Week 51 – Book 51 – “the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams

Originally planned to read “the Two Towers” and then realized the mountain of homework piling up wasn’t going to disappear by itself. A little magic to help it do so though, would’ve been appreciated.

So yeah, I read “the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” instead.

The hardest question to this book is “what is it about?”, to which I snickered in response and said “I have absolutely no idea”. Because it’s true. This book is so random and all over the place, that trying to explain in words what it’s about becomes extremely difficult. I could for short say that it’s about a guy lost in space, or the story of Arthur Dent who becomes victim of some unfortunate events regarding his native planet. Either explanation does not actually tell what the story’s about, since the content  is so rapid and happens by chance that it’s hard to keep up with it. You read it, you enjoy it, but you will probably be confused as hell. In a positive way. The kind of confusion where you simply laugh and feel more wacky than usual, and is the most pleasurable.

I do not find it as hilarious as others seem though. I mean, there were parts where I laughed out loud (for instance, the part with the mattress being dead…most of the time), but not quite what I expected. Don’t misinterpret: it is funny, no doubt about it. I would rank it on par with Terry Pratchett (whom I seem to compare with everything nowadays?), though their individual style is slightly different. I think I had really high expectations of it since everyone seems to like it so much.

 

And my head currently feels like it’s stuffed with cotton, so I’ll just stop now before going out of context. Over and out.

 

 

Week 49 – Book 49 – “The Fellowship of the Ring” by J.R.R. Tolkien

For a long time, I’ve thought of reading this book. It’s a shame to call yourself a fan of the fantasy genre and still haven’t read this books – it’s like the bible of fantasy nerds.

 

And so? For starters it’s very long. Very. I thought 500 pages wasn’t so bad, but every page contain incredibly rich descriptions of landscapes, conversations and just pondering of the main character. This takes so much time to read and comprehend, that it felt like I read for ages. I started a bit late (I hadn’t even finished the introduction on Thursday) , so basically I read more than half of the book on Sunday. I spent hours reading this book, and it still felt as if I hadn’t moved on at all. Approximately halfway through the book, they’re out of the Shire.  It’s unbelievable how slow things  move in this book.
Though, the author still succeeds in making it interesting. Interesting  where you find yourself unconsciously wanting to continue reading. Even if it’s a bit slow paced (I suspect I can blame the film for this opinion), it’s still interesting. The slow paced nature makes it more enjoyable and not rushed. It contains additional details and events that the film didn’t bring up, that makes the novel deeper and more vivid. Tolkien has built his book that Middle-earth is not only a world – it’s a universe. Names of unknown places and people or mentioned all the time, and you have no idea who or what they might be, their history and their current state. This can be somewhat annoying at times, since you’ll easily lose yourself in the  abundance of names. Though most of the time, it’s a nice way of immersing the reader and bring some additional background details to the story.

 

While having a distinctive difference from “the Hobbit”, it still harbours the magical feeling. I love the way the author makes the landscape seem alive, especially the forests. Even if they don’t act independently and actively, they still feel presence and butt in when they feel like it. It’s moderately exciting, on a personal level, but I long for a bigger conflict. I know it’s coming my way, but I think people can find it drawn-out with only small conflicts and events.
One thing I noted is that you can really read the characters. If the author want to show some hidden feature of the character, it will be quite visible. It’s not hard to spot changes in demeanour, for instance, Boromor, Legolas and Gimli. A lot of songs are present in the book, and sometimes they contribute to the story, and sometimes they don’t make any difference at all.

 

Summary: a lovely book with a captivating story, world and characters, though basically 50 % of it being scenery descriptions. Now, the questions is, should I continue reading all three of them?