The First LOTR Fans

[Thinlómien]

I certainly don't qualify as one of the first LotR fans and not as an early Tolkien fan either, but as I became a LotR enthusiast before the films came out and before I discovered internet, or at least before I discovered discussion forums, so I feel like I have a "right" to ramble here...

I was introduced to Tolkien's work in 1996 when I was only six years old. I saw the Bakshi animation and TH and LotR were read aloud to me, later followed by Sil and UT. I did not know any other people who liked Tolkien except myself, my father (who introduced me to it), my sister (who also became a fan) and a friend of my mother's. It really didn't bother me, I was so small that I didn't care about discussing about LotR deeply (only things like "who's your favourite character" and those could be well discussed with my sister) and I could always immerse myself in ME by playing ME with my sister. I also introduced several friends of mine to LotR - means I told them about the races and the places - and then we played ME together. My friends didn't totally grasp everything it was about, but they thought it funny and some even read LotR.

Mostly my classmates thought I was a bit odd. It maybe is no wonder as when they read those "I just learned to read"-books with big font and less than 50 pages, I read LotR. Later, too, they considered my fascination with LotR (and history and other stuff they thought strange) as something odd and abnormal and I didn't meet any fellow enthusiasts.

When the movies came out, everything changed. Everybody knew what LotR was about and suddenly it was much easier to convince people to read LotR. Not only did I either meet my current best friends or more or less managed to make them Tolkien fans back then, but I met other people of my age who liked LotR. I soon became disappointed, though, as they were mostly just interested in Orlando Bloom and had never read the book.

Then, some years later, I had become more interested in and accustomed to the internet and my English skills had developed into a satisfactory level. So, when I came across a certain forum, I registered - first just to ask a question that had troubled me - became hooked and have met lots of awesome Tolkien fans since then.

And I don't know if it's because the people who I socialise with are older, or because I hang around in certain sort of places or because the movies have raised LotR awareness significantly, but it seems I really meet/discover fellow Tolkien fans far more often than before in RL too.

[Sauron the White]

When I graduated from college in '71 I was sick and tired of reading only non-fiction as my major was political science and my minors sociology and history. I had just gotten married and my wife bought me a bunch of books to read over the summer and HOBBIT and LOTR were among them. I had a good friend who had read them and I would call him to discuss the latest chapters I had read. He kept saying that as good as I thought it was, it only kept getting better as the book developed. And he was right.

About the same time I worked as a recreation director for Dearborn Michigan and became friends with a guy named Tom Tataranowicz. We were both Polish Catholic kids with similar backgrounds and he was interested in both LOTR and antimation. He ended up working for Bakshi on a few films including LOTR and sent me a couple of hobbit cels.

I never went in for the societies or academic groups, but kept rereading the books every five to seven years. Bought SIL the first day it came out and read a bit of it in the car on the way to a Frank Frazetta convention in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania --- at least thats how I remember it.... it could have been a World Fantasy Con... who knows anymore?

Have read all the HOME and love the Jackson movies and am looking forward to the next ME films. I am lucky to have first US editions of HOBBIT and LOTR and lots of stuff from the films. My prized possession is a signed JRRT record album - POEMS AND SONGS OF MIDDLE EARTH which I bought from the collection of a rather well known New York city collector.

[A Little Green]

Originally Posted by Lommy

I certainly don't qualify as one of the first LotR fans and not as an early Tolkien fan either, but as I became a LotR enthusiast before the films came out and before I discovered internet, or at least before I discovered discussion forums, so I feel like I have a "right" to ramble here...

Ooooh do I have a right to ramble as well? I was but 4 years old when I fell in love with LotR. Surely that counts?

Originally Posted by Lommy

When the movies came out, everything changed.

Indeed. I didn't take it like you did, though... I thought it annoying that LotR, that had been MY personal oddity until then, was suddenly known to all. I found it disgusting that all the boys in my school were suddenly playing Aragorn or Legolas in Helm's Deep, and pretended to know so much about LotR. I hated it. (Have mercy, I was, what, ten years old...)

I never really minded not knowing too many other fans. It was sufficient for me to have my sis (and her friends, and my dad and that friend of my mum's, for that matter) to talk about LotR with. Some of my friends have read it, most have not, and with those who have we rarely discuss it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by A Little Green

I thought it annoying that LotR, that had been MY personal oddity until then, was suddenly known to all.

Oh yeees! I had exactly the same feeling (and I was older than you ). These silly newcomers just were not worth of Tolkien's world! (as if I had any more right on it than them) It even moved me to leave Tolkien's world behind for some time... and I returned to it only very recently, before coming to Barrow-Downs.

Concerning other fans, I am not also of the bunch who have the right to talk here, but I can say even in the 90's it was not easy to meet other fans around here. I did not meet many, but it did not bother me. And maybe it was for the best: I felt that I AM the authority among my friends who had some knowledge about Tolkien and that was a thing I liked

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Greenie

I was but 4 years old when I fell in love with LotR. Surely that counts?

Yes, you were 4 years old, all too small. You always said it was scary and wanted Dad to stop reading when it became interesting... (On a slightly more serious note, I think a very amusing occasion was when our dad was reading the chapter The Stairs in Cirith Ungol and she was scared and asked Dad to stop reading just a little while before Frodo says: 'You and I, Sam, are stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: "Shut the book now, dad; we don't want to read anymore."' It was amazing.)

Originally Posted by Legate

And maybe it was for the best: I felt that I AM the authority among my friends who had some knowledge about Tolkien and that was a thing I liked

Now that is a familiar feeling... I loved both telling my friends about LotR and seeing them starting to like it but never rivalling my enthusiasm and I also loved to brainwash my sister to like stupid races or characters - it was so annoying if someone had the same favourite as me, because they were my favourites.

