Narnia Bloggin': visiting C.S. Lewis's Oxford

previously in this series

It's been 10 posts since my last Narnia Bloggin' post, so I thought I'd write one about the Narnian/C.S. Lewis stuff I encountered on my trip to England last month. I signed up for a literary England tour with Her Literary Travel because two of the places they were going were Oxford and the Kilns, C.S. Lewis's home. CSL taught at Magdalen (pronounced Maudlin for some reason) College in Oxford University for over 30 years. 

CSL's rooms, where he lived during the week and met with the students he was tutoring, are the three windows to the right of the windows that have red flowers in window boxes/the bottom four rightmost windows except for the one all the way to the right.

I was especially excited to see Addison's Walk, where CSL and I think J.R.R. Tolkien as well liked to take walks, because CSL wrote a poem set there that I memorized: "I heard in Addison's Walk a bird sing clear"*. It's a very nice nature-y place to walk, as it circles a deer park. The tour guide said she was pretty sure the deer we saw there were the descendants of the deer CSL would have seen ("weird Americans", she was probably thinking when someone asked her that). Sadly we weren't able to walk Addison's Walk, as we had the rest of our walking tour to do. This means I missed the round plaque with "What the Bird Said Early in the Year" (pictured in the link above). Ah well. 

Magdalen College's chapel is lovely; our tour guide said CSL would have attended services here, if memory serves. I was especially fascinated by the sepia-tone stained glass windows, which I'd never seen before (usually Gothic-style cathedrals and chapels have very colorful stained glass windows). 

During our walking tour of Oxford, we passed through St. Mary's Passage, which has two features of Narnia-related interest:

1. these faun supports flanking a door with a leonine-looking gorgon head!

2. a classic lamppost! 

C.S. Lewis may have been inspired by these features, as the lamppost is one of the main symbols for the Chronicles of Narnia, and Tumnus the faun is an important side character. "Apparently, C.S. Lewis spent much time running between the two doors that stand opposite each other in this passage, which is why some think he was inspired by this specific passage." (source, which doesn't state where she got her information) 

I was planning on visiting the Eagle & Child during our free time, as it's the pub where the Inklings (including CSL and J.R.R. Tolkien) met to read each other's writing, but it has sadly been closed since the pandemic. It is undergoing construction/renovation and was completely covered up. :/

I was very tempted to buy this TCON Christmas ornament from the Bodleian Library gift shop, as it shows all 7 books, but it was £17 so I didn't. On the website it's listed as being only £10?!? I would have bought it at that price! Ugh. 

I really enjoyed my time in Oxford, short as it was. It's definitely worth visiting if you're a reader. This has gotten kind of long with all the photos, so you'll have to wait until the next NB post to read about my visit to the Kilns.

*the last line is different than I remember! The one I memorized had no quicks: "The gates of good adventure swing apart." The version I memorized ends: "I said, 'this might prove truer than a bird can know / and yet your singing will not make it so.'"

Reading goals update: second quarter

I was reading over my blog posts (procrastinating) when I came across this one and realized I never wrote any update posts about how I've been meeting (or not) my reading goals for this year. I'm really doing a great job at this reading blogger thing, lol.

 

April

a physical unread book that is sitting on my shelves - yes! I read This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. ✅

reread an old favorite book or series - nope, the books I read this month were new to me.

read something by a BIPOC author - yes, Amal El-Mohtar (TIHYLTTW) ✅

read an ebook from Apple - I did not do this.

read something thematic (seasonal, themed day/week/month etc.) - I read books for Southwest Asian and North African (SWANA) Heritage Month, Lesbian Visibility Week, and Autism Awareness Month. ✅

read a library book - 5 of the 6 books I read this month were from the library! ✅

something that is not prose or a usual genre I read (poetry, comics/graphic novels, essays, short stories, etc.) - yes, epistolary (TIHYLTTW). ✅

May

a physical unread book that is sitting on my shelves - nope, all ebooks this month.

reread an old favorite book or series - yes, I reread all of The Murderbot Diaries. ✅

read something by a BIPOC author - no 😔 Martha Wells is white, as far as I can tell. 

