the lord of the rings: the two towers

the two towers by jrr tolkien

I lost steam at the end of this book (I think I always do when we get to the Frodo and Sam sections). I’m not sure why they don’t do it for me; the first half of this book is such a blast to read. The bouncing back and forth between the captured hobbits and the pursuing remnants of the Company is fun, the return of Gandalf, the Grima/Theoden, all straight into Helm’s Deep and casting Saruman out of Isengard - it just barrels forward. But something about the Frodo/Sam/Smeagol stuff just really drags for me. Faramir is also boring to me as a “Boromir-but-better” (if I remember, the introduction of Denethor and that dynamic makes it much more interesting, but the stuff he’s doing in this book is dull).

I also fell behind the Shelved by Genre podcast along the way here, which probably contributed to my boredom reading the Frodo/Sam stuff. I’ll try to make sure I’m ahead of the pod for the next book to give it more of a fair shake. It definitely didn’t stand up to reading after hearing it talked about for two plus hours.