The Lord of the Rings taught me to read.
Well, not really. I was in the second grade when my babysitter Bernadette started reading The Hobbit to me. I was fascinated by the adventures of Bilbo and the dwarves, so much that I couldn’t get enough of it. I was hooked. Not on phonics, but on fantasy. When too much time lapsed between babysitting sessions, I ended up picking it up and starting to puzzle it out on my own. My grandmother bought me the trilogy that summer and I worked my way through it during a long, hot Kansas summer. After that, I reread it every few years while looking for other books that scratched the fantasy itch: Lewis, Moorcock, Lovecraft, Thomas Burnett Swann. I reread it for a class called Fantastic Christianity in high school (yes, I did go to the local Catholic high school, which is a story for another time), which led me to reading more about Tolkein’s life and his contemporaries.
When Peter Jackson’s movie came out, I wasn’t optimistic. I’d seen too many other favorites destroyed by the translation to the screen. But Jackson’s trilogy, while not perfect, managed to capture the flavor that I loved so well.
This week the Blu-ray versions of the three Lord of the Rings movies are released and we’ve partnered with the Lord of the Rings site for a very special giveaway for you: a Lord of the Rings gift pack that includes all three movies on Blu-ray disc, two bookmarks, a New Zealand jade necklace, a deck of Lord of the Ring playing cards, a travel candle (for those late nights reading by candlelight) and a movie poster. On September 21st, we’ll pick one of the commenters on this post to send this package of goodies to, so get your comment in by midnight EST, September 20th.
Tell us something about your experience with the books – how did you find them, how did they shape your reading, what did they lead you to? What did you love (or hate) about the movie? What books and movies would other LotR fans enjoy?
My earliest memories of the Baggins family was through the old Rankin/Bass animated movie, which inspired me to pick up the book. Likewise, the Bakshi version of Fellowship of the Ring inspired me to pick up the Trilogy, especially since the movie left off with no sign of a sequel.
The Peter Jackson movies are not perfect, but they represent one of the best book adaptations which exists to date.
The first time I was exposed to anything LotR, it was The Hobbit animated movie that appeared on TV quite often. I didn’t even know at the time it was a book until several years later I saw it in the bookstore. I had my dad buy it for me, and from there my descent into fantasy and science fiction began.
I think I’ve read The Hobbit four or five time, and while I haven’t even read the trilogy cover to cover, I have read chunks of it enough to know what is going on. As for the movies, well, I’m one of the rare few who can put aside what I know from books, comics, etc., and enjoy it for what it is. I loved the movies, and yes, I know they weren’t perfect adaptations of the books. Who cares, though? If you are that wrapped up in the details, you were bound to not like the movies.
LOTR and The Hobbit were among my first non-picture books when I was a kid. My father gave his old college copies to me — one of them had a cigarette burn in the back (not from him
) — and they were older than I was. They sat on my shelf until one day I decided I was ready to stop being offended by books that didn’t have pictures in them … although I was happy to come across a few scattered drawings here and there. 
After that I was voracious for more fantasy, and if I hadn’t read LOTR and The Hobbit first, I really don’t know what I would have used as a guidepost for good epic fantasy writing.
I definitely agree that while the Peter Jackson films aren’t perfect, they do a good job of capturing the spirit of the original. Maybe it’s a little pathetic, but I actually cried a bit when I first saw the Shire onscreen, because that, in my mind, was perfect, as was Ian McKellen’s Gandalf.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any books that have honestly made me love them in quite the way that LOTR and The Hobbit have, but I do enjoy Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet (or at least the first four books — I haven’t read the fifth) and Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey and Maturin books as having fairly broad-scoped plots but very human perspectives, like Tolkien’s work.
I got a hold of the Hobbit in I think 4th grade. A neighbor brought them over for my dad to read. I devoured it, then snagged the other books as they were brought home.
I have gone through three copies of the books, reading them at least once a year for most of the past 20 years. I even picked up an early 70′s edition of the “Hobbit” not long ago. These are the only books I have read this often.
The books have led to my love of reading, of world building and to my love of writing. High fantasy is not an easy undertaking and the absolute detail of this world is breath taking.
I loved Peter Jackson’s adaptation. His characters were not perfect (physically) and he stayed true to the story as much as possible. I agree, that it is one of the best book adaptions to date.
My dad first introduced me to the Hobbit, I’m not sure what how old I was. I just remember the story, remember the animated movies too. They have always been tied to time with my dad. I read the Hobbit on my own with I was 12, and followed it with LOTR not long after. I would say that it, along with Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonsong, was the gateway to my love of fantasy and scifi books.
I loved the movies. I would love to have a hobit home! And the creatures! The balrog, the oliphants…the attention to the details of the creatures, and places helped smooth over the changes that were made to the story.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were the first fantasy that I read. I started them when I was young; I was 7 when i started, 8 when I finished. It was a big accomplishment for me when I finished, because it took me the better part of 6 months to read everything, and required every ounce of dedication I had at my mono-digit age. I’ve read them since many times; I’ve upgraded to some very nice hardcovers for my books, but I still have the original set of four that I read so many years ago, tucked away in my office. Those books opened my eyes to just how powerful a good book can be, and have set me on the path of reading that I’ve been following since.
