The Lord of the Rings - Box Set

Following The Hobbit, Tolkiens heroic fantasy story served as inspiration and copy material (though they could not really copy it) for authors ever since it was released. When I first started to read The Lord of the Rings, I quit after the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring. My 12 year old mind could not take the slow flow of things and the 200% described forests, mountains and other places. Years later however I got back to the book and I noticed things. First of all, Tolkien as a philologist did a great job creating the world partly based on languages, or more likely a family of languages. I havent since found anything like it in books. The strange thing is that the interrelation between languages, names and ancient stories not only works, but it makes Middle Earth feel real and lively. The other thing is the most memorable old chap, Gandalf or Mithrandir is a shouting out Christ-figure. Thinking back on the books, he never lets people get hurt for unnecessarily, also is trying to protect them from misjudgements and teach them mercy. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends. Coming from the heavenly place Valinor, to help the children of men is another support for the theory. The underlying story is great too, of course. I would advise the reader not to forget that it was written during the Second World War, which gives space for calculations about the parallel between the forces of Sauron and Hitler. I would not dare to say that the dark forces are the same, but it definitely gives the story an interesting taste to consider this as an option. I would prefer to not get into heroic tale of good fighting the forces of evil, as presumably everyone knows at least something about one of the most popular book trilogies of the last century. I would strongly advise everyone though to read all three (preferably four) books, only after that turn to the movies, and by movies I mean the directors cut edition. 9,5/10