Fire, Fleet and Candlelight

The 30 Day Middle-Earth Challenge

Melody over at The Splendor Falls blog, and  Kiri at Lianne Taimenlore are sponsoring a 30 Tolkien challenge.  Since I am quite devoted to Tolkien, and since I am eschewing Nano this year, in favour of doing long neglected editing and re-writing, I thought I might just as well jump on board with it:

Today, I am just supposed to say what my favourite Middle-Earth book is. This is difficult for me, as I have read nearly everything Tolkien ever wrote, from The Return of the Shadow - a collection of early drafts of The Fellowship of the Ring - in which Bilbo birthday party ends with the startling announcement that he is going to be married, to The Fall of Arthur - an uncompleted retelling of the death of King Arthur in alliterative verse, which featuring a truly magnificent Sir Gawain. Tolkien is the author I most look up to, and I enjoy all of his writing styles, whether it is the restrained, epic narrative in the Simarillion, to the droll, broad humour and word-play in Farmer Giles of Ham. 

However, since the challenge is primarily about Middle-Earth, my choices are narrowed down a bit. At present, The Hobbit is rather my go-to book when I want something to read, as it is lighter than The Lord of the Rings, while providing just enough weighty battle at the end, to satisfy the craving for something epic. That being said, of all the books Tolkien wrote, the one I do come back to the most often, is The Lord of the Rings. I read it for the first time when I was very young; I was around eleven, and I have re-read it more times than I can count. I grew into the story the more I read it, and I am always surprised by the way I am always able to find something new about it every time I read it. Besides, it is an encouraging book, full of hope beyond all hope, Light in the darkest places, heroism and sacrifice in grand defiance of death, falls, yes, but also returns to grace. It is the sort of book that makes one want desperately to be better, stronger, braver, the very human characters in it are such fine examples of virtue when it matters most.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Middle Earth Challenge, click here.