The fellowship of the ring is a sequel to the book `The Hobbit'. The Hobbit first introduces the jolly Hobbits who populate the fantasy world Tolkien so vividly describes. Hobbits can be described as `little people' but they have no relation to the `big people' or normal people, who walk around on the earth, in this time, and this universe. The world described is The Middle Earth, where all sorts of fantasy creatures live.

September 22nd 3001, Bilbo Baggins, the main character of `The Hobbit', celebrates both his birthday and that of his cousin Frodo. On his birthday he holds a speech, in which he insults almost all those who were invited to his party. After his speech he suddenly disappears into thin air, using the magic ring that he got with a trick in `The Hobbit'. Frodo inherits all of his property, including the ring. Frodo has some worries but he realises that Bilbo will look after himself. Because of the magic powers of the ring Bilbo has a hard time letting it go, but he is convinced by Gandalf, a wizard and Bilbo's friend, that he must give it up. Nearly 17 years later, Gandalf returns to the Shire, the region where Bilbo and Frodo live, and tells Frodo the history of the ring. He explains the danger of using, or even possessing, the ring and how it's Frodo's task to go to Orodruin, the fire-mountain, and destroy the ring. Orodruin is the only place where the ring can be destroyed. If Frodo fails to destroy the ring, and Sauron, the dark lord of terror, gets the ring is his hands, the world is lost. So Frodo sets out, along with Sam and Pippin, Merry has gone ahead, for Crickhollow and later to Rivendel, home of elves. On their way they encounter a `Black Rider' who sniffs as if he's looking for something. They also meet a few elves, but they won't tell Frodo much because they're afraid he might abandon his quest if he knew the danger that lay ahead. After trying to take a shortcut through a dense part of the woods, they meet farmer Maggot. They rest at his home and then he brings them to the ferry to cross the river. There they meet Merry and they decide to continue travelling as fast as possible. They have to pass through the old forest, which is claimed to be haunted. It is there where a great old willow tries to kill them, but Tom Bombadil, master of the forest, saves them just in time. They stop for a few days at his place and travel on when they feel refreshed. Tom has to save them again Later as they travel through the barrow-downs, this time from the barrow-wights. Without further delays they proceed to Bree. Once there they decide to go to "The Prancing Pony", an inn highly recommended by Tom. There they meet Strider, a ranger who convinces them to take him along on their journey. Together they leave for Rivendel. After a long journey they just manage to escape from the Black Riders, by whom Frodo is wounded, and they reach Rivendel.
In Rivendel a council is called upon by Elrond to discuss who will be the ring bearer and his followers are Sam, Merry, Pippin, Gandalf, Strider, now known as Aragorn and Boromir, a powerful human warrior, Gimli, a dwarven warrior and the son of an old friend of Bilbo and Legolas Greenleaf, an elf. They set out for Mordor and they want to pass through the Redhorn-Gate on top of Caradhras, the snowy mountain. But the mountain has no intention of letting them pass and flings snow and even an avalanche at them. Gandalf makes the suggestion to take a route through Moria, a dark place of myths. In Moria they're attacked by orcs but the orcs suddenly flee and the fellowship is attacked by a balrog. Whilst fighting this fiend Gandalf falls down into a crack in the ground. The fellowship presumes he has perished. Aragorn becomes the leader, and the Fellowship follows him to Lothlorien, the `fairest elf-haven of all and the heart of elvendom on the Middle-Earth'. Here they are the guests of the lady Galadriel and lord Celeborn who offer them food and drink and the likes. Galadriel makes an offer to Frodo and Sam to take a glance in her "mirror" which, in fact it is only a pool which reflects the light of moon and the stars in the sky, but when Sam looks, he sees his father and a dark evil in the Shire. But he can't return. Bilbo sees only one thing, an eye looking for him and he realises that it's the eye of Sauron, and becomes terrified. When the fellowship leaves, they receive valuable gifts and more food for the long way ahead, and they also receive elven-cloaks that make anyone who wears them almost invisible. They leave Lothlorien and head for Emyn Muil over the great river. They believe Gollum, the creature who possesed the ring before Bilbo managed to get it using a clever scheme is following them. Once near Emyn Muil Boromir tries to take the ring from Frodo to save his town Minas Tirith that is being attacked by orcs. Frodo then decides to leave on his own because he knows he can't fully trust some members of the fellowship and that he loves the others too much to let them come with him to the danger he's facing. But Sam realises what Frodo's doing and goes to the boats on the great river where he finds him. While they are looking for Frodo, Merry and Pippin are being attacked by orcs. Boromir attempts to save them both but the Orcs kill him. Merry and Pippin are captured and taken away.