My daughter is four years old, and she is a typical girly little girl. A few weeks ago, I got down my hardcover copy of the hobbit, illustrated by Alan Lee (gorgeous book) and asked her if she would like it if I read to her from one of my favourite books.
She’s hooked. She plays hobbits and goblins with her Polly Pocket toys. She’s convinced that Beorn looks like me (which is probably a pretty fair assessment, actually). She thinks about Gandalf when she’s scared. Every time I read, I get her to tell me what’s happened before, and she has absorbed the entire plot.
I don’t know if there is any more telling review than this: tonight at bedtime we’re going to head into Mirkwood together, and it is impossible to tell whether father or child is more excited.
I first read the trilogy when I went to visit my dad for a week. He owns a little CD store, and the days we spent there were long and boring -our Uno games were always getting interrupted, and there wasn’t much for a 12-year-old girl to do in a store full of skaters and punks. My dad reads pretty much constantly, and he had a shelf full of books in the spare room I was sleeping in during my visit. His copies of the LotR books were old and yellowing and they had that aging glue and paper smell I associate with good books.
I took them with me to the store the next day and by the time I looked up from my spot in the first book, it was getting dark outside. I was totally hooked. I finished the entire trilogy by the time I went back home, and he sent me back with my own new copies. We saw all three movies together in theaters when they came out, and spent a long time discussing their various successes and failures (and I spent a lot of time getting teased for my crush on Orlando Bloom).
Now I’m 21, and my dad and I are constantly trading books back and forth and recommending new authors to one another. I trace all of that back to my first reading of the trilogy, and it’s awesome.
My Gran lent me her copy of the dust covered, hard backed Lord of the Rings series when I was about 11.
After reading all 3 and then the hobbit afterwards, these books awakened my hunger for literature that no books before or since have ever done.
Nor only that but it also led me to Warhammer / Games Workshop and even traditional RPG (may favourite was Rolemaster).
Ultimately it’s led me to sfbook.com, a collection of a few thousand books and a hunger for any fantasy or science fiction.
My uncle gave me a boxed set of the books (including The Hobbit) when I was about 11. The Special Silver Jubilee Edition (which hopefully you can see here.) I was instantly hooked and can remember spending long hours reading, dreaming I was floating on a keg down a river, freaking out over giant spiders, and imagining always those kind eagles coming to save me. It’s about time for another re-read, as I now also have my father’s boxed set. Collecting the different covers of the books has also become a hobby.
I still have the set of books I borrowed (stole) from an ex-boyfriend decades ago…
There is just something about Lord of the Rings that captures the heart.
My eldest sister read ‘The Hobbit’ to me when I was quite young. I don’t remember much of it at all, though I do know that it was ‘The Hobbit’ that led me to ‘Lord of the Rings.’ I believe I was twelve when I first read it.
I did not understand everything I read, but all the same, I had never been swept up by a book like that in my life. I had never laughed, never cried, and never had my breath stolen like that before. Most certainly never by a book.
I was deeply fascinated by all the races of the world that Tolkien so masterfully created. There was something in the sense of history that Tolkien imbued in the story that had me desperately believing that once upon a time, there were Elves living here on earth.
This fascination with ancient history and with cultures beyond my own that ‘Lord of the Rings’ inspired in me has never left. I ended up pursuing studies in Anthropology and Archaeology.
I now read a wide variety of genres, though I am a heavy fantasy reader. Though I’ve come across many fantastic books by brilliant authors, that first rush, that first plunge into the world of Middle Earth has a special place with me. I return there every Christmas when I take down my combined volume illustrated by Allan Lee and crack open the cover once more.
As for the films, I believe there is no one on earth could could have done Tolkien’s brilliance more justice than Peter Jackson and his crew. Though I did miss Tom Bombadil and his wife, I know that film and novels are two completely different media, and some things from the novel had to go. Certainly, the films were not perfect representations of the books, but they captured the spirit, the awe and the emotion of the books so perfectly that all my skepticism was swept neatly aside.
If it is the sense of history and long-standing mythologies of other worlds that readers crave, I would highly recommend ‘The Malazan Book of the Fallen’ series by Canadian author Steven Erikson. I felt that familiar rush when I started his first book in that series (‘Gardens of the Moon’). They are really very good.
I discovered swords-and-sorcery when I received a boxed set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings as a Christmas present. I’m not certain, but I think I was 12. I felt quite elvish myself–at home in the woods, but not entirely part of this world–and I remember gazing into the mirror and yearning for pointy ears. My grandfather had died the year before, so the fiery-but-kind Grey Pilgrim addressed a blank area on my life-map. Tolkien’s poetry, though evocative of romance and heroism, was accessible to even a kid, and I fell in love.
I discovered Lord of the Rings, as several other commenters pointed out, through the Rankin/Bass animated series. I played Dungeons and Dragons in my early youth, and discovered the books as part of that. I voraciously read through the Hobbit, the trilogy, and even Silmarillion. From there I went on to Eddings, Dragonlance, and Brooks. As I got to be 17 or 18, I started getting bored with fantasy, because they all seemed to be the same thing over and over again. Then, a couple years ago, I met Brandon Sanderson, and started engaging the books all over again. From his books to the Wheel of Time to some random eBooks in the genre, I’ve enjoyed the ride much more this time.
