"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."

Just in the nick of time, I've finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring for the Lord of the Rings Read-Along.  I had a bit of trouble getting going with it this past week but then I finally settled back in to Middle Earth and found my way with the fellowship.

This is, I believe, my third reading of this book and I enjoyed it just as much this time as the others.  Each time, different feelings are emphasized and I think that this time it was a definite sense of melancholy.  At this point of my life, I must be mourning my own loss of innocence and youth because my mind focused on these parts of the book especially.

Another thing I really noticed was the narrator's voice.  This book reads like an oral narrative.  The sentences are brief and simple even as the tension of the story escalates.  And each character had a very clear voice as well.  Strangely, the only voice from the film that I really incorporated into the book was Sean Astin as Sam Gamgee.  Some of the others came and went but Astin's tentative but belligerent voice always came through as the voice of Frodo Baggins' best companion.

I'm not going to summarize this story because it's easy enough to find out what this book is about if you still somehow don't know anything about it.  It is set in a fantasy world but it is really a story of the hearts and minds of men (and hobbits, elves and dwarves).  I'm more excited now about moving on to The Two Towers next month!

Traveling south with all of the courage I can muster,
K

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