Following Gandalf: Epic Battles and Moral Victory in The Lord of the Rings

by Matthew Dickerson

This is a very well written book that really gets to what is at the heart of the story. The military battles that take place, though necessary, are not where the real victory comes. It is the spiritual battlefield that the soul fights on that determines failure or success in the war against the Enemy. The most obvious and longest and bitterest of those battles is the one going on within Frodo’s soul, but it is also going on inside everyone else’s, especially those who have had contact with Evil, either through the Ring or the palantirs, and how each dealt with the temptation of the Ring as it came to them. It speaks of Gandalf’s hope in a bright future even as he awaits the battle of Minas Tirith and Denethor’s despair at the same. It shows Faramir and Galadriel’s wisdom that saving one’s soul is more important than saving one’s land. Both realize the latter should not be saved at the cost of the former. This warfare of the soul is the same battle that we are all engaged in and this book has much more to say about it than I report here. Highly recommended if you wish to be enlightened by the story going on beneath the surface, where battles are not decided with armies, but with individual wills and the infusion and acceptance or denial of grace and redemption. One of the better books out there on the subject.