As for the movies, I thoroughly enjoyed them. I wish Jackson would have included the Scouring of the Shire because it is so paramount to the meaning of the books, but the cinematography and splendor were indeed evident in the movies.
Okay, I must be honest. Despite the fact that I did read and enjoy The Hobbit, I have attempted to read Fellowship of the Ring about seven or eight times…and I just can’t do it. I absolutely love the story, but Tolkien’s writing just keeps me away. So, the movies, however flawed they may be to the purist, have been truly awesome for me.
When I was in third grade, my teacher showed us The Hobbit movie. In fact, I think every grade in our little school watched it at one point over a week’s time (our cash-strapped school probably taking advantage of someone having donated the VHS by coming up with some vaguely grade-appropriate lessons to go along with it).
My brothers and I then found that our mother owned an old paperback of the book, so after waiting for my two older brothers to read it, I followed suit and loved it. It began an obsession in our house that included our Christmas presents that year labeled as coming not from Santa, but from Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins. When Valentine’s Day came around, I signed all my Valentines to my classmates as from Bilbo as well, surely marking myself as a strange cat (as if there’d been any doubt).
We discovered, then, that our library had a picture book of drawings from the Rankin/Bass LotR movie. The images of the Nazgul entering the room in the Prancing Pony and then later through Frodo’s ring-sight on Weathertop…those pictures are still very clear in my mind. It was strange to learn that it wasn’t Legolas (nor Arwen) who goes from Rivendell to meet the hobbits, but the mighty warrior Glorfindel. The book, like the movie, ended halfway through the series, so for many years I didn’t know what happened after, the story ending for me with Frodo and Sam looking out over the wastes of Mordor. I knew there was more, but that more was left to my imagination.
My brothers and I made up and acted out many stories that were mish-mashes of LotR, Star Wars, Prydain, and Narnia, and finally at the age of 12 I felt ready to dive into the books themselves, the first of many times over the next decade. For good and ill, those books became the center of my reading life for many years. The Peter Jackson movies did an excellent job of capturing much of that sense of awe and otherworldliness and sweeping wonder that I’d loved so much as a teenager.
I remember reading The Hobbit when I was in 4th grade and instantly wanting to make my own set of runes. I loved the riddles and lore poems. I made several assays into The Lord of the Rings in the 5th grade, but at the time I was more interested in the rings than the story. I ended up painting twenty costume rings green, black and brown so I could wear the complete set.
I returned to the books in high school and in college. When I obtained a hard-bound, single volume Red Book of Westermarch I read a chapter a night – it was difficult to read just one chapter.
Whenever I want to read beautiful language, I turn to The Lord of the Rings. When I’m safe at home, I read from the big red book; when I travel with them (or when I read in the bath) I have a dog-eared paperback set.
The Hobbit was the first book I can remember having read to me, followed soon after by the Lord of the Rins trilogy. While other kids were eating the literary junk food of Dr. Seuss and the Very Hungry Caterpillar, I was devouring the richness of Tolkien’s language, his world-building, and his storytelling. I ascribe my status as a literate human being largely to him.
Not being one to half-ass things, I followed my love of Tolkien to obsessive limits. I studied medieval history and language in college, and in 2005 was lucky enough to earn a place in the Master of Arts in Medieval History program at Oxford University, Tolkien’s alma mater and long-time home. Sure, I studied at Christopher Tolkien’s Trinity College, rather than his father’s Exeter, but close enough.
I’ve really enjoyed the films, and feel that Peter Jackson did about the best job possible in translating the books to film.
Well, as far as the books go, I don’t remember when I first read The Hobbit and LotR. My dad read them to me first, and then I read them for myself after that. I know that by at least fourth grade, I had read it all at least once on my own.
For some time as a child, I didn’t know that other books existed. When I did discover new books, it was all fantasy and SF. Even with more authors to read now than I can ever keep up with, I still pull out LotR and read chapters (or the entire thing) from time to time. I can quote my favorite sections.
I’ve read the Silmarillion and listened to the audiobook. I have the History of Middle Earth, the Atlas of Middle Earth, the Bestiary of Middle Earth, the Compendium of Middle Earth, a really old Middle Earth role playing game, and numerous other Tolkien-inspired books. I can write in multiple types of Elvish runes and almost had a Minas Tirith wedding cake. My car is named Shelob (although that was my dad’s doing).
I own four copies of LotR and when I recently moved, my husband suggested that I get rid of a few copies. My response was to explain why that was impossible: this is my oldest/prettiest copy, this is a special edition signed by a descendant of Tolkien, this one is for reading, and this one is just in case I need another. I didn’t get rid of any of them.
When Peter Jackson was filming the movies, I almost ran off to New Zealand to help. I mean, I could ride a horse and wield a sword! Surely there would be something I could do. I didn’t quit school to go there, but sometimes still wish that I did.
(I exclude myself from the drawing)
Middle-Earth was one of my earliest reads in fantasy, and a stepping stone from Narnia and Xanth and Earthsea into places like Pern and Thomas Covenant’s depression — I mean Land.
