WORDS WITH MR. KAUMANS- KEVIN KAUMANS
During my first week back at Northwestern, I wrote an article where I ranted about the first book in the “Lord of he Rings” and how Tolkien fans would treat you like someone who huffs paint if you dare to criticize their lord and savior John Ronald Reuel. Looking back on it, I do acknowledge that I spent less time on actually reviewing the book and much more time ranting about the Tolkien fandom. So, in this review, I promise to make the book I’m talking about this week the primary focus of this article.
“The Two Towers” is the second book in the most famous fantasy trilogy in existence. Taking place immediately after the first one, just minutes after Sam and Frodo leave the group and Boromir, Merry and Pippin get ambushed by orcs.
Just like the first book, however, the main problem of “The Two Towers” is that most of the first act is just three of the main characters walking towards the destination and Tolkien describing the biome around them. I get that Tolkien loved nature and was in awe of its beauty, but when you’re over a hundred pages into a book and you’re still waiting for something to happen instead of a man, an elf and a dwarf walking, it can get old pretty quickly, no?
Now, to be fair, it’s not like the entire book is a slog to get through. In fact, I did find some good things to point out. Themes of temptation and how power is mans’ worst enemy. There were, however, moments when Gandalf could do things that are never explained in the book.
Yes, Tolkien clearly states he’s a wizard, but most fantasy books also describe what power or spell a magic user is doing when they do use it. For example: Gandalf is able to yell at an old king who’s under a spell where he does everything his corrupted advisor suggests that he’s under a spell and, for reasons unexplained, the king is able to free himself from the spell just like that.
I did like Treebeard though, I’ll give the book that. The lore of him and the ents were kind of interesting and innovative for a fantasy species. Another thing I enjoyed was how the movie actually expanded on the romance of Arwen and Aragorn while the books don’t tell us they’re even in love until the end of the third book.
Overall, while I found “The Two Towers” to be a slow, tiring read at first, I soon learned to appreciate Mr. Tolkien’s writing style and I even found myself enjoying some of it. I already finished “The Return of The King” and will get on to reviewing it soon because trust me, I have a lot to say about it.