read an ebook from Apple - My epub ebooks are read in the Apple Books application on my computer, but I don't think this counts.

read something thematic (seasonal, themed day/week/month etc.) - Murderbot May? That's something I made up so it doesn't count

read a library book - nope, I own all of The Murderbot Diaries books. 

something that is not prose or a usual genre I read (poetry, comics/graphic novels, essays, short stories, etc.) - nope

 

June

a physical unread book that is sitting on my shelves - sort of? This is really meant more for books I bought years ago and never read, but I did read a thrifted book I bought back in March, so I'm counting it. ✅

reread an old favorite book or series - nope, the books I read this month were new to me.

read something by a BIPOC author - yes, Ocean Vuong (Night Sky with Exit Wounds) ✅

read an ebook from Apple - I did not do this.

read something thematic (seasonal, themed day/week/month etc.) - Everything I read was for Pride Month. ✅

read a library book - yes, Nobody's Baby was via Libby and my public library. ✅

something that is not prose or a usual genre I read (poetry, comics/graphic novels, essays, short stories, etc.) - yes, nonfiction and religious/Christian (God and the Gay Christian) as well as poetry (NSwEW). ✅

Books read in July

Everyone and their mother had been raving about the movie Project Hail Mary, so I impulsively bought a half-price-Tuesday ticket and saw it one day in June after work. Reader, I loved it. It's so good, interesting and sad and beautiful and hopeful. PHM is streaming on Amazon Prime; if you haven't watched it, do. I then obviously signed up to read the ebook on Libby, and because the movie and consequently the book were so popular, the ebook wasn't available to read for like 16 weeks. I also really like the book. If you haven't heard of it, a middle school science teacher wakes up on a spaceship with no memories. He has to figure out why he's there and how to keep an extraterrestrial virus from dimming the sun. The book is much more technical and scientific than the movie, which I liked, but it is sadder because it goes more into what they did to the earth to try to stave off global cooling (even a few percentage points cooler can cause famines and therefore mass death). Ryland is such a genius and has such staggering leaps of logic; I never would have come up with half of the ideas he thought of. The writing felt like an older middle grade/younger young adult novel about adventure or survival or something for boys. The science was above my knowledge (which is low; I'm a humanities major) but not too much; it was mostly followable. I feel like the book and the movie are really good companion pieces; reading the book makes me want to see the movie, and vice versa. Trigger warnings for injuries and blood and an instance of consent being ignored (nonsexual but it's a spoiler so I can't get into it). ★★★★ 

 

I was at my parents' home a lot for family reasons, so out of boredom I picked up and read one of my little brother's favorite books when he was a kid, Flat Stanley. I remember that we used to love reading about his adventures as a two-dimensional child. Upon rereading it, I was surprised by how proper and old-fashioned the writing felt. When I looked up the publication date, I found it was actually first published in 1964! That explains the language. The illustrations are modern (at the time of publication in the nineties), so I never picked up on that. It's a fun story, but there is one instance of sexism (Stanley is disgusted at having to dress up as a girl for plot reasons), and of course the medical inaccuracies (a child will not become flat after a bulletin board falls on him). My copy's illustrations had probably zero people of color, so it was clearly published before people cared about that. ★★★½

 

My last completed read of July was Mooncakes, an adorable YA graphic novel I picked up at the thrift store. Former childhood friends (one a deaf witch, one a nonbinary werewolf) reconnect as teens and have to figure out what is haunting the woods and how to defeat it, while figuring out how to be in each other's lives again. This was very cute and cozy, rather Ghibli-esque, but scarier (to my wuss sensibilities) than it first appeared. There is also a couple of adorable grandmothers. I recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy and graphic novels. The witch girl is Asian, Jewish, biracial I think, and a hearing aid user, while the werewolf kid uses they/them pronouns. TW for kidnapping and forced demonic possession, ableism mentions, and a few instances of wrong pronouns usage, if memory serves. ★★★★

Books read in June

 Pride month, we barely knew ye. I had a massive book hangover from rereading all of the Murderbot Diaries in May, so I didn't read as much this month. As always, DM me for trigger warnings. 

