I should but it was tough just to get time to read it at all. I usually have to deal with a dozen interruptions and have to start the same paragraph over repeatedly. I gave it up for a good romance novel. [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

It's great to be on a site with so many people my age, or around my age!

I first read Tolkien 30 years ago, my freshman year at college. I had been seeing the books around (hard to miss - they were the first Ballantine papercovers with the pinks, blues, purples and bulbous fruit that Tolkien hated). I bought The Hobbit and was floored - and then I bought the three LOTR books and was absolutely blown away. I remember opening ROTK and thinking, "PIPPIN! Who cares about Pippin!" - I was so anxious to see what happened to Frodo and Sam. I must have read the first half of ROTK very fast, because when I reread the book I realized I had completely forgotten about the Paths of the Dead. Not to worry, as my second reading following immediately upon the heels of the first. I read LOTR six times my freshman year ! I must have talked about it a lot in letters and phone calls to my parents, since my Christmas gift that year was the HM 2nd edition hardcover set. (Daddy always said that any book reading more than once was worth getting in hardcover.) My brother gave me The Hobbit in hardcover for my birthday the next month. (The pages or that book are turning yellow!! Can I be THAT old?) Needless to say I read the Silmarillian the Christmas it came out (I was in grad school by then and that very semester wrote a paper for an epics class called "A Structualist Interpretation of the Lord of the Rings" which probably had poor Professor
Tolkien spinning in his grave and for which I still feel a little guilty.... [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

Marileangorifurnimaluim I have to admit to playing D&D as well, although to be honest it is usually some odd mixture of AD&D, Traveler, and whatever else the person running the game wants to mix in or make up. We used to play every other week , now we manage to play, oh, maybe twice a year..... [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] . My first character was a half-elf named Idril.

piosenniel, in Junior High and High SchooI I loved Homer 's epics and mythology in general - might as well have had 'future Tolkien Geek' tattooed on my forehead. Did you major in Greek? I majored in Latin , so was wondering.

[ September 29, 2002: Message edited by: Miz Lobelia ]

Hm.. Goldberry's washing day. The images that most filled my mind were Old Man Willow.. all those fluttering yellow willow leaves.. and the falls at Faramir's hideaway.

Hi Miz Lobelia, welcome to the Downs!

I loved D&D (okay, strictly AD&D but that's not what we called it), I spent hours propped up on my elbows listening to my brother describe his dungeons. I guess I don't have that "guilty pleasure" cringe because my Dad got into it one Thanksgiving at Grandmas (though Not my stepdad). He described one of my brother's dungeons as "positively eerie." Dad preferred lower level characters - level 6-8, retired at level 10 or 12 - because they were tough enough to survive, but weak enough to actually be killed, and they tended to face actual physical dangers such as dragons, etc.

[img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] Maril

Hi Miz Lobelia!

Yes, I did major in Classical Greek, with 2 years of Latin as a requisite. (Carthago delenda est. - the sum total of what I remember of that language!). I studied demotic Greek and Hebrew in seminary for Grad School - & THEN, realizing the chances for employment were slim to none, I studied Nursing for gainful employment.

What did you do with your Latin degree?

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: piosenniel ]

Alas, piosenniel, I finished all my course work toward a Ph.D in Classics - and have now spent 20 years in the insurance industry. Oh, well, Tolkien didn't stay in Classics either (on the other hand, being a professor of Anglo-Saxon is a lot sexier than writing insurance procedures [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] .

Wow. I wonder if I'll get to that level Miz Lobelia [i'm in 8th grade [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] ] ::sigh::

Miz Lobelia --

Glad to see you again. I have a Ph.D. in medieval history, so I spent time with Latin as well. And, also like you and Pio, the employment prospects seemed quite dim. I taught in a small college for several years, but my husband is also an historian and it was tough to find anything in the same town.

I ended up getting a second master's in librarianship, and that worked a little better. I've been head of a reference department in an academic library and book selection for Houston public library. Then I quit it all to become a stay-at-home, older mom.

