Review - The Two Towers

It took me so long to read this, this time! After always saying it was the one I read fastest. But it's true, once I settled down and gave myself time to read it, I read it practically all in one day. The first half of this book, technically 'book III', picks up a lot of pace, to my mind. We chase orcs with Aragorn, meet up with Gandalf again, meet Treebeard, attack and overthrow Isengard, defend Helm's Deep... Quite a lot happens, just in book III. Book IV follows Frodo and Sam closer and closer to Mordor, which is a little slower, a sort of ghastly crawl -- I don't mean the writing or pace is that terrible, but you can feel the sense of dread the whole time, the revulsion.

It's also the book in which we see rather a lot of Gollum, and in which many people learn to feel pity for him. We learn a little more about him -- though not much, really: that mostly happens when Gandalf tells his story at the Council of Elrond. He's treacherous, but we see the potential good buried underneath the bad... I find him quite a tragic character, and wish that he could really truly be saved.

We also meet Faramir, who I had a total literary crush on way back when I first read this. He's nobler than his brother Boromir, easier to love and admire, I think -- at least for a certain type of person, because I suppose Boromir's confidence and fighting skill and drive to find a solution to the problems of Minas Tirith is also appealing to some people.

I'm still leaving my overview of the trilogy for last. I hope I'll remember everything I mean to say for then.

Review - The Capricorn Bracelet

I loved Rosemary Sutcliff's historical fiction, when I was younger. I read two copies of The Eagle of the Ninth to pieces. This book is also about Roman Britain, although it's more focused on the area around the wall, and is also less about big epic deeds, and more about ordinary people -- focusing on a single family through a period of a couple of hundred years. There's less excitement, I suppose, but there are fascinating little details about how Sutcliff imagines life to have been then -- realistic, so far as I can tell.

I liked it. It wasn't the kind of story to blow someone away, I think, but one to sit with quietly and absorb. There are lovely details in it, lovely moments, and small quick glimpses of lives...

My only argument with it is that the narrators, the six different narrators, don't sound very different. It's hard, I suppose, to differentiate, but it felt like one voice. Could be partly choice, keeping the family link clear, but it bugged me.