 

I was delighted to find that the second Dorothy Gentleman book available to check out on Libby, so I did so immediately. I adored the first book, Murder by Memory, so much that I bought it. I love what the author, Olivia Waite, has created with this series (queernorm retrofuturistic murder mystery). In this book, a baby in a basket has turned up on Dorothy's nephew Ruthie's and his husband's doorstep, which is especially mysterious because everyone on the ship is supposed to be sterile until they get to the planet they're heading to in a few hundred years. Dorothy investigates and starts to suspect foul play when the mother turns up in a new body with no memory of the baby. This story was very interesting and gave us even more details about the ship's culture; everything seems much more 1930s than I originally noticed. Dorothy's pocket watch is a smartwatch, but she has to write out paperwork by hand?? Come on. Also the cover confused me, as the people are all dressed like Victorians (1890s) for some reason? I didn't enjoy this book as much as the first one (it also suffers from Being Too Short), but I'm looking forward to reading the next book when it comes out.  ★★★★

During my last probably-unnecessary trip to the thrift store, I found and bought God and the Gay Christian: The Biblical Case in Support of Same-Sex Relationships by Matthew Vines (along with a huge stack of books). I was excited to get this as it'd been on my to-read list for ages. Vines is best known for his viral video where he gives a presentation that would become this book. He goes over the clobber verses (the ones Christians use to reject gay people) and their scriptural, historical, and cultural context, which I expected, but he also uses theological arguments as to why Christians should accept gay people, which I found interesting. While not a Biblical scholar (officially, as far as I can tell), Vines has thoroughly studied this issue, including people who take the opposite stance as him, and has tons of meticulous endnote citations (dozens per chapter). I did find it a bit naive for Vines to use the argument that even though the Bible reflects the deeply misogynistic cultures of its writers, surely no one today would actually think that women have no value (and therefore we mustn't think the same of gay people etc.). There are tons of Christians to whom the Bible's low view and treatment of women is a feature, not a bug. The book was written in 2014, though, and we had yet to see the virulent misogyny the rest of the 2010s would bring about. This book is very firmly for Christians; this would be a great book for LGBTQ+ people (themselves Christians or not) to give to their Christian parents to try to get them on board. I do recommend this, although I did find it slightly surprising Vines didn't use David and Jonathan as an example of a gay commitment ceremony in the Bible (he probably understandably didn't want to push it). ★★★★, lots of references to sex and sexual assault but that is not what chili ratings are for

 

The same day I finished G&tGC, I read Night Sky with Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. I had bought this book during Bookshop.org's pride month sale, but I stupidly forgot to apply the coupon code; to add insult to injury, Bookshop.org had a free shipping weekend during The Evil Smile's sale event after I made my purchase. Ah well. I'd come across Ocean Vuong's poetry online and found it beautiful and impactful, but it was "Someday I'll Love Ocean Vuong" that pushed me over the edge to buy this book. This is an excellent poetry collection: beautiful and painful and nostalgic and raw and loving. I meant to savor it, but I just had to keep reading. May I one day write a fraction as wonderfully. ★★★★   🌶🌶

What do you mean I've had this blog for 15 years

I started this blog in June 2011 because Blogspot was the hip thing to have back then. God even knows the number of blogs this one has outlived due to my love of my own writing voice (callback to what I wrote in the About section of this blog) and stubborn refusal to abandon the social media trends I actually like. I still have a Blogspot/Blogger, but death before getting a tiktok account.

My first ever blog post 

My first ever book review  (was I actually giving books letter grades back then?!)

My first post of flash book reviews written because I didn't want to write a dedicated book review post for each one, a common staple in this blog

Upon rereading my first-ever blog post, it looks like I meant for this blog to be a place to put my writing and other thoughts. I have done a bit of that (you can still find almost everything I wrote here as I haven't really deleted anything), but what I've written the most seems to be book reviews. To me, there is something very comforting about how old-school blogs and the ability to configure their look feel. It reminds me of the good old days of the internet, how it was when we were both growing up together.

