Fordim,
I appears to be my fate that I post a quick, incomplete response at the start of your threads!
One of the traditional claims about the structure of LOTR has always been that it is ... unstructured, the typical picaresque where the heroes just march off to various adventures, without a strongly plotted or planned sense of 'rising' action (the various scenes possibly being interchangeable to some degree), other than the ultimate battle, of course, even as there were several different strands of adventures.
What I like is how you point out that there is a repeated pattern of departure/action/respite. I had seen the three 'major' retreats of Bombadill, Rivendell and Lorien because they are highlighted thematically but not the other examples of resite in Gildor/Farmer Maggot/Bree etc.
Completely irrelevantly, this reminds me of the short action sequences in Star Wars, where Lucas limits each scene to approximately 20 minutes, something akin to the time in American TV shows between commercials. What this has to do with your Ring and Road thesis I'm not sure. Just jumping through some hoops at the moment!
Essex,
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ie we have characters and events going off at tangents throughout the book. I love the way when reading LOTR you can see Tolkien's plot from different viewpoints.
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Not sure what you mean here. Simply that each of the narrative thread--Sam and Frodo, the hobbits, Aragorn/Gandalf--are split? I don't necessarily see any different points of view. Characters express different opinions, yes, but it seems to me that LOTR is fairly well delimited as a binary point of view, good versus evil, with the evil being "out there".
Anyhow, as I said, I must dash...
Bethberry