The Road to Isengard feels like an unnecessary chapter on many different levels. It begins with the entertaining resolution to Gimli and Legolas's subplot -- Gimli's 42 kills over Legolas's 41.
After that, it goes downhill as Theoden, Gandalf, and other supporting characters decide to pay Saruman a visit. That's all that literally happens in this chapter -- a journey to Isengard.
The terrain is described in great detail in this chapter. While I was reading this chapter, I was thinking about Orson Scott Card's theory that there are four different types of stories. In that article, Orson Scott Card argues there are milieu stories, idea stories, character stories, and event stories. Card argues that Lord of the Rings is an event story. While I think his model oversimplifies -- many stories include elements of all four, playing along I think Card is wrong. Perhaps Lord of the Rings is more of a milieu story than event story. Tolkien seems to focus heavily on having characters explore the world. At the very least, this chapter is a milieu chapter.
Not everything is bad. I perked up when Theoden and friends finally arrived at Isengard. Reading the description of Isengard was interesting. Reading about its ruin was fascinating. The reader had already known that the Tree Ents had marched to war, and this was the result. This is one things that Tolkien did well -- I think showing the devastation of the Ents was far more compelling than having a line by line account of Tree Ents crushing orcs.
Of course, I remember that the chapter where Saruman is introduced is one of the best of the series. Tolkien certainly takes his sweet time in building up to it.
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