The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers - J. R. R. Tolkien

Being disappointed with the first volume in the series, I was hoping that The Two Towers, what with having had the lore established, would prove to be more evenly paced and entertaining. Unfortunately I was wrong, and it proved to be just as much a slog as the previous entry. With the fellowship disbanded and going their separate ways, Tolkien makes the always controversial decision to deal with the verging storylines separately, rather than sequentially. The first part of the book deals relates the adventures of Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf, Merry, and Pippin, whilst the second is wholly focused on Frodo and Sam's journey to Mordor, and their encounter with the treacherous Gollum. I noticed that when Tolkien writes the deaths of major characters, he does not give them much of an emotional impact. Gandalf's supposed death in the first book is confusing and vague, whilst Boromir's happens off page between volumes.

My least favourite part of this book was the lengthy section concerning the Ents, giant tree people whom Merry and Pippin encounter in the ancient forest of Fangorn. Ents have a slow way of doing things, and this is painfully translated into the narrative where things plod along at an abysmal pace for what felt like chapters on end. Overall, considering the large scale battle of Helm's Deep and the siege of Saruman's tower in Isengard, Towers is more lively than Fellowship, yet it all winds down again in the second half of the book. The journey to Mordor is tortuously repetitive, and whilst we know as a reader that the stakes are high, namely the destruction of the world, there is no real sense of urgency. This time, Frodo's slow progress is not caused by procrastination but by ineptness. I enjoyed the chapter where Gollum attempts to lead the hobbits to their deaths in the lair of Shelob, a monstrous spider, but it was too little, too late in a sea of tedium.

Rating: 2/5