It was an escape and offered me heroes to look up to during a difficult and isolating childhood, and helped ensure I played D&D and got picked last at team sports. So, um, that’s good(?) I certainly am grateful for it.
It is hard to judge it as a fantasy novel, because that means something today it did not back then. It is a mythic history of another world and another age, infused with both the author’s passion and soul as well as the flaws of his reality, and like bible stories from Sunday School this mythology became so deeply infused into my childhood that for me it was as real and significant and influential as the history of Rome, or Persia, or early America.
Certainly, the first thing I think of when I wonder what made LotR stand out to me is the songs. The dwarves singing, Strider singing of an elven princess, etc.
And of course Galadriel singing in the shower (I’m pretty sure that was in one of the many “found” books by Christopher Tolkien, wasn’t it? Or maybe I dreamed that one.) Anyway, the point being the world was imbued with history and lore and tradition that made it real to me, and real to the characters, in a way many other second world fantasies fail to achieve.
Authors like Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin are probably the more obvious follow ups for fans of Tolkien’s brand of deep world-building and epic storytelling. Until my novels are published of course. And while I love YA Fantasy, I think it doesn’t hurt to go back every once in a while and read something deep and rich and yes a bit ponderous like LotR to remember what true epic fantasy can do.
My parents showed me The Hobbit animated movie when I was very young, about to enter Kindergarten. It was an instant hit, but in the pre-VHS days of the late 70′s I was unable to repeat the experience. Instead, I turned to the school library. The Hobbit was the first book I ever checked out, and brought it home to show my parents as the book I wanted to read. So, while other kids were taking home Dr Seuss, my parents were helping me wade through my very first picture-free book.
It was infectious, the best lesson I ever got. Books are always, always better than the movie. From there, I was a book devourer, checking out every fantasy, mythology, and scifi book in my elementary school library. By 2nd grade I was at a 6th grade reading level with more books under my belt than any other kid my age. And I never stopped.
I’ll always credit JRRT for stimulating what has become a lifelong love of reading.
Surprisingly I started with a different fantasy story that had the same impact. For me it was Dragonlance. Up until the point that my Dad read the original War of the Lance I have never read a book for fun. It had always been for school. Finding joy in the worlds of Weiss and Hickman I spread out to other authors. The books lead me to the Roleplaying game which lead me to a history of the fantasy genre which included Tolkien. So the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, etc. were all background history for me. The stories that laid the groundwork for the worlds and games I was growing to love.
I read a lot as a kid, from fairy tales to space opera. From about my 10th year to 14 though, I spent more time with comic books. In my junior year in high school, a friend had a copy of the Hobbit on his desk. When I asked about it, he went all wide-eyed and enthusiastic. Since he had the school library’s only copy of the Hobbit, I picked up the Fellowship. I’ve not looked back since. After Tolkien, my sister introduced me to Patricia McKillip’s wonderful Riddlemaster series (highly recommended). Then there was McCaffrey’s Pern series. And later Farland’s Runelords. The sweeping majesty of the Silmarillion. In college, I missed the fantasy lit class, but got the SF class. Hooked again. My reading, my outlook, and my fiction writing were forever changed. All of that goes back to Professor Tolkien, for whom I’ll always be grateful for ignoring his naysayers and being true to his life-long heart’s vision.
As for the LotR movies, there are things I didn’t like, but like you Cat, the flavor was there, and a lot of the visions in my head made it on screen. Most importantly, those exultant moments when I’d cheer in the books were there on the screen more often than not. The art of Alan Lee, John Howe and so many of the artists that channel Tolkien take my breath away.
This is quite cool. I first read The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings in ’64 FA. I had just graduated from grad school. I’ve read them dozens of time, I’ve enjoyed the films, planning on watching it again this Saturday.
In ’69 & ’71 I hosted the 1st & 2nd Conference On Middle-earth. Next March I’ll be hosting the 3rd COME. http://www.3rdcome.org .
I’ve very much enjoyed viewing the PJ film. I’ve travelled to Middle-earth [New Zealand] twice to visit a number of the locales used in the film. The first time as tour member and the 2nd as tour guide.
To be honest I don’t read much fantasy, preferring science fiction. That said, I get into fun arguments over TLOTR. To me it is “myth” not fantasy. [Come to 3rdCOME and we can discuss this.]
I contributed some archival material for RINGERS which did make into the doco.
I often wonder while wandering, “where in Middle-earth am I?”
I’ve now raised the question in forum seection of TORn of saving “Hobbiton, USA.”
Oh yes, when I moved to Germany in ’71 to teach Chemistry in a Gymnasium, I read Farmer Giles of Ham, The Hobbit, & 150 pages out of TLOTR in German in order to improve my German. It worked. I also confused Germans with my ability to use words not normally found in “textbooks.”
Elen síla lúmenn’ omentielvo!
Not all those who wander are lost.
Thain Peregrin Took II
The 3rd Conference On Middle-earth
+1-518-456-5242
thain@3rdcome.org
http://www.3rdcome.org
Great Smials
Tuckborough, The Shire
My family had a Sunday night tradition of reading aloud around the dinner table. Each member capable of reading could do a chapter. I well recall that the first chapter *I* as a young sprout was given was a chapter from LOTR featuring lots of thick, Dwarvish words.