People still share their thoughts online, but mostly in short-video format. I think few people really have the attention span and patience to read others' long-form thoughts anymore. We went from blogs (web-logs) to MySpace/Facebook posts to tweets to... We don't really have a new set way of communicating textually, do we? It's just Bluesky/Threads tweets still, maybe memes, and video (tiktoks) dominates all. 

I don't kid myself by thinking I have or have ever really had (or will ever have) an audience; even in the first-ever blog post, I address the "possibly nonexistent reader". The near-anonymity makes me feel comfortable writing and posting whatever stupid thing I feel like. Just a month or two ago, I got over 1200 hits on this blog, possibly due to having posted something on Instagram (I link to this blog in my link.tree, which in turn is linked to on my IG profile); clearly people were nosy enough to click through. The number staggers; that many people are looking at my Instagram and my silly little blog? I've only ever written for myself, although I like to check the stats to see how many hits I've gotten and what posts have been viewed (and cringe if it's my old poetry). Anyway. 

Thanks for coming to my blog's quinceañera I guess 

Murderbot May

I reread all of The Murderbot Diaries (TMBD) series by Martha Wells in order to prepare for the newest book, Platform Decay, coming out on May 5. I read them all last year and have been obsessed with them ever since. I made a "Michelle's guide to the Murderbot Diaries" Canva carousel and posted it on my bookstagram in lieu of a May wrap-up, as the only books I read that month were TMBD series. You can see it here. I am tempted to post all the slides here in this blog entry, or replicate the information on the slides, but I'll hold off. The IG post has general information about the series, such as genres, themes, and reading orders (for which I relied heavily on Book Series in Order but also made my own suggested reading order list). The last slide is my Murderbot moodboard; you can see the Pinterest board here. 

You can read my general summary for the series in my TMBD guide slides. Here are my flash summaries of each book; flash reviews would be useless because they'd all be "I love this book and Murderbot" etc. I've given each book 4 stars. No chili peppers as there's no spice, although some references to sex are made. 

BOOKS

The books are Murderbot's personal logs and are in first person POV. 

All Systems Red (TMBD #1) - We meet Murderbot, a SecUnit (security construct that is part human, part robot, completely sentient) that hacked its 'governor module' so that it is no longer forced to follow orders and is free! ...to continue pretending to be a regular governed SecUnit, since it can't figure out how to escape or what to do with its life. At least it can watch as much television as it wants. Murderbot is on a planet guarding an environmental survey group called PresAux, who are all nice to Murderbot (very weird, after having been treated like property for so long), when suddenly they're all thrown into danger... 

Artificial Condition (TMBD #2) - Murderbot is on its own for the first time and on a mission to find out the truth behind a tragedy it was in... or behind. To get to the planet where it happened, Murderbot hitches a ride on an unmanned cargo ship, whose bot pilot turns out to be very different than it expected. With guidance from its new friend ART, Murderbot takes a job protecting some humans while they attempt to get some stolen work back from their ruthless ex-boss on that planet. Can Murderbot pass as an augmented human, keep its clients safe, and find out the truth?

 

Rogue Protocol (TMBD #3) - Its own fact-finding mission over, Murderbot decides to travel to an abandoned mining station to find out what GrayCris, the company behind the murders in All Systems Red, was doing there, hoping that that information can help its PresAux humans. It gets roped into helping a different survey team there, which consists of more humans (some nice, some with unknown intentions) and a human-form "pet" bot that might be able to see through Murderbot's "human security consultant" cover story. 

 

Exit Strategy (TMBD #4) - Murderbot learns that Dr. Mensah, the PresAux leader and its favorite human, has been kidnapped by GrayCris. It travels to the planet where she's being held prisoner and reunites with some of the other PresAux humans in order to help free Dr. Mensah and get them all off that planet safely. 

 

Network Effect (TMBD #5) - Murderbot is helping its PresAux humans on a mission when a big transport vessel shows up out of nowhere and kidnaps Murderbot and Dr. Mensah's teenage daughter Amena. The people on the ship don't seem quite human and have strange, unhackable tech, while the ship seems really familiar... Can Murderbot keep Amena safe and figure out how to help ART and its crew?

