I’ve been meaning to re-read this book for 15 years. Ever since the movies came out and I started forgetting why I was upset with them when they didn’t stick to the story but were good enough that I watched them again and again until the story of the book lay forgotten in the background of my mind.

This summer I finally read it again. And even though I said in the title it’s a story about friendship and love I would actually call it a story about friendship=love. Because one is so inextricably connected to the other.

So much so that by end of the book you feel your heart constrict with feelings of love and friendship you feel for the characters and you actually feel the depth of the emotions they have for each other.

I wish for so much pure love and friendship to be felt by everyone. What I don’t wish so much is the pain you need to go through to get to the point where true love is forged from it. Because roads like that don’t always end with people becoming true.

But as one of the characters says in the book:

“ It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it’ll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something.“

I guess that is enough of a clue to say that true and pure emotion never comes without some hard effort. Although in this case it’s vice versa. Sacrifice came because the heart was pure and love of life made them go forth.

I guess now it’s clear what book is it that I re-read. ☺

I remember now why I loved this book so much. And why later Harry Potter made such an impact too.

It is so easy to turn your eyes to the other side and pretend it’s none of your business. I admit I do it too. I have a hard time dealing with the harsh realities of life. But I do wish to be brave and not give up. And I wish it was everyone’s wish. Just to be a bit braver.

Because even if it’s fantasy, it was conceived by a real life person – the possibility of resilience born out of friendship and love to succeed over all odds and win in the end.

Why shouldn’t that be possible in real life?

Tagged: Book review, friendship, Frodo and Sam, I've been thinking, JRR Tolkien, love, The Lord of the Rings