My dad started the family on our fantasy quests, through reading as well as playing D&D (there always had to be a unicorn in the game or my sister wouldn’t play). So I often credit him for starting me on the road to being a fantasy author as well.
Recently hit a troublsome spot with my fiction, and decided to return to some of my inspirational material to get a jumpstart. One of the things I chose was the film version of Return of the King: mainly for Sean Astin’s brilliant performance as Sam.
Until The Lord of the Rings, I was a closet writer and a closet lover of Science Fiction and Fantasy.
My dad, a grade 6 teacher, had enough points through the Scholastic program to order the trilogy, which he subsequently had sitting on his bookshelf for several years. I’d picked up the books every now and then, fascinated by the covers, but never read them.
When the movies were announced, I decided to read the books first. I ‘borrowed’ the books and started reading but it was slow going. As difficult as it was to read — too much detail — it pulled me in and I felt like I’d found my home as a writer. I’d been trying to write regular fiction and was so frustrated with it. I started writing Fantasy, the biggest cliche of a fantasy novel ever, but I loved it. I think part of my love of it was because in some ways I could identify with Frodo’s struggles, as I was going through a very difficult time.
I saw the first movie and could finally get a real picture of Middle Earth. I flew through the next two books. I have since taken ownership of the books, bought the unabridged audio cd’s which I listen to frequently at work, and of course, I watch the movies. I’ve also worked to improve my craft as a writer and in so doing, come out of the closet as both a writer and a lover of Fantasy.
What I love most about the movies is the portrayal of Gollum and his relationship with Frodo.
Gollum represents my inner saboteur. When I’m stuck writing, I have some of the same conversations Smeagol has with him. “Nobody likes you.” “Go away and never come back!” It works.
And finally (sorry for the long post, I love to gush about The Lord of the Rings), Tolkien’s use of original mythology has inspired me in my own writing, to go back to the original source material as best I can. Someday I hope it will pay off.
I first read the Lord of the Rings in fourth grade, and was totally hooked. I have read it again at least once a year since, and I am not 47, so you could even say I am obsessed. It is funny that I tend to write science fiction rather than fantasy, but still think of LOTR as my biggest influence.
Echoing the last comment, it is hard not to gush about these awesome books. I am very relieved that the movies worked as well as they did (although I will still always love the books best).
They took me away.
That’s what I crave in a book, to drop into the world between the pages and submerge myself until I’m drowning in it. A happy death by all means. Coming up for air breaks the illusion and I hate it. That’s what the books have done for me. They’re also one of the main reasons I decided to become a writer myself.
I’ll keep it short, I know there area a lot of posts to read, but I have nothing bad to say about the movies. There are things I take issue with, but all-in-all I really enjoyed them so there’s no point in complaining.
Books other fans might enjoy are those of the Harry Potter series. The other worldly-ness of those stories is the only thing that I find comes close to the experience of traversing Middle Earth. Some might disagree, but that’s how I feel! Take care.
Like so many other, I was introduced to Tolkien through the Rankin/Bass animated movie. I don’re remember when I first saw the movie, but I do remember when I realized it was based on a book. I was in fourth grade and walking through my elementary school library when the word “Hobbit” jumped out at me. I took the book down and the first thing I saw was the map as I cracked the book open. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were my first forays into fantasy series. Many other “epics” have come and gone for me, but I still get a little bit of that sense of wonder whenever I come back to them every few years.
was one of the 1st fantasy stories i read, love the world but wasn’t crazy about his writing style
Master Tolkien entered my world in my Hippie Chick days of the late 60′s.I had been a ravenous reader of sci-fi and some fantasy, but was so enthralled with Middle Earth that I re-read the 4 books immediately after finishing them. I discovered the Fellowship, the small attempts to translate the written masterpieces into other mediums, and the “underground” meanings garnered from the hippie movement. Frodo Lives, etc. As before, I still read every sci-fi and fantasy book I can find, but am never quite as satisfied as when I go to Middle Earth. I have re-read the Big 4 every year and added other Tolkien works as they appeared.
When the new Master, Peter Jackson, constructed the 3 LOTR movies all at the same time, I was so very excited. Fortunately, I was not disappointed with the films, even though plenty of free license was taken to deviate from the Tolkien written story. Master Jackson created a vision that could have been plucked directly from MY brain for the most part, and created a Middle Earth which stands apart, but equal to the written version. The movies opened a new technical world to me. I had become disabled and housebound, never venturing out except on medical necessity. The 3 movies required my attendance, even though the trip was an epic saga of difficult logistics for my helper. I got to see all three. I got a pc and learned to use it to connect with other LOTR fans, buy on-line, participate in auctions and for the very first time I entered into “collecting” something. There is so much out there that has opened up for me because of the marvelous creations of two Middle Earth masters. Master J.R.R. Tolkien and
Master Peter Jackson have been and remain to be a huge influence in my life.
I can never say enough good things about the importance of fantasy reading. I am fearful that the younger people will not discover the joy of the written words in books. Other mediums are wonderful ways to get fantasy into one’s life, but can anything compare to the multi-sensual events surrounding that first opening of the pages of a book?
I was about ten when my brother told me about LOTR for the first time.