 

Fugitive Telemetry (TMBD #6) - This book takes place before book 5, on Preservation station (the space station above Preservation, the planet the PresAux humans are from). There's been a murder, and detective Murderbot is on the case! This means having to work with Station Security, who suspect it of the murder and limit its technological access, and having to talk to humans and bots (ugh). Can Murderbot solve the case? Will the Station Security humans finally trust it?

System Collapse (TMBD #7) - This book takes place right after Network Effect, on the same planet where everything goes down in book 5. Murderbot, ART's crew, and the PresAux humans are trying to help the planet's human colony, as a corporation called Barish-Estranza is trying to use their ignorance of capitalism to trick the humans into entering corporate slavery. Murderbot is also dealing with PTSD after the events of book 5. Can Murderbot, ART, and their humans figure out how to save the colonists from corporate slavery, and themselves from Barish-Estranza's retaliation?

Platform Decay (TMBD #8) - Murderbot must rescue and lead 3 kidnapped members of Dr. Mensah's family through a huge Corporation Rim space station to safety. The mission is made even more complicated by the addition of another kidnapped family to protect and wrangle. Murderbot must keep its humans safe while navigating the huge space station ring, all of the various corporations that own parts of it, the lack of consistent  transport, air pirates, corporate warfare, and clingy children. All while posing as an augmented human, of course.

    This is the only one I'm bothering to do a review for as it's new. I really enjoyed this book, while also not enjoying it because it was so suspenseful the whole time. Even so, I read it twice, basically back to back. This is similar to Network Effect in that Murderbot is entrusted with Mensah's family members who don't even like it but it has to keep them safe. Farai is nice but struggling to understand SecUnit and her wife's bond with it, and Naja (her grandmother, I think) is one of my favorite things in the world, a badass old lady. The third family member is Mensah and Farai's daughter Sofi, whose age isn't given (Murderbot refers to all children and teens as juveniles), but I think she's a tween, somewhere between 9 and 14 years old. Murderbot's growth is really shown in this book; it's actually installed a mental health program (!) and does frequent emotion checks (!!), and its main reason to avoid giving its humans a gun is because it's afraid shooting people will give them trauma! What a change from its previous reason for withholding guns from humans (because it was afraid of being shot by them)! It's also making a real effort to incapacitate instead of kill. I'm so proud of Murderbot :')  ★★★★

 

Martha Wells said in an interview that she's on contract to write one more book, which may be the last one in the series 😭

SHORT STORIES

"Compulsory" - published on Wired.com - This is a TMBD prequel that takes place before book 1. Newly rogue Murderbot decides to disobey its orders and save a human worker.

 

"Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory" - This short story takes place on Preservation after Exit Strategy and is told from Dr. Mensah's point of view. Mensah is struggling with PTSD after having been kidnapped, and takes comfort in knowing Murderbot is there for her and will protect her.

 

"Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy" - This short story takes place after Artificial Condition (book 2), but we don't meet most of the characters until book 5. It's told from Iris (ART's "sister" and favorite human)'s point of view. ART's crew is on a mission on a planet undergoing a hostile corporate takeover. Iris notices ART is acting unusually, moping like it misses someone...

 

"Obsolescence" - published in an anthology called Take Us to a Better Place (free on most ebook platforms) - I kind of hesitate to add this one, as none of TMBD characters are in this, but it does take place in TMBD universe, only way earlier (still hundreds of years in the future for us). In one of the later books, Murderbot mentions having started watching a historical TV show about rovers exploring and terraforming planets, and this short story centers rovers (which are like cyborgs I guess). This does have a lot of overlap with TMBD books and stories: human/bot hybrids, augmented humans, precocious children, murder mystery, the themes of capitalism exploiting humans and treating them like things, what it means to be human, etc. This was very sad and rather horrifying and I did not enjoy reading it, but it's very thought-provoking. 

