I havent read the book in many years, but I just watched the first movie again. It amazes me how a story about wizards and dwarfs, loosely based on the struggles of WW2, can provide such inspiration.
Friendship, making a promise and keeping an oath, living and dying with honor, self-sacrifice, perseverance in times of doubt, the idea that not all struggles are achieved through strength of arms.
Wow. Good themes. Maybe even timeless themes even more notable for their absence in modern TV/movie storytelling, with their Grand Theft Auto car chases and violence.
Towards the end of the first film, people are dying and Frodo laments that he never wanted any of this. Gandolf replies that no one who lives in troubled times asks for it. The only real choice one has is to decide how to live the life one gets.
Sage advice for any time. Not to be a downer, but there are moments when I fear troubled times are coming to us much like they did in the 1920's and 1930's. One can hope that people will face those challenges with the simple values Tolkien expressed.
I already know who the crazy steward of Gondor is but who will be our wise Gandolf or fearless Aragorn?