To him it was the beginning of a love that would have lasted for years. To me, who had only seen the 1978′s animated movie by R. Bakshi, saying “Lord of the Rings” made me think about Aragorn’s hilarious pageboy cut!
Although I loved the fantasy genre, I didn’t get interested in Tolkien’s works until the cinematographic saga came out.
The good thing about not having read the books was that I didn’t notice the differences people complained about, and I enjoyed the movies for the overall impression they produced.
I remember my boyfriend’s comment when we went to see “The Fellowship of the Ring”. The fellowship had just been assembled at the Council of Elrond, and he stared at the screen in awe, saying “That’s the first fellowship ever created consisting of a representative member of every race… undoubtedly the first”.
Perhaps it was that comment that lead me to comprehend how Tolkien’s masterpiece has been an endless source of inspiration to a moltitude of authors in the years to follow.
The moments I loved the most were those about the eagles, a symbol of hope when everything else appears wrapped in impenetrable darkness.
“The eagles are coming!”. Skies open, and the majestic creatures come to bring the unexpected help.
A hope people didn’t passively wait for, but fought for, at times even against themselves, clinging to ideals and virtues that appear so far today.
Later on, I’ve read other works from several famous authors, e.g. Martin and Erikson.
However, I don’t feel like recommending those books to Tolkien’s fans, as the values they convey are quite different, less idyllic, maybe more realistic, and because of this lacking that richness of values that I loved so much in The Lord of the Rings.
The first time I ever heard of any of the books was when reading Danny Dunn and the Voice From Space, in which Danny’s friend Joe says that England is “the home of that good old book The Hobbit and that bad old bood Silas Marner.” I must have been ten or eleven, and I didn’t think any more about it.
Then we had a hippie as our 7th- and 8th-grade English teacher, and he had us read The Hobbit the first year and The Fellowship the second. I remember we had to look up words we didn’t understand or which seemed out of context. It was then I learned, for the first time, that a “faggot” was firewood, and that “Good morning” could mean “goodbye.”
I was hooked. I wrote a little fantasy story of my own at 13, Hero’s Journey mashed together with comic book superheroes, shamelessly stealing from Tolkien. (I was desperate not to seem a copycat, and ransacked the Thesaurus for alternative names to use. “Thaumaturges,” I think, instead of Wizards, and “Ouphes” instead of Goblins.)
The summer after 8th grade, I read the rest of the trilogy. I remember that I could not stop rereading the chronology in the appendices:
I don’t know when it dawned on me that my dad had always had, on the shelf in our living room, all three volumes in splendid hardcover boxed set. I shyly began to talk to him about it.
After I was married, my wife and I used to read to each other in the car, on the way to work or during vacations. We read all four books (she’d first read them sitting in a tree in her parents’ yard.) It was then that I appreciated the power of Tolkien’s language itself. In my haste to get through the plot as a teenager, I hadn’t noticed that JRRT had descriptions of landscapes that could make you cry.
We were four friends, 12-years old all, and right at that point in time when the possibilities of the world opened up to us in ways that only 12-year-olds can see and believe.
We weren’t the most athletic of boys, to say the least, so sports was not where our potentials led us, as it did for most of our classmates. Neither were we the richest, and it would take us another year or so for our parents to be able to afford discounted or second-hand Atari video game consoles for us to play with. Instead, that year when we were twelve led us to books and reading, the cliched default of the less-privileged in so many true-to-life stories.
We started off with our school library’s book of Greek myths by D’Aulaire, and at one point even dared to rewrite our own versions of the myths and compile them into an amateurish book. Not the best of efforts, but certainly not the worst, and to the eyes of twelve-year-olds the myths came more to life with our own words than what we read off the pages of D’Aulaire’s, poorly-crafted as our retellings were. We were Hercules, Jason, Theseus, and Perseus; and we were happy.
And then in the span of just a few months after that time with the Greek gods, one of us shared a book his mother had bought for him, a brand new paperback copy of Ballantine’s The Fellowship of the Ring. Brand new! Not second-hand! Not handed down! Not from the library! One of us then begged his parents for a copy of The Hobbit, which led to The Two Towers, and then of course, The Return of the King. We shared it amongst ourselves, eventually ending up with our own copies; we couldn’t help but own our own sets. We read the books cover to cover, and we became Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin. We became Gandalf, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas. They were all our favorites at one time or another, and even before fan fiction became fashionable, we wrote our own adventures or each, and shared them with each other.
None of us wished to be Boromir, the traitor; we didn’t understand human frailty yet, and treated him with contempt. But we couldn’t prevent ourselves from growing older, growing up, and eventually, since we couldn’t put down Tolkien’s opus even as we aged, we came to understand Boromir’s weakness years later, his nobility and sacrifice, while in the process of realizing, then accepting, the failings in our own parents.