End of Fellowship of the Ring.

Setting
Fellowship of the Ring is set in a fantasy world that is best compared with medieval times Technology isn't very advanced and the whole reminds me of most fantasy stories, such as The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan or Ring of Lightning By Jane S. Fancher, which use the same setting, yet slightly differently.

Main characters
As said earlier, the most important person in the story is Frodo. In the beginning he's just an ordinary hobbit who enjoys life and the luxuries presented to him at home, such as extensive meals. Even though he's more of an adventurer than most of the people in his surroundings, he would've never taken part in this adventure, had he known what would happen. He comes from a wealthy and respectable family, the Bagginses. Frodo is a kind, gentle character and remains loyal to his friends.

Gandalf the wizard is also a key character, his full name being Gandalf the Grey, or, as the elves call him: Mithrandir. He's old and wise but closes himself from the outside world. He tends to speak in riddles and he's an isolated man who won't bother with small talk as the Hobbits would, but he has a good sense of humor and is very fond of the hobbits and their particular ways. The others all have the quite an amount of respect for him and he's the leader of the fellowship. Sam, as well as Merry and Pippin, all friends of Frodo, follow Frodo in his experiences and they too grow more and more adventurous as the story goes on.

Legolas remains almost the same person throughout the entire book. Smart, skeptical and never jumping to conclusions, though his opinion about dwarfs changes a bit. Gimli is the opposite of Legolas, being a dwarf, he's very short tempered and he remains that way, but, as with Legolas, his opinion of elves changes.

A passage

One thing in this story that sticked in my mind when I read it, it was when a council was called in Rivendel and they discussed if the ring was truly the Great ring that ruled over the other rings. That is where what is engraved in the ring is spoken aloud

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness bind them.

It's described so truly brilliant that you feel you're there and you can hear Gandalf say those words. I think it's the best part of Fellowship of the ring. Beautifully done.

Theme & Opinion
The theme clearly is the moral piece of Socrates that, if you had an object of ultimate power, what would you do with it? Would you use it for evil or for good? The theme is really visible throughout both `The Hobbit' and the entire Lord of Rings Trilogy. It's funny if you notice the first Harry Potter book has the same foundation but does nothing with it, Harry prevails and keeps the stone away from evil but he just gives the stone away. He can have immortality and all, but he never even gives it a second thought. And, of course, the fact that the line between good and evil is a lot thinner in Lord of the Rings. In Harry Potter there are only the ones that are truly evil and are truly good, while in Tolkien, because of the ring, even Frodo behaves evil at a certain point when he's parted of the ring for a short period of time by Sam to protect the ring. That is why Lord of The Rings is far more complex when reading. You're compelled to think in Frodo's perspective, and what effect the surroundings and objects have on him. This makes the entire book a more enjoyable experience, but, of course, J.R.R Tolkien's use of the English language is far more enjoyable as it describes everything indetail and you can just dream away into the book. It's a very well written book and if one has a firm grasp of the English language one can truly enjoy all there is to enjoy in these books.

Also, if you consider the time these books were written in (namely World War II) you can see Tolkien depicts the Hobbits from the West as good and Sauron, from the east, as evil. Clearly the west is the allied government and the east is the nazi-german empire. Although I doubt Hitler would've ruled the world with a ring :)

I obviously recommend this to anyone interested in books with a fantasy setting as this was quite a bit of fun to go through.

P.S.

The reason this bookreport is a bit more lengthy is that the book has about 700 to 800 pages (I've read a pocketedition which had 398 pages, but are in half the fontsize a book normally would have) My apologies therefor, since I couldn't possibly make this smaller without describing a passage and providing my opinion with this bookreport. And of course the fact that I have to create some sort in intro to understand the storyline as I have described here in better… (and quite frankly, 2.5 pages of tekst are quite acceptable, it was only 2.2 pages at first, but then I had to write this, `causing this to grow even further… I'll stop writing now…)