Hang on Inkling Elf! You'll make it. I can tell from your posting in books that you have a head on your shoulders!

Sharon, the 7th age hobbit

This is my second attempt to post in this topic, for some reason the first wouldn't go through (a day or two after the initial start of this thread). So better late than never.

I've been reading Tolkien since the fifth grade (80'-81'). So that makes 22 years (I was 11 and am now 33).
We (my family that is) had seen Bashki's LOTR at the drive-in. It must've mad a large impact on me, as I found out my father had read the LOTR some years before. He still had The Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring, which I immeadiately started to read. He sold the rest of the books to LOTR in a garage sale, and I can remember calling him a "dummy" for selling them.
I don't recall where I got the books to finish reading LOTR, but I had finished the trilogy by the end of sixth grade.
Somewhere during Jr. High or early High School I found a copy of Smith of Wooten Major and Farmer Giles of Ham in a box of books intended for a garage sale. I snagged the book and still have today (somewhere in several boxes of books of my own).
Apart from the Bashki influence, I also had an uncle who liked Tolkien. He had the pictures from the Hildebrandt calendars all over his room. From my uncle I learned there was a book called the Silmarillion. I was finally able to borrow it when I was 17 (it was loaned out to another uncle fro several years). I didn't get much from the first time I read it. I've since read the Silm a total of 3 times. Within the last two or three years I've started, slowly, reading through the Home series.
I read The Hobbit 1 or 2 times a year and LOTR at least once a year, since I first started to read Tolkien.

Like Mr. Underhill and Maril, I too was (am) a D&D'er (AD&D'er rather). I started playing in sixth grade, and were it not for Tolkiens influence, I'd have probably never discovered rpg's. The game had Elves, Dwarves and Hobbit's (despite the term "hafling" used by the gaming industry, they are based on Hobbit's, Iv'e yet to see a "hafling" description akin to Mckienans' Waerlingas). And then there are those nasty Orcs and Goblins as well.

better late than never.

I first read the Hobbit in 1977, right after SW came out. I was 11. as much as I liked SW I loved M-E.
They were selling the nice Tolkien artwork Ballantine editions at Safeway [and JEA Tyler's cool "Tolkien Companion' at grocery stores too! So I got all of my LotR there in short order. prob rad them an average of 1x/year. read Silm in HB at the end of the Year it came out. I did not really get it till the 2nd try.

That edition and the 1st Ed. UT were my oldest possesions [well UT is, I gave the Silm to my son in FL - age 13]

how did it effect me?

well in short, it caused me to revolt from suburban society and spend literally 1/4th of my jr and sr years of HS in the woods [ Northern Va. has some great old Oak forests.

After graduating I began looking into intentional communities, and in my quest for elvishness, studided Gurdjieff, Taoism and finally became an Orthodox Christian.

I played a little D&D and AD&D but it was never really my thing, compared to music or exploring the woods.

My best friend [whom i met as he spied me on the Bus reading FotR for the second time.

HE was reading it also, but I didn;t want to talk about it, it was way to private. It was my link to Truth. Well I let my guard down and we soon had everyone we knew reading LotR and Co. and we formed a Toliien group where we met and discussed various things such as Bombadil's nature [ we had an old timer come once who authoritatively declared that TB was a Maia
[img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] .

Anyway we all had nick's. and I was Lindil way back then.

recall reading BoLT1 when it came out. I curled up in a out of the way corner of Sprinfield mall and was enraptured as I read about the Cottage of Lost Play. I recall that it was a snowy day and the vanm i drove up in crashed into the guard rail on I-95.

I re-read the above and BoLT 2 but fell away for years though i peeked in HoME volumes as they came out, and re-read most of the books more or less yearly, buying new pb lotr/hobbits and keeping the HB SILM/UT.

And I must confess I never returned the public Library copy of the Road goes Ever on [ which I loaned to Saulotus and need to get back].

