Book Review: The Two Towers
The second instalment in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic fantasy epic.
I mentioned in my review of The Fellowship of the Ring that when I tried to read The Lord of the Rings as a teenager, I only ever managed to get about halfway through before dropping it. In truth I don’t recall how many times I tried, but it was certainly more than once, and certainly at least once at university. The sticking point was always The Two Towers. Specifically the Entmoot, which is actually only in the fourth chapter. After this most recent read of Fellowship I now wonder whether I skipped the first book in my previous attempts to read past the second, because there was a lot of that book I didn’t remember. That may have contributed to my undoing, jumping straight into Book Two without first reacquainting myself with Book One. So there was a lot of uncertainty going into this read of The Two Towers—Would I make it all the way through this time? The happy answer to that question is yes! And what’s more, I loved it.
Blurb
Frodo and the Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in the battle with an evil spirit in the Mines of Moria; and at the Falls of Rauros, Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape the rest of the company were attacked by Orcs.
Now they continue their journey alone down the great River Anduin—alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.
Review
Something that I hadn’t noticed before about The Two Towers (because I had never made it that far) is how the split storylines were handled. I can well understand why others say they have struggled. On the one hand we have Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli’s chase to rescue Merry and Pippin after their capture at Amon Hen, followed by Treebeard, the Battle of Helm’s Deep, and ending with the sacking of Isengard. And on the other hand we have Frodo and Sam’s journey from Amon Hen, being led by Gollum to the Black Gate, their “capture” by Faramir, and finally their fight through Shelob’s Lair. These two storylines are not interwoven; they’re told from beginning to end, one after the other, as separate books within the trilogy (The Lord of the Rings may be one story, split into a trilogy, but it’s further broken down into seven books. Books one and two are in Fellowship, three and four in Two Towers, and five, six and seven in Return of the King—the seventh being the appendices). So if you, as a reader, are thoroughly disinterested in the events in Rohan, for instance, then you have a huge unbroken chunk of book to wade through before you get to the bit you’re interested in. The more modern pacing style would have been to alternate between them. As it is, the pacing does dip after the crescendo at Isengard, and the next section takes time to rebuild the tension.
Thankfully, I didn’t find this to be a problem for me at all. I enjoyed both storylines very much.
Now, as for my sticking point—the Entmoot. I don’t know what teenage me was thinking! It’s one small part of one singular early chapter. And somehow in my mind I had built it up to be this thing that just drones on and on for pages and pages. But it’s not. It’s rather short, and actually very interesting. Treebeard as a character is great, and the lore of the Ents is fascinating. They’re a lot more intimidating in the book than they are in the Peter Jackson movies, and their powers are somewhat horrifying. I’m happy to say I breezed through it, and savoured the prose and lore. My mind is changed, the scales have fallen from my eyes.
The differences between the book and the movies become even more stark in this entry. Helm’s Deep progresses extremely differently—not just in terms of the battle itself, but the whole reason for being there in the first place. There’s very little of Eowyn, and still absolutely nothing of Arwen! No mention at all of hers and Aragorn’s relationship, which I honestly thought there would be after it was briefly alluded to in Fellowship. The movies can certainly still be criticised for their lack of active women characters, but it’s shocking how much more they do than the books in that regard.
Once again this illustrated edition is stunning, with more watercolours from the incredible Alan Lee, and the same fantastic typesetting of the first volume. The reading experience has been remarkable. I’m very happy that I picked up these editions of the trilogy.
Overall I’m still absolutely loving it. I think I managed to read The Two Towers even faster than I did Fellowship, and I jumped straight into The Return of the King afterwards. Onwards to Gondor!