Besides, now I even recall about half of the girls in my class playing "Gollum-tag" in our school yard. The chaser was Gollum and other people were fish and one person was The Ring and Gollum tried to catch them all, but especially The Ring. The rules really didn't make any sense, but hey, I was probably eight or something when I made it up and I'm quite proud of getting so many people playing it with me. And my poor best friend, she was always laughing so much at my Gollum-imitations that I caught her pretty often...

This thread seems to be turning into an unofficial nostalgia thread...

[Nogrod]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

I think a very amusing occasion was when our dad was reading the chapter The Stairs in Cirith Ungol and she was scared and asked Dad to stop reading just a little while before Frodo says: 'You and I, Sam, are stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: "Shut the book now, dad; we don't want to read anymore."' It was amazing.

Being the dad mentioned I do agree with your verdict Lommy. Hilarious indeed.

But you were scared as well at least in the beginning Lommy. Do you remember when we read the part where the hobbits leave old Maggot's table and are getting nearer the Brandywine crossing... and then there's the smog and the approaching clatter of a horse... A Little Green was not the only one who was screaming...

~*~

My father started reading the LotR to me in the beginning of the 70's when it was translated to Finnish but he never finished it so I read it by myself a little later (after first reading a translation of the Hobbit which was heavily abridged and turned into a children's story with funny names etc.). I quess I was something like 9 then when I finally read the LotR, that being in the middle of the 70's.

I knew no one else who knew anything about Tolkien or his world. But it made it's mark to my games and fantasies. But I turned back to the works only when I was something like 15-16, in the 80's that is. Then I read the Silmarillion and later found out the UT - and I reread the LotR & Hobbit unabridged a couple of times in both Finnish and English. And there I was. Finally totally fascinated.

But I think I never made it to the "official fan level" as there were no others around to discuss it - except my then girlfriend (Lommy's and A Little Green's mom) who in the end wasn't as affected as I was. Quite the only discussions I actually had were with my mom who used to study mythologies and religions and we discussed the Silm a few times when I was a young adult (around 20 something).

Then I kind of forgot Tolkien for years going to the university and then to work to bring home the bacon for a then born family with two kids. And it was only when those kids saw a clip from Bakshi's animation that it all came back.

With Lommy and A Little Green I've myself gotten Tolkien back as well. First reding all that stuff to them as bedtimestories (yes we did read all: Hobbit, LotR, Silm, the UT) then playing table-RPG's with them after the divorce, coming up with our own ME inspired games and plays, waiting for the movies together, discussing them and eventually Lommy managing to speak me over to join the BD.

I don't know what to say. I do not consider myself a fan of anything as I find the idea of fandom quite alien to me (well, I could be a fan of goodness, joy, world-peace etc.) but I do love Tolkien's work and even more his world.

Just beware. One day I will actually find the time to read all those books over once again and not just check a thing or two from there to whatever purpose I need them. After that I will be flooding the threads...

[Child of the 7th Age]

My dad's family were miners in Cornwall and then moved to the UP of Mighigan. By the time I came along, everyone had moved again down to Detroit to get jobs in the auto factories. Our family lived in a fairly tough but close knit urban neighborhood with too much crime. Families were happy if they could persuade their kids to finish high school. I remember a a lot of warm family things from my childhood but Detroit had so many problems....an auto industry starting to teeter, anger between management and labor, mistrust between people of different races and backgrounds, the riots of '67. and young people starting to rebel against the indifference and problems that were all around them.

I dealt with this situation in several ways. I was politically active but also buried myself in books by Nesbit and Lewis and T.H. White and read a lot of history. By 1961, I'd finished the Hobbit and, two years later, the Lord of the Rings. I was totally captivated, not just with the story but the original sources I could feel lurking on the edge of the text and the love of the environment that Tolkien so clearly incorporated in his writing. I read medieval history and literature with a serious vengence.

I started out as a solitary reader who had no idea others shared these passions. It wasn't until I went to college in 1966 that I discovered that I wasn't the only one who was batty about Tolkien. I attended a small liberal arts college in the midwest. As college students, we plastered Remington posters on our dorm walls, wore "Frodo Lives" buttons, baked bread from scratch and lived simply in communes, did tutoring and community work in inner city neighborhoods, marched, protested, and chained ourselves to the front doors of administration buildings on campus....a lot of good, a lot of bad, and a lot of craziness all mixed up. Somehow all these things naturally went together. I was part of the group that made JRRT scratch his head in puzzlement. We were so fed up with our immediate past that we tossed out a lot of the good with the bad, but the "bad" really needed to be cleared out.

One interest led to another and I ended up going on to to earn a doctorate in English medieval history. That would never have happened without the influence of both Tolkien and White. I managed to spend a lot of time in the UK as an au pair, a student at the University of Wales, and later on doing research at the British Museum, in the Public Records Office, and, most fun of all, in a few of the larger stately homes where there were peacocks strutting all over the lawn. (Definitely a new thing for a girl from Detroit.)

It seems that medieval history and lit attract a lot of folk who love Tolkien (or sometimes reading Tolkien sends them into medieval history and lit). That was true in the past and still seems to be true today. There is a conference in Kalamazoo. It's still one of the biggest medieval conferences in the U.S. I went to college in Kalamazoo when it was just getting started. I remember helping my medieval history prof set up the first panel on Tolkien and LotR back when I was an undergrad in the late 60s. That conference and the sessions on Tolkien are still going on today.