These two chapters, as Jacob guessed, are another part of the reason why I find Book 3 so tedious and disappointing. While "Helm's Deep" is far from a perfect chapter, it does provide forward-moving action as well as serving as its own self-contained narrative. But "Road to Isengard" is just a bridge chapter, taking our characters from one place to another. While the chapter does have some merit when viewed in isolation, it really doesn't contribute anything to the narrative as a whole and could easily have been condensed into "Flotsam and Jetsam" for a more consice, streamlined approach. I think Jacob has nailed it here: Tolkien should make you a little nervous, because this word count bloat will recur to haunt us in later books, particularly in both books of "Return of the King."
That's the bad; now on to the merit. Eric and Jacob both point out that the company's first impression of the hobbits and their subsequent interactions is ridiculously charming. The hobbits are never more endearing and worthwhile than when outsiders consider them with awe and respect. Tolkien invokes this theme often and effectively in the earlier books, and will employ it to schmaltzy effect after the Ring is destroyed (singers spontaneously compose and perform songs about the hobbits' valor!) but the effect does feel particularly well-earned in this chapter, to some degree. Tolkien does a respectable job of building up the imposing nature of Isengard, coupled with Gandalf's tongue-in-cheek efforts to keep the company in the dark about what happened the night before ("Gandalf, we see great smokes and fumes! Are we riding to our deaths???" "Maaaaaybe....") Thus the moment when the reader is expected to be presented with Isengard in all of its sound and fury is completely bowled over by the revelation that "the doors lay hurled and twisted on the ground" and the whole of Isengard stands in ruins. And to find the hobbits here, smoking and eating, is icing on the cake.
Finally, Tolkien manages to slip in another reminder that The Lord of the Rings is a book about endings, not beginnings (leaving the last line of the trilogy aside for a minute). Theoden, upon seeing what may be the most marvelous sight of his life -- the Ents shepherding the trees outside of Helm's Deep -- comments that "also I should be sad . . . For however the fortune of war shall go, may it not so end that much that was fair and wonderful shall pass for ever out of Middle-earth." Gandalf, always the kill-joy, responds: "It may . . . The evil of Sauron cannot be wholly cured, nor made as if it had not been." While victory may come -- and this easy triumph over Saruman's forces always led me to consider the ultimate inevitability of Sauron's defeat as well (easy at least when considering the driving thrust of Tolkien's narrative) -- it doesn't come without a heavy price, in lives and damage to men's (and hobbit's) souls. Theoden manages to come across here as a poignantly bitter-sweet character; one who relishes the victory over a ferocious enemy, but at the same time embodying an old man whose life has extended beyond the precious lives of so many fallen in battle, including that of his own son. In my line of work I come across on a regular basis tragic, wasteful death, as well as individuals who have so thoroughly squandered their time and talents as to render themselves incapable of making meaningful choices that the rest of us consider intrinsic to our human experience, so to some degree I can relate. Tolkien certainly saw this during and after the war. Now that I think about it, Tolkien probably related to Theoden a great deal.
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