 ~

Trigger warnings for this series: violence, murder, death, gore, corpses, blood, body horror, torture, slavery, kidnapping, that thing of constructs being forced to obey by being electric-shocked by their governor modules and forced to hurt and kill (SecUnits) or have sex with humans (ComfortUnits), Murderbot makes references to having been forced to record humans having sex in the past, inferred threat of gendered sexual violence (Platform Decay only; Murderbot stops it), PTSD, anxiety, depression, trauma, capitalism, constructs and bots not having full sentient person rights and being treated like things/property

~

TELEVISION SHOW - Murderbot

I don't think I've ever talked about the TV show, only that I wanted to watch it! I broke down and paid for 6 months of Apple TV+ (they had a pretty good deal for Black Friday) and have probably watched it 3 times at this point. It's a fairly faithful adaptation, although they trimmed down the PresAux crew and kind of dumbed down/simplified everybody a bit. Like show!Pin-Lee is way less confident than books!Pin-Lee, and they made Ratthi a himbo. Casting Alexander Skarsgard as Murderbot feels a little uninspired, but he's actually so good in the role; he constantly looks like he's seconds away from vomiting from anxiety, which is perfect. The first (and currently only) season adapted All Systems Red (book 1), and it's a pretty decent adaptation. They added and changed things unnecessarily, of course (I wish we could read the feed stuff that pops up better as it's a little too translucent, and the cubicle's design is ridiculous to the point that it's not a cubicle anymore, and don't get me started on Labeebee), but I really like it. They've greenlit a second season, which will adapt books 2-4!! They're novellas, and all part of a story arc, so it makes sense to do them all at once. I can't wait. Murderbot and ART's friendship is so important to me, and I hope the show does it justice. 

Classic literature books reimagined as eyeshadow palettes: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

 previously in this "series"

I'm wearing my The Very Hungry Caterpillar T-shirt, face mask, and tote bag today (I love a theme), and it struck me, while thinking about the VHC's iconic meals, how easy it would be to make a makeup palette of this book. As always, the outside of the eyeshadow palette would look like the picture book itself, with the front cover being the front cover (duh), and the inside could have Eric Carle's iconic tissue paper collage art as the interior. I'm thinking we'd put the image of the VHC as a butterfly in the bottom right corner of the mirror. The names of the food it eats would be the eyeshadow shade names, with the round eyeshadow pans being set into the foods illustrations the way the holes are punched through the illustrations in the book (not the same size or to scale with the holes, though). 

one apple - warm red

two pears - soft yellow-green

three plums - dark blue 

four strawberries - cooler reddish pink

five oranges - orange

chocolate cake - matte dark brown 

ice cream cone - light pink

pickle - bright green 

Swiss cheese - matte yellow

salami - marbled reds and browns glitter

lollipop - swirled blue and yellow, with the swirled imprint

cherry pie - duochrome tan with reddish pink shimmer flip

sausage - matte hot pink

cupcake - matte light tan

watermelon - swirled pinky red and green

green leaf - satin darker emerald green 

 

16 eyeshadows in a palette is not usual, so you could eliminate the green leaf shade to make it 15, but I don't really want to. Another option is to make the cherry pie a bronzer/blush duo in the palette. 

Here is the mockup I made in Canva. I had to forgo the green leaf, as that would have required even more egregious image cropping. As it is I've spent way too much time on this.

 

Cute, right? Call me, Eric Carle's estate!

Book review: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

I started rereading The Lord of the Rings (LOTR) by J.R.R. Tolkien back in February (!) and read it with the usual characteristic slow reading and frequent (often weeks- or months-long) breaks I do/take with very long, thick books, even ones I like and want to read (look how long it took me to reread JS&MN). I had downloaded the ebook from Nook during their shocking free ebooks drop last year; it is 1,371 pages long! I finally finished this book on May 13; it took me 85 days to read. Part of it (this time) is that the endnotes system Nook ebooks have is very tedious and annoying; I usually have to enlarge the text every time I want to tap on a superscript number or symbol, and half the time it just takes me to an endnote that's just like "*page 146". Which A) is not helpful, and B) I know that if I click on that secondary hyperlink, I won't be able to get back to my place in the book. Ugh. I confess I skimmed the appendices, only really reading what interested me, and skipped the indexes. There are family trees, and past histories that didn't make it into the text of the story. JRRT 1000% has to have been autistic. 

