[Mithalwen]

I do agree that these chapters are thin on action and the CbC is a good way of making me look closer at chapters which despite my abiding love for Faramir, I generally skim through and which proved my nemesis on my first reading ( Like the child of Sam and Frodo's imagining, at 10, I found the fringes of Mordor too dark and didn't want to read anymore, and I had forgotten the intricacies of the other plot by the time it came to rejoin Gandalf and Pippin ).

I discovered this thread having just posted above in CbC, and so having quoted myself I will now elaborate. I received LOTR for Christmas when I was 10, and got to the beginning of ROTK by the end of the Christmas holiday. I really struggled with book 4 (then as now I the "Aragorn" thread held the interest more and finding that I had gone through all that to get Pippin and Gandalf back when I wanted more of Aragorn, Merry and Eowyn was too much. 18 months later I was a Tolkien addict. However not all parts of the book had equal places in my affection. Frodo and Sam were largely ignored (nothing seemed to happen for ages and then it was all too horrible), elves were favourite. However in the early readings I had a tolerance for Bomabadil which I have since lost. I guess it was closer to the Hobbit which I had loved when I had heard it on Jackanory and subsequently read. Now I find the both the Hobbit and the early rings grates a bit .... just too "young"?

When I read now - I am afraid I do head for favourite chapters .. I really must read it systemically but oddly enough, although I so often skim them in the text, I love the Frodo and Sam in Mordor parts of the Radio adaptation which I listen to in its entirety quite frequently.