Sadly I had a chance to buy the Red single Volume of LotR for 45 $ yesterday and din't
[img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] .

I much prefer the aesthetics of HB reading.

Silm and UT in PB is not the same.

so 25 years for me.

my 6 yr old daughter is reading LotR w/ me this year and we just got to book 6.
I am ashamed to admit I almost always spend more quality time w/ the Legendarium than my prayer life or Tai-Chi. But somedays everything balances nicely.

I have so much enjoyed the many answers posted here - thanks, all of you! I like the potential the question about public LotR moments has, but this is the first place I've been able to get public about Tolkien's books. There are no avid fans around me and certainly none my age, so I'm glad there are plenty here on the site!

Greetings Estelyn,

You are so right. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Reading all the witnesses to Tolkien takes us farther into understanding each other as a community.

I am intrigued by your statement, though, that none around you are interested in Tolkien. Could you speculate on this?

Would it be that there is little interest in English literature or in any literature among those around you? Or does his vision of the old mythologies not appeal to those who know the Niebelungenlied? Perhaps Tolkien's vision is out of step with the larger culture around you?

Bethberry

Bethberry, you have me thinking about reasons there! I guess one main reason is that no one in my family or circle of friends is as passionate about reading as I am. Then those who do read have a completely different taste in literature (no fiction, or only murder mysteries etc.); and of course, living in Germany means that there are not many who read in English. There are German Tolkien fans who read either the original English books or one of the two LotR translations (one older, one newer, neither perfect and both a favorite topic for discussions!) - I occasionally read (and very rarely post) on a German board. But they are not in my immediate area and most of them are not my generation. I don't really have an answer and can only speculate about the reasons. At any rate, JRRT is not mass culture in Germany, though the movie seems to have attracted enough interest to put the books in prominent places in the bookstores. Maybe there are a lot of 'closet' fans??

I mentioned in another thread, that I am going to hostess a JRR Tolkien night at our local library, (mostly to satisfy my curiosity to see who would come!). I think the time is right, with the interest generated by the movie. If it doesn't go over, I don't care, not much in life is a "glowing" success is it! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] Actually, I can't imagine that nobody would come, this is the greatest author ever! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I want to talk to some live people. If I get a couple homeschool kids, then we'll just have fun. I guess I better polish up that Lembas recipie!

Estelyn,

(Aside: It just struck me that I could nickname you "ET", which to me is a delightful nod to Fairie in another form and time, but it does lack the sense of dignity and calm decorum which I like in you. [I assume you know of the Spielberg movie.] [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img])

I know that first feeling, for no one in my family when I was a child read as I did, and when I was working with literature, even though my parents supported my efforts, they never thought to read the novels I was working on. It means that there is this vast canyon between us and when I go home, there is part of me they will never know. Even when I joined a reading club, I found that the members' tastes ranged so widely that we could rarely generate a sense of common purpose, so that our discussions were often scattered.

What you say about the influence of the movie is intriguing, for suggests that film is, on one level, an international 'language'. Have you seen the movie in German or English?

Bethberry

ET?? [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] dignity and calm decorum?? [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] Well, both are pretty close to fairy tales indeed!

Yes, movies are a kind of international language, and big productions = Hollywood and similar - are popular all over the world. I have seen the movie in both English and German (three times each!). The disadvantage in German is that it is dubbed - I much prefer to hear the original voices, especially when the accents are as interesting as in LotR. Fortunately, there are some movie theaters in big cities that showed it in English - I can't afford to travel to the States every year to see it there! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] I am looking forward to the DVD, since I can choose either language there.

Looking back, I realize that it is strange that I never thought of reading the Hobbit or LotR to my children; since I loved it in English, I didn't read it in German, so they didn't get acquainted with the story until they saw the movie with me - in English, while we were visiting in the States last Christmas! *shakes head at the strange paths life takes*

Estelyn,

Yes, I think you are right about the special importance of the voices in LOTR. I think they are a small clue in the movie as to the rich linguistic background of Tolkien.

