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Rating: 
Summary: Bland, uninformative, dull
Review: Carpenter tries hard and covers all the bases, but the book gives us very little idea what exactly made Tolkien tick and what he was trying to say with Lord of the Rings, especially the powerful concluding chapters. This was a disappointment
Rating: 
Summary: bland and uninformative
Review: carpenter tries hard and covers all the bases, but the book gives us very little idea what exactly made tolkien tick and what he was trying to say with lord of the rings. a disappointment
Rating: 
Summary: The definitive biography of a man who hated biographies!
Review: Humphrey Carpenter has, in this book, (as well as in The Inklings, and The Letters of JRR Tolkien), presented a balanced and endearing vision of one of the most popular and beloved authors of the 20th century. Informative without being boring, detailed without being sentimental, this book is far superior to the later biography by Daniel Grotta. One thing which cannot be escaped is Carpenter's understanding of Tolkien's Catholicism -- expressed in both his writing, and his large part in the conversion of CS Lewis. Without this understanding, much of the "heart" of Tolkien's writing is missed.
Rating:
Summary: I liked it
Review: I liked this book very much, of course, I like Tolkien and I like history. It's a little slow -- but then, it's a biography. I read the first chapter and was shocked to find Tolkien not the Elf or Hobbit I was expecting but rather a interesting man who was a little . . . weird. A good read, it told a LOT about his life and charature and Christianity.
Rating:
Summary: The definitive biography of a man who hated biographies!
Review: Many of us know Tolkien only for his works of fantasy fiction. We may imagine him as a mystical Gandalf walking around 20th Century England. At first I was a little disappointed to find that this was not so. He was in fact, a normal man that I might have met, given the chance. He could be you or me, yet he had, within himself, a vision of something no one could have seen on the outside. I was impressed with the way Carpenter presented the Tolkien that his friends and family knew. I don't believe that anyone could understand what was really behind the mind of the creator of Lord of The Rings, any more than we can understand any other person's most precious and intimate creations.
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