What a wonderful post! I envy those who discovered the book early, but I didn't. I bought the three-volume Allen and Unwin edition when I was at university, just out of curiosity, but at the time, my major passion was for the Arthurian legend (I still love it, but have other interests as well) and I was concentrating on "Arthur From Epic Hero to Master of Ceremonies In ME Literature" (my Honours thesis). Interestingly, someone in my year was doing her thesis on Tolkien. She almost didn't make it because the English Department initially told her that - wait for it! - it wasn't academic enough. Fortunately, the English professor disagreed - he had an original Tolkien MS and was a Tolkien freak!
Anyway, you'd think I would have got stuck right into it after that, but I only got halfway through ROTK and stopped. I finally read it in full only three years ago, on a beach, and have re-read it five times since then. As a result, my feelings are fully-formed. Sam is my hero, too. I like the other characters, but at my age, he's the one I can appreciate the most. If I was going husband-hunting in Middle-Earth, and was short enough, he's the one I'd want. And the issue of the environment, which has become so important to me over the years, is something that stands out for me in the novel. Sam is the one who restores the Shire to life and for me, this is profoundly moving. Would I have felt the same way if I'd really discovered it in my uni years? I don't think so. It would probably have been Aragorn or Legolas at that stage, and, yes, just a wonderful fantasy, but hey, I was reading Poul Anderson, Fritz Leiber and Robert E. Howard at the time.
Thank you for posting this thread.
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