You know what? I never read Tolkien to my kids, either, not even The Hobbit, although as infants and young children I did read poetry to them. Not modern poetry, but Renaissance, medieval, and OE, along with Dr. Seuss, LOL. The idea just never came to me; I must have assumed that Tolkien is for reading, even with the poetry and verse throughout LOTR. *shakes head now wonderingly, too*

Bethberry

[ October 09, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

Now there's a topic I'd like to toss into the thread for general sharing! Since many of us 'geezers' are old enough to have children (or at least nieces and nephews?), did you read Tolkien's books to your children? Did/do they share your interest, even passion? Or have they developed a completely different taste in literature or do they perhaps even *gasp!* not enjoy reading as much as you do?

Estelyn --

No one has picked up on this, but I find your questions interesting:

I have a ten-year old and an almost fifteen year old. They are very different children.

My teenager is my "serious student." He read The Hobbit on his own a year or so ago, and enjoyed it. When he later tried Lord of the Rings, it just didn't click, athough he did like the movie. He does read fantasy, but his tastes are different than my own. Right now, for example, he is ploughing through a number of the Harry Turtledove books. The only fantasy author we share in common, I believe, is Philip Pullman whom we both find fascinating.

My daughter who is normally not a reader is my buddy in Middle-earth. She has auditory processing difficulties so language can be a challenge. However, she has taken both Elves and Hobbits to heart. She fancies herself an Elf, although mom sees her as a hobbit.

Her favorite character is Sam, and mom has obliged by securing her photographs to slash liberally over her walls. We are very slowly reading The Hobbit together, Alan Lee's illustrated edition. Perhaps, in a few years, she'll get brave enough for LotR. We've even collaborated to collect all six porcelain boxes from New Line Cinema, Department 56. Mom gets them on her bookshelf now, but Gabriela will 'inherit' them when she is older.

Aside from that, my husband scratches his head in puzzlement, and the rest of my extended family is totally blank. I do have a college roomate who shared many of these things with me years ago, and we are still close.

[ October 14, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]

Alas, no children... Neices and nephews have gotten a set of Narnia books, since that is what I started on first; (then, hungry for more, I moved onto the Hobbit, and I hope that they will do the same.)

None of them have seen the movie (why???) except, when one particular nephew visited my husband for a fishing trip, he saw the DVD and liked it. Heh, heh.

I attempted to read the Hobbit to my oldest, but he had no interest. My girls are kinda young for it, 8 and 6. They enjoy dressing up with me so I made them cloaks and we wear them when we hike.

Hail O Ancient Ones:

What's your favorite Tolkienian form of self-expression?

At the moment, mine's writing; RPGs, fanfiction, poetry; I know I'm not alone in that !

Maril mentioned painting. (Is any of this online, Maril?)

What other endeavors out there grow from Tolkien's planted seeds in your soul?

My aunt gave me a one-volume edition of The Lord of the Rings for Christmas 1972 - I was in grade 5. I remember clipping Tolkien's obit from the paper the next year.

I think she had assumed that I had already read The Hobbit in school. But I hadn't. I remember reading the Forward and the Prologue and feeling quite confused. What were these 'Hobbits'? Then I jumped into the book and hardly came up for air.

My aunt gave me The Hobbit the next year, but it was a real disappointment to me. So 'childish'! (There's just no going back.) I think I've only read it the one time.

I read that first copy of tLotR at least once every year for almost 15 years - usually every summer. It fell apart and I replaced it with another one-volume edition which has the complete Appendices! My first copy only had the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. So I missed out on a lot for many years. I haven't read the book as often over the last 15 years - life and all that. But since joining the Downs, I've read it again and studied it a bit. Such great insights posted here at the Barrow Downs.

