Cliffs Notes

Rating: Rings

January 11, 2003

By Gene B. Hardy, Ph.D. University of Illinois

List Price: $5.99

Paper Back

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

---Quote:"Gollum leads the hobbits across the Dead Marshes, where lie the bodies of men, elves, and orcs killed in battle long ago. He leads them to the Black Gate of Mordor. Morannon, but it proves to be impenetrable for them, and they are forced to rely on him to take them to a pass called Cirith Ungol, through which they might conceivably pass unseen into Mordor."

Review by emplynx:

Cliff Notes have been used for many years by students who do not want to read the books they have been assigned in school. Why any student wouldn't want to read the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit is beyond me, but this book is available none-the-less.

This book is 75 pages long and available at most book stores. It has 10 sections: Life of the Author, Tolkien's Fictional World, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, Glossary of Names, Tolkein's Theme of Power, History of Middle-Earth, A Brief Chronology of Middle-Earth, Suggested Topics for Investigation, Selected Bibliography.

The first section, Life of the Author, is a short (very short) biography of the life of J.R.R. Tolkien. The second section, Tolkien's Fictional World, is an analysis of the Middle-earth as related to everyday life and a description of all the races.

The Hobbit section of this book is a summary of The Hobbit and is not broken down into chapters like most Cliffs Notes. The next section, The Lord of the Rings, is a summary of The Lord of the Rings, and is also not broken down into chapters, but it is divided into books (books 1-6).

The following section, Glossary of Names, is a short description of characters and places (and some plants) in Middle-Earth. Tolkien's Theme of Power mostly speaks for itself, it is a long essay on Power in The Lord of the Rings. History of Middle-Earth is divided into the First, Second, and Third ages and gives a short summary of what happens in each age. Brief Chronology of Middle-Earth is a rather brief time line of the event in the first to third ages. A Selected Biography gives the details of a few books used in the writing of this Cliffs Notes, including Tolkien: A Look Behind "The Lord of the Rings" by Lin Cater.

This books is a very excellent book for summarizing the stories of Middle-Earth, but it does not come close to replacing Tolkein's works. The books summaries would be much nicer if they were divided into chapters like other Cliffs Notes, but they do a good job with the major details of the books. As stated by the "A Note to the Reader" on the front cover of the book, "THESE NOTES ARE NOT INTENDED AND HAVE NOT BEEN PREPARED TO SERVE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE TEXT ITSELF OR FOR THE CLASSROOM DISCUSSION OF THE TEXT." Other than that, this is a great book. :)

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