[MLD-Grounds-Keeper-Willie]

At first, he nat'l geo seemed to show how things in the book are represented by events in Tolkien's life. That ****ed me off because they didn't represent anything. However, they <I>can</I> represent events if you want it to. I think that Tolkien was influenced by them, and I believe Tolkien, when he said that they did not represent anything. I think that when you read it, you can have suaron represent a villian in your life. Or you can have anything in the book represent anything in your life. Tolkien did not write to make anything in his book represent any thing in his life. Tolkien left the door open and allowed the reader to relate things in thier life to anything in the book, but I don't think Tolkien intended that to happen and I don't think that he even wanted it to happen, but its just they way it is. The good thing is, is that this is one of the reasons the book is so universal and timeless.<P>I'm straying off topic...Anyways, the nat'l geo did make it seem like certain events in tolkien's life were represented in the book, even though its not true. So, I can see how it got a bad review. But I liked the nat'l geo because of the backround it gave on tolkien, and especially because of the visual backround. It showed where Tolkien grew up and some other stuff that you don't really get with reading about him. That's why I liked it.