At this point, I can only speak for myself. When we hit high school the four of us found different sets of friends, but I brought the LOTR with me still, turning to it often even as an adolescent. It struck me as I came to know myself more and made the choices as to what kind of person I wanted to be, that just as none of us wished to be Boromir, we were even more detesting of Gollum. I remembered that we hated him with twelve-year-old passion, one of the most fiery in the world, and wrote fan fiction around him that made him suffer unbelievable cruelties. But just like with Bilbo, I came to know pity, right at that point in my own life when I was coming to understand my own failings, especially apart from the failings of others. Humility can be an eye-opener, and so when I reread where Gandalf said to Frodo that it was pity that had stayed Bilbo’s hand from striking Gollum, and it was his pity that ruled them all, in the end, something inside me was moved. If I were to write fan fiction now around Gollum, I believe I’d be more compassionate and gentle with the creature, since my own shortcomings reside in him, and maybe, just maybe, I’d have more than a few happy endings for him.
Reflecting back, I can see that we four were blessed with our friendship, even if it wasn’t one that deepened through high school or after. Reading is a solitary pursuit, and the more regular route would’ve been for each of us to separately have discovered books and the LOTR on our own. For whatever reason, we four found the books together, as a group, and it is a privilege I am grateful for to this day. The four of us didn’t stop there, naturally, as we also turned our attentions to the Prydain and Narnian chronicles, to L’Engle’s A Wrinkle In Time and the companion novels, to Le Guin’s Earthsea tales, and so many others. But looming largest, right there with our first discovery, the Greek Myths, is the Lord of the Rings. I cut my sharpest reading teeth on Tolkien’s work, and because of his story’s influence and the influence of those that followed, I now read pretty much anything and everything. And just like with childhood friendships, that is a privilege I am most grateful for.
My boyfriend in high school was very into D&D and LOTR. He would talk about it so much, it made me a bit reluctant to read them. I was always more of a horror novel fan. And into horror movies. So many years later, when I heard Peter Jackson was directing the films, I went back and gave them another try. China Mieville speaking out against the anti-industrial attitude of Tolkien certainly piqued my interest, too. I still don’t like Fellowship (too many hobbit strawberry bubble baths and songs) much, but each book got better and better and when I finished Return of the King, I immediately ran out to get The Silmarillion and The Hobbit.
I enjoy Jackson’s films. They’re fun and feel to me like comfort food. A trilogy that spawned so many internet memes. I work for a large science fiction publisher, so our offices would shut down on each opening day and a bunch of us would go to the movies. For the last one, the most dedicated fans went to Trilogy Tuesday to watch the extended additions.
I love Minas Tirith. I love the men of Numenor. If there’s anything that makes me angry with the movies it’s the huge changes to the character of Faramir. He became one of my favorite fictional characters ever. Pippin says it best:
“Here was one with an air of high nobility such as Aragorn at times revealed, less high perhaps, yet also less incalculable and remote: one of the Kings of Men born into a later time, but touched with the wisdom and sadness of the Eldar Race. He knew now why Beregond spoke his name with love. He was a captain that men would follow, that he would follow, even under the shadow of the black wings.”
—Peregrin Took’s thoughts after seeing Faramir for the first time
I read that Faramir was one of those characters that just showed up in the course of Tolkien writing LOTR and he couldn’t shake him. I think it’s because of this, Faramir feels like the most compelling person in the story. Aragorn is a fine archetype of a warrior and a king and Arwen is a storybook trophy princess, but Faramir and his love for Eowyn feels so real and complicated in comparison. Faramir wasn’t her first choice and he knows it. But he loves her still.
In the movie he was a shadow of this. And he acted so far from his book-self in the movie it was awful. I can see why, editorially, the filmmakers had to make at least some of those changes, but it’s just a huge loss to a fan of such a rich character. So, yes, when I think of the movie, I think of comforting entertainment and community. But when I think of the books, I think of the joy Tolkien must’ve felt immersing himself in his fictional world so completely.
I first read Fellowship (without having read The Hobbit) when I was around 11 or 12. I was already a lover of fantasy and SF, having grown up with a dad who watched Star Trek religiously and bought me books by Heinlein and Madeline L’Engle. Tolkien was more difficult, and different–the sheer depth, and the evident love for his creation, was astonishing. I read all three, and then The Hobbit (which I was never as fond of, with all the authorial asides, though it was a fun change), and then everything else. I still read them more-or-less yearly.
The films started coming out when I was in high school, hanging out with a fairly geeky group–but suddenly, knowing about LOTR was cool. And the movies themselves were good, and recognized as such. It was a paradigm shift.
I’m finishing up a PhD in English at the moment–specializing in medieval literature, fantasy fiction, and popular-culture medievalism. Tolkien gets a chapter of his own.
A dog named Frisky led me to The Hobbit.
She was the family pet, part beagle and part terrier, and gained a lot of weight because she was never walked. When I was about 10 we lived in Tucson and every once in a while (maybe every three or four months) I would be coerced/moved/guilted/shouted at into taking her for a walk. We lived right across the street from a park and I was supposed to walk her around it, but always preferring the untrod path, I decided to let the dog walk ME and find out where SHE wanted to go.
On that hot afternoon she wandered a couple of blocks down the street, past cinderblock walls and the occasional cactus and rock mélange that served as lawns, and made a left turn into an alley. I was a curious boy, and for some reason alleys really appealed to me. So I followed.
She stopped at a trash can and sniffed. The lid was off and I looked in – an old phone book lay at the bottom, covering another book. I still have no idea what prompted me to pick up the phone book to see what was under it, but I did: a well worn paperback copy of The Hobbit. I didn’t know anything about the book, but I was thrilled to find it.