I've been digging through old threads and found this amusing prediction, posted Feb. 14, 2001: Well, seeing as how some of us fit into that category quite nicely, I'd say Draggonklaw was Malbethian in his prophecy! [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Some of the posts here are very witty [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Anyway ... I read The Hobbit about 28 years ago (1974-75 ish), and started reading Lord of the Rings soon after.

I didn't make it through Fellowship of the Ring, finding it hard work, dreary and uninspiring. I did like the lays, though, and contributed several pastiches of their style and content to the school magazine [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. I also tried the Narnia Chronicles but gave them up, to my mind they seemed stilted and sanitised.

At that time, reading was like drinking water to me, a constant and unquestioned need and nourishment. I devoured The Earthsea Trilogy (as it then was) with a passion at age 11, and it still inspires me, science fiction in all forms, particularly Ray Bradbury (Golden Apples of the Sun etc.), the Gospel of St Matthew (which moved me profoundly), and I was fascinated by ancient myths and fairy tales of all kinds, and still have the paperback copy of the mediaeval Gawain I bought with my own money then [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

I had also read many completely unsuitable books from amongst my mother's rather eclectic and bohemian collection around the time I started 'big' school, such as Lady Chatterley's Lover, Brave New World, Lolita, The Naked Lunch, Ulysses and so on, which those who know me would say explains a lot [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img].

Maril, when D&D began in the UK, Steve Jackson (who later founded Eidos, the Tomb Raider company), opened the first White Dwarf shop near my school and for some reason I and my geeky friends ended up visiting their smoky flats and joining in with this crazy game that met absolutely all of my wish-fulfilment and empire-building capacities and requirements for a couple of years. I preferred being a DM to playing (never had any luck with those 20-sided dice, me) and created many an (in hindsight) Shire-like environment filled with hidden terrors. I don't really think the term anal retentive does the whole period justice [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img].

Still, in the end I forgot everything and stopped doing anything and became an adult until the age of 25 when I met my clairvoyant fiance, a "girl mad as birds" as Dylan Thomas put it ... but that's another irrelevant story [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]. All these years and a thousand philosophy books later and I'm back to being that awe-struck peddlar and receptacle of allsorts and gobbledegook I was from 11-16, without the excuse of puppy fat or the ability to go without sleep for more than a few hours [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img].

Same time next week, doctor?

Peace [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Kalessin

[ November 30, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]

*sigh*
I miss the cutoff by a year and a half, but I've enjoyed reading all of your stories.

Estelyn, thank you so much for inviting me to this thread. I am pleased that so many young people are reading the books, for whatever reason, but it is nice to know there are also people my own age on the site.

I was introduced to JRRT over 30 years ago by a crusty 6th grade teacher who read The Hobbit aloud to us over a period of about 6 weeks or so. I was hooked. I read my dad's copy of LOTR the next year and I used my first baby-sitting earnings to buy my own PB set (in a shiny gold box with Feanorian tiles). I still have all four volumes, yellowed, ratty and dog-eared. I don't want to get rid of them because of Tolkien's watercolors on the covers...

In HS, I was introduced to Tolkien's essay on Faerie by a Creative Writing teacher, and found The Tolkien Reader, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and when it was published The Silmarillion.

Responding to another question in this thread: Yes, yes, yes, read Tolkien to children! The Hobbit is an excellent intro for kids to ME. (Just be sure to use funny voices when appropriate.) It won't guarantee interest - my older one wasn't interested in LOTR till she saw Orlando Bloom in FOTR [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] - but it will give them a taste of Tolkien.

Happily, my younger one is enjoying TH for the first time - we just got to Laketown last night!

Alphaelin,

I had a boxed set with those tiles! My original! Alas, the Trilogy mildewed, and I had to toss it (weeps.) I still have The Hobbit. And I so loved those watercolors, and the box with the tiles on them. Keep them-- and keep them away from damp basements!

Hey, who has their old posters? Mine are all gone. Remember those gorgeous old Pauline Baynes maps that you can still find scans of online? Check out Rolozo, they're on there, nice big scans!