The first time I read the series I was in college, before I had this blog or probably tracked my reading. I read this mass-market paperback trilogy set that did not have foot- or endnotes (that I can remember), and I only discovered after I'd finished the whole LOTR story that there was a lot of useful information about the characters and places and whatnot in the appendices and indexes in the back/end of The Return of the King. I actually gave away that LOTR set; I had no intention of ever rereading the book/s, until I downloaded the ebook. Shelf space is at a premium in my house, and every public library has the books anyway. Maybe I'll reread this in another 15 years.

I realize I haven't given a summary, so here it is: a young hobbit learns that a family heirloom is really a magical ring of immense, evil power, and that it must be destroyed before its maker, an immortal evil entity, can use it to take over and destroy the world. The quest to destroy the One Ring is joined or allied by many other people from different fantasy races (including humans), and it all culminates in war. It's a wonderful story, so magical and fantastical yet so, so, SO grounded (JRRT basically created the world, history, and languages of the books before writing the stories, so at times it feels like you're reading a book of history rather than fantasy fiction). The writing/language is so beautiful, and there's a solemnity you don't really get anymore from fantasy stories. Sincerity is also endangered, I feel; there's a tendency to wink at or mock everything nowadays, and this story takes itself and its values as seriously as the grave. I really do understand why it is so beloved and enduring, although I still think it's still too unnecessarily long. The Hobbit has been one of my favorite books since I was seven or eight years old (!), but it took me until college (!!) to be able to actually finish LOTR (there's just so much fucking walking, and SO many characters to keep track of). I do better at reading sprints than I do reading marathons. Everyone who likes fantasy at all needs to read LOTR at least once; its influence on the genre is still felt to this day, although most of it is thrice (or more) removed; influenced by those influenced by those influenced by LOTR, etc. 

It has its issues, of course; there are so few named female characters, and even fewer who are actually important (basically just Eowen and Galadriel. My memory of the films was stronger than my memory of the books, so I was surprised to see that Arwen is hardly even mentioned at all). I feel like all the time JRRT spent talking about Numenor (which doesn't even come into the story and isn't particularly important to it) could have been spent developing some more female characters. There is, interestingly enough, plenty to see with shippers' eyes; I was shocked and delighted to read JRRT himself comparing Sam's defense of Frodo during Shelob's attack to any small animal defending its mate (!!!) against a much-larger predator's attack. Gandalf's interactions with Saruman and Denethor can be viewed through a "toxic old man yaoi" lens, if desired, and of course there's Legolas and Gimli. No yuri due to the aforementioned lack of speaking, named female characters who interact. I don't have the time or energy to get into the hierarchical class structure or racism/xenophobia; better minds than mine have already written about them. This was written during the 1930s (and before?) and it shows. Still, recommended. Just know what you're getting into. 

Some of the best LOTR quotes and excerpts

Score: ★★★★ out of 5 stars
Read in: February 18-May 13
From: B&N Nook

Genres/classification: fantasy, high fantasy, epic fantasy, classic fantasy, classics, swords-and-sorcery

Representation: not really. Sam is described as having 'brown hands' which suggests brown skin, plus he's working class and very important to the story 

Tropes: ordinary person thrust into a starring role in something much bigger and important than themselves, fire-forged friends, hereditary enemies become friends, a woman dresses up as a man to fight in the battle, prophecy bypass/no man of woman born, the rightful king returns and set everything to rights, immortal person giving up their immortality to be with a mortal/human (Arwen and Aragorn in the appendices)

Trigger warnings: murder, gore, violence, kidnapping, death and dead bodies, racism and xenophobia (the human villains are all men of color that are described racistly while the human heroes are all white men, plus having evil/good fantasy races), sexism, classism, Grima Wormtongue creeping on Eowyn (no actual actions but def. creepy vibes)