That was the copy I read. That was the book I fell in love with, cherished, carried with me to bed (after cleaning it off). This led (obviously) to The Lord of the Rings and a whole universe of fantasy fiction. I think I was even reading that book the day my dad handed me another book, the novelization of a movie he thought “was probably going to be pretty big.” Star Wars. I found that one a difficult book; I don’t think I would have read it if I wasn’t introduced to fantasy fiction by The Hobbit.
All thanks to an overweight dog, an unnatural curiosity of alleys, and a penchant for dumpster diving.
Frisky has since sailed off for the Elvish lands, but I still have that copy of The Hobbit, thirty years later. It won’t ever see the inside of a trash can again.
I read the Hobbit at the end of my eighth grade year, by the end of summer and the beginning of my Freshman year, I was already at the end of Fellowship. When Homecoming week rolled around, I was halfway through The Two Towers.
At my high school, Homecoming Week was notorious for the hazing inflicted upon Freshmen. It usually served us best to avoid the hallways whenever Seniors (and for whatever reason Juniors) were around. During the week, we had to participate in Air Raids, in which Freshmen were supposed to “hit the deck” whenever Seniors called out Air Raid. The problem with this was anybody would shout it, thus making us flop to the ground ten times between any given class. It was idiotic. I refused to do it. Which just meant it would only be WORSE for me on Homecoming night. Other than the fact that I was in marching band, I had no compulsion to attend the Homecoming Bonfire. I had spent the better part of the month smarting off to Seniors. I expected possible dismemberment if I showed my face. I lived in a very, very small town.
Then there was “The Goop.” It was a mixture of canned beans, sour milk, rotten eggs, and assorted bodily fluids which they dumped on the Freshmen in a Saturnalian orgy of hazing the likes of which could be read with a Geiger counter.
I left the bonfire after nervously playing the drums. I walked the block back home, keeping to the shadows. Trying to remember the lessons taught to me by Strider and other heroes of the Lord of the Rings trilogy who could travel with absolute stealth. I got home, locked my doors, and went to my room. I started reading the Two Towers again and got to the scene where the heroes discover the statue of a long-dead king which the Orcs have replaced its head with an ugly rock, carved with the Eye of Sauron on its shoulders.
As I read this, I hear chanting coming from outside. “We want Clint! We want Clint!” Then a knock at the door. My mom answers the door, and I can hear here speaking with someone whose voice is familiar. “I don’t think he’s coming out.” I looked out the window to find pretty much the entire student body surrounding my house, chanting “We want Clint! We want Clint!” A few of my friends stood sheepishly on the sidewalk, covered in a glaze of Goop. Two more buckets were waiting for me. People were writing things in shoe polish and whipped cream on my walk.
I kept trying to read. I must have read that same page nearly a dozen times. The chanting continued. Then eventually, it stopped. At about midnight everyone left, leaving the drippings of whatever covered my friends, the epithets on the concrete and a sick feeling in my stomach that I should have stopped reading the Two Towers and just gone outside to meet my fate.
The only guidance I needed was Frodo. Put on the ring and run like hell. There was no charging into the fray like Aragon, yelling “Ellendil! Ellisar!” for me. I was a craven coward, but I lived. I was yet uncorrupted by the Goop. At school, I ran into some empty threats. A year later, nobody knew I never suffered the fate of initiation. My baptism of vile putridity.
I can still hear the chanting outside my window as my home was under seige, with no horn at Helm’s Deep to summon help. I remember this every time I see the cover of my copy of the Two Towers.
I remember the animated movie first of all. It wasn’t until after seeing that when I read the books. The movies were very good but not perfect. Funny thing is, my son’s first experience with LOTR are the movies, he’s never seen the animated movie before. He loves those movies too!
Congrats to our winner, Kenneth Yu! His number (33) was randomly drawn and I’ll be contacting him to find out where to ship the prize.
I started out with reading ‘The Hobbit’ in grade 7, and then finished off LOTR by the end of grade 10. I have to say, though, that ‘The Silmarillion’ was my favourite of all the books. I’d love to see some of those stories turned into movies.
I’m too late to enter the contest, but I wanted to throw in my $0.02 anyways…
It’s so unusual when a movie seems to outdo the book, but “Lord Of The Rings” did it for me. I had tried to reads the books many time, but there are o many places when they bog down in description that I just couldn’t get through them. This also happened with “Blade Runner” The Dick short story bears little similarity to the movie, and yet the movie was so eloquent in what it said.
My first experience of Tolkien was when I was around 8 years old. My father spend long hours reading The Hobbit to me when I was young, then a few years later my grandmother bought me the trilogy. I was still at the point where my father read it to me, but I remember crying when he read the chapter when the Balrog took Gandalf down with him in Moria, as well as running and telling my mother “Gandalf’s not dead mom!” when he returned as Gandalf the White (I am sure I confused her quite thoroughly) Tolkien’s works are a big part of my childhood.
Most of my childhood was spent proving that anything my older could do, I could do better. When he discovered ‘The Hobbit’ at age 8; I had read it even though I was six. Since he read the Ring Trilogy at 12; I had to read at age 10. I dropped out of the race when he took up “The Simarillion” at 14.