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Kalessin · 11-30-2002, 08:34 PM

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 ]

11-30-2002, 08:34 PM	#65
Kalessin Wight Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Earthsea, or London Posts: 175	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 ]