Gollum was. Still, when it came time to give it up, he was reluctant to do so. To his friend Gandalf, who insists that Bilbo not keep the Ring, Bilbo hotly replies, "I don't like parting with it at all, I may say. And I don't really see why I should. Why do you want me to? . . . You are always badgering me about my ring." Imagine confronting an alcoholic about giving up drink. You might hear, "You are always badgering me about my drinking," if he were someone who might use a word like badgering. Bilbo finally does leave it with his nephew, Frodo, but not without some internal struggle.

Like Bilbo, Frodo keeps the ring without letting it control him. Gandalf warns him, "It is far more powerful than I ever dared to think at first, so powerful that in the end it would utterly overcome anyone of mortal race who possessed it. It would possess him." Of those who possess any of the Great Rings, "sooner or later--later, if he is strong and well-meaning to begin with, but neither strength nor good purpose will last--sooner or later the dark power will devour him." Some years after Bilbo leaves the Ring to Frodo, they meet again. Bilbo asks to see the Ring, but when Frodo hesitates, he sees Bilbo as the latent addict: "a shadow seemed to have fallen between them, and through it he found himself eyeing a little wrinkled creature with a hungry face and bony groping hands."

We get some insight into why Bilbo has avoided the withering addiction that Gollum gave into. Gollum originally took the Ring by force from his companion, killing him in the process. Upon hearing the story of the Ring, and how it came to Gollum's hands and then BIlbo's, Frodo exclaims, "What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!" Gandalf sagely replies, "Pity? It was pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity."

His charge to steward, and eventually destroy, the Ring weighs heavily on Frodo. But the Fellowship that forms around him, first with his faithful companions from the Shire, then with wise and powerful allies he meets at Rivendell, proves to support and protect him faithfully on his journeying. Even though Fellowship ends with Frodo leaving the Fellowship, through the next two books the Fellowship does not falter in their support of Frodo's quest.

Tolkien masterfully combines creativity, believably constructing a new world, with its own history, geography, anthropology, and languages, with a story that is at once suspenseful, humorous, entertaining, and thematically profound. Few have matched him. I'm eager to continue Rob Inglis's reading of the next two books of The Lord of the Rings.