First, a little about the book itself. Petty did not set out to examine individual characters and how they qualify to be heroes, though there is a bit of that in the penultimate chapter when mentioning the usual arguments people make about who is the "real" hero of The Lord of the Rings. Instead, this book follows themes through Tolkien's legendarium, primarily The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, but also mentioning his short stories (Leaf by Niggle, for example) when appropriate. In Petty's words, the book is "a collection of related essays about the grand themes that run through the works of J.R.R. Tolkien - the nature of evil, the use and abuse of power, the joys and sorrows of living, the need for heroes both great and small" (9). Thus, she begins with the Ainulindalë and follows those themes straight through to the end of The Lord of the Rings.

I'm finding it very difficult to encapsulate the book beyond that very general description. There is much discussion of Tolkien's mythology, how it does and doesn't compare to Christianity and other religions, and how the self-contained and consistent mythology Tolkien starts setting forth in the Silmarillion affects and directs the outcomes of events through Middle-earth's history. Petty does very well with helping keep all of the Valar and Maiar straight as far as who they are, what their powers are, and what they did in Middle-earth (there's even a handy list of all of the named 'gods' with a brief explanation, which is a great help to someone like me who has a hard time keeping all those names straight!).

To give you a better idea of what the book covers, here are the part and chapter titles:

Part I: The Myth of the Fall
1. Dissonance in the Great Music
2. Touched by Tragedy -The Children of Middle-earth

Part II: The Consequences of Power
3. The Persistence of Evil
4. The Use and Abuse of Power

Part III: Loss and Longing
5. Mourning for Middle-earth
6. In Defense of Nature

Part IV: Of Heroes and Hope
7. Sagas, Sages, and Saviors
8. Hope and the Human Spirit

Petty's cited references read like the Tolkien shelf in my university library. Seriously. It's got the respected Tolkien people (like Verlyn Flieger), as well as citing from Tolkien's work, his letters, and throwing in some references to old heroic sagas (like Beowulf and the Kalevala), with articles from Mythlore and Mallorn, too. And that doesn't include the books/articles about literary criticism (like Northrup Frye's Anatomy of Criticism). If I were writing any sort of Tolkien paper, I'd go straight to this book for ideas and help with finding relevant citations.

I liked it. I really did. This is the sort of book that helps you step back and see the forest rather than the trees, which is very helpful sometimes.

If you're wondering about any errors, I didn't notice any factual errors (I'm also not that good with the Silm. ;)), but there was some amusing copyediting problems. Namely, it would appear that in order to get the accents in names, they did a find-and-replace. That's all well and good, until you get a word like "nurturing" which has the name "Túrin" smack dab in the middle of it, leading to "nurTúring". So there are a couple instances of that, but it's more amusing than annoying. ( )