Catholic-ometer: 4.5 of 5
Enjoyability: 4.5 of 5
The second "book" of the Return of the King chronicles Frodo and Sam as they complete their journey through Mordor, and bring the ring of power to Mount Doom, where Gollum attacks them again, just as the ring finishes corrupting Frodo. Both Gollum and he ring fall into the fires, but Frodo and Sam are rescued by Gandalf and the Eagles, and Aragorn's forces finish mopping up the enemy once the ring is destroyed.
After that, there are several subplots involving Eowyn and some of the other minor characters. Eowyn casts aside virtually all of her previous character development, and becomes "more of a woman," for Faramir, but I actually consider this a relatively minor fault in the writing, despite Eowyn's large impact on the story so far. Arwen appears again, just in time to marry Aragorn, but barely gets two lines of dialogue in doing so. I much prefer her depiction in the movie, but this isn't really a weakness in the book; she's just a very minor character here.
Finally, they all part ways, and before the main characters depart the land forever, there's a plot about a brief war in the shire, between a band of "ruffians," commanded by Saruman, and the shire hobbits he's been enslaving with what essentially amounts to socialism.
In my opinion, the final battle of the book was a bit anticlimactic for a final battle, but not a bad little plotline by itself, and even fairly amusing. I was always somewhat disappointed that the major conflict is resolved a third of the way into this book, after which everything else seems like a step down. Still, it never really upset me all that much. I wasn't really bothered by any of the things I've just described.
The only thing about this book, and indeed, this book series that ever really angered me was the message, near the end, of good things passing away and the world moving on without them. Many of the ideas and concepts contained in this book are friendly to the Catholic ear, but this is not. Only evil things will come to an end. Good things continue forever, and without a better understanding of the Gray Havens, and its relationship to Middle Earth, the message of these segments can come off as "if you've already done a lot to help people, just go off on a vacation overseas somewhere." For good Christians, the fight doesn't end until you're dead, and even then, it doesn't really END end, it just takes a different form until the final judgment. The ending of the Lord of the Rings always bothered me for this reason, ever since I was a child, and it does to this day.
Still, it's a good book overall, and a very compelling story of trial, danger and loss. It was just as good as I remembered it being, and I hope you'll enjoy it too.
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