Helen, the last time I visited certain friends of mine--the vagaries of the marketplace and the disperal to jobs across the globe sundering us--they still graced the walls of their home with framed posters of Middle Earth. Memory tells me they were in shades of grey and pastel pinks, although now I cannot recall quite why those should be the colours, nor who the designers were.

Welcome, welcome, Alphaelin. My old copies are also all lost to time and the indignities of multiple, forced moves. Yet my eldest will quite happily correct me if he thinks I've got something wrong from LOTR. My youngest, while in thrall to the movies, refuses to read LOTR because there are so few girls. She has taken to Smaug, however, like moth to flame.

Bethberry

Hee, no I won't get rid of my original set until forced to by the ravages of time and wear. I keep it upstairs (far away from damp basements). [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[img]smilies/eek.gif[/img] Just saw TTT yesterday with my dad & 'baby' sister (age 29). *Who* is that character parading around as Faramir??

I dunno, but if we can catch it, let's have a DNA sample taken and analyzed. I bet it's an impostor.

I'll do the DNA analysis for you. I kinda miss playing with DNA. I'm willing to bet you're right, mark.

My books are about ten years old, dog-eared and wrinkly-covered -- with the exception of The Hobbit, which I inherited from my mother and is more like forty (it isn't in such bad nick though) and UT which I only got two years ago. *shrugs* I might replace them if they become illegible, but there is at least another ten years of life or so left in LoTR and the Silm.

Imposters? Humbug, as long as the words and the maps are there... *thumbs up*

Just ran across a wonderful fellow at one of the local malls. He calls himself Sir Readalot. He's practicing for a marathon Tolkien read aloud record.

At the moment, he's 24 hours into a 96 hour non-stop reading aloud of Tolkien. He's doing The Hobbit right now - wonderful characterizations, especially Gollum and the riddle game. He'll head into the Trilogy next, and told me if I'll come listen to him on Monday and Tuesday, he'll put aside the Trilogy to read the Silmarillion aloud while I'm there.

Wonderful to listen to those flow of words and phrasings by Tolkien!

At the risk of sounding like a 'Movies' forum post: My theory about the Character-Formerly-Known-as-Faramir is that it will turn out to be his evil twin, Clive.

Seriously, I think I have such a problem with this particular change from the books is that for some years I had what amounted to a crush of Faramir. Very strange, I know - but that is the best way to describe my feelings about the character.

I feel strong bonds to many of Tolkien's characters. Like so much else in ME, they are so fully-realized that they have a life of their own. I didn't know he was working with archetypes until I studied his work in literature classes, well after I had first read the books.

Neither strange nor unusual. You can fight my high school buddy (Dell, you out there?) for him, if you'd like, although she was a serious addict. I was an Eomer addict for quite some time, until I came to understand Boromir better.

Those of us with a love of both faerie and the absurd favour Tom and Goldberry.

Helen, is this your way of getting a swoon forum going? What will Esty say? [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Bethberry

[ December 29, 2002: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

I always had a thing for Faramir, too. I can't tell you how disapointed I am with the movie character.

Seriously, Bethberry, you should know me better than that by now. I've been trying to get a swoon forum going for The Balrog for I don;t know how long. As I mentioned in another thread, he's hunky, macho, wears very nice eyeliner, and oooo-baby is he HOT HOT HOT. Where's the glory? Where's the Seventeen Magazine Cover stories? Where's the TV-Guide articles? Where are all the fangirls named Mrs. Balrog and RoggiesGirl? Where are the legions of MarySues out to rescue him from that meddling old greybeard? Can't we barrow-downers tell a ***HOTTIE*** when we see one??? I don't know what's wrong with all of us.

Jeepers, Helen! If I'd have known you were so fond of Balrogs I wouldn't have served Teri Yaki Balrog Wings for Christmas dinner!
Good thing I didn't invite you!