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Lord of the Rings
Jul. 7th, 2008 11:11 pm(I'm afraid posting this message will push my announcements down the queue, so if you haven't seen that post go there now. :)
I'm rereading the Lord of the Rings for the 2N th time...we're in Lothlorien right now. I was introduced to LoTR from an early age, as my dad would read it to us before bedtime--I was at most 7 years old when he started. It was such a part of our family culture, that it was a shock to reach college and discover that the books were as well-known as they are, kind of like discovering, at age 18, that your Uncle John (Ronald Reuel?) is a world-famous author. We used to play games where we'd have to name a Tolkien character for every letter of the alphabet, and one time when my brother was feeling ill during a camping trip, my dad amused him by pointing to two flies and saying, "Look, there's Fili and Kili!"
Every time I re-read the books I tend to focus on something different. One time I tried to force myself to see the hobbits as adults rather than children, or that Merry is actually male (the name and maybe the character makes me think "female"...and speaking of Merry, that's one character that the movie really changed: in the book, Merry isn't a troublemaker, but is actually more of a Hermione type, particularly in the beginning of the book where he leads the party through the Old Forest.) One time I came up with the theory that, since Gimli was the son of Gloin and Gimli didn't show up in the Hobbit, he was actually born after the Hobbit, and so was one of the younger members of the Fellowship, which colored my perception of some of his behavior in the Two Towers and explained why he became the subsitute Hobbit once the hobbits were gone. (It turns out that the theory was wrong: Gimli was alive during the Hobbit, but just didn't go to the Lonely Mountain with Bilbo. Ah well.)
This time I find myself really focusing on the settings and the weather. That's probably because I'm in Texas during what I find to be the most boring season of the year, summer. I like the sun staying up so long, but otherwise I've always liked summer the least; throw in Texas temperatures and I'm dreaming of fall and a northern clime. I tend to have the bad habit, when reading, of only reading dialogue and skipping the explanatory bits in between, so I'm forcing myself to slow down and enjoy the setting more.
One more thing: Tolkien writes in The Hobbit, in reference to Rivendell, that the best days make the worst stories-- no one wants to read about the bits of the story where the characters get to relax. It's ironic then that Tolkien writes these bits very well, to my mind. I always enjoy reading about Rivendell and Lothlorien and the time after the ring is destroyed. Is this a common opinion?
I'm rereading the Lord of the Rings for the 2N th time...we're in Lothlorien right now. I was introduced to LoTR from an early age, as my dad would read it to us before bedtime--I was at most 7 years old when he started. It was such a part of our family culture, that it was a shock to reach college and discover that the books were as well-known as they are, kind of like discovering, at age 18, that your Uncle John (Ronald Reuel?) is a world-famous author. We used to play games where we'd have to name a Tolkien character for every letter of the alphabet, and one time when my brother was feeling ill during a camping trip, my dad amused him by pointing to two flies and saying, "Look, there's Fili and Kili!"
Every time I re-read the books I tend to focus on something different. One time I tried to force myself to see the hobbits as adults rather than children, or that Merry is actually male (the name and maybe the character makes me think "female"...and speaking of Merry, that's one character that the movie really changed: in the book, Merry isn't a troublemaker, but is actually more of a Hermione type, particularly in the beginning of the book where he leads the party through the Old Forest.) One time I came up with the theory that, since Gimli was the son of Gloin and Gimli didn't show up in the Hobbit, he was actually born after the Hobbit, and so was one of the younger members of the Fellowship, which colored my perception of some of his behavior in the Two Towers and explained why he became the subsitute Hobbit once the hobbits were gone. (It turns out that the theory was wrong: Gimli was alive during the Hobbit, but just didn't go to the Lonely Mountain with Bilbo. Ah well.)
This time I find myself really focusing on the settings and the weather. That's probably because I'm in Texas during what I find to be the most boring season of the year, summer. I like the sun staying up so long, but otherwise I've always liked summer the least; throw in Texas temperatures and I'm dreaming of fall and a northern clime. I tend to have the bad habit, when reading, of only reading dialogue and skipping the explanatory bits in between, so I'm forcing myself to slow down and enjoy the setting more.
One more thing: Tolkien writes in The Hobbit, in reference to Rivendell, that the best days make the worst stories-- no one wants to read about the bits of the story where the characters get to relax. It's ironic then that Tolkien writes these bits very well, to my mind. I always enjoy reading about Rivendell and Lothlorien and the time after the ring is destroyed. Is this a common opinion?
