Okay, I'll just come out and admit it: I've never read The Lord of the Rings.Go ahead and try to revoke my geek credentials. I won't hide in shame any longer.
I will, however, remedy this situation, now that I have time to read on a regular basis.
When I was 14, I tried to read The Hobbit, and found it quite dull. My wife suggested to start on Fellowship, and it has proven reasonably engaging.
Ahhh....
Confession is good for the soul.
12 comments:
Eh, I tried to read through the Lord of the Rings in either Junior High or High School. The only reason I got through the Fellowship was because I skipped over talky bits. I finally petered out in the two towers. I didn't actually get through the whole series until I went back to it sometime in college.
Stick with it. If you can get into the worldview, it's pretty powerful. I read LOTR every few years; it never gets old and because I'm a very fast reader, I always find something new.
There's a great pardoy of the books out there. I forget the name now, but I recall it being much fun after slogging through the exhaustive dialogue and geographic details of the LOTR.
I could never get into the hobbit either, and got the same advice. The LOTR trilogy just went much more quickly with me, and I've now read it more than once. Still can't get through the hobbit though! It's okay. I've never read/seen Hamlet. I have a brother who specializes in Shakespearean theatre and even took a whole course in Shakespeare in college, and still never read Hamlet....
In grade school and hight school I experienced significant difficulties in reading. Learning to read with comprehension was a challenge. In college I was able to do better. One thing that really helped me in seminary was being introduced to The Hobbit and LOTR. I found The Hobbit to be fascinating. From what I've read, both LOTR is considered to be one of the outstanding works of English literature. I generally read both through once a year. I am currently doing the Hobbit and will then do LOTR this Summer. Another good J.R.R.T. book is The Symarillian which reflects the pre-middle earth background of The Hobbit. It is helpful to read The Hobbit and LOTR with a knowledge of the history of Europe prior to WWI, inter-war European pacifism and the subsequent European experience of WWII.
Thx for your visit, John. I'm working on a Doctor of Ministry with Drew University.
One of my good friends (an English teacher) reads the Hobbit every year and claims it as his favorite work, but had a harder time with LOTR.
After the first movie had come out, I commited to reading the LOTR trilogy before the second movie came out. It took me some time, but I really enjoyed them. I was in my late twenties, out of grad school at the time. Not sure I would try to read them again.
I read the Hobbit for the first time last year - okay - much simpler than LOTR.
Consider your geekiness revoked. I've read this about 45 times.
You're not alone. I am a full-blown fantasy sci-fi geek; much of my high school career was spent rolling 12 sided dice, there's a big stack of Conan comics and bad fantasy fiction in my closet, etc. But I've never read any of these. I've got the 3 books (not interested in The Hobbit) sitting on a shelf, where they've been for five or six years now. Every year I say that I'll read them over the summer, but I never quite get to it. I tried Fellowship in 8th grade and thought it was horribly boring. But I'll eventually get through them. I will.
I've committed to reading a chapter a night. It's turning out fairly interesting, if a trifle long-winded.
I enjoyed reading LOTR much more than The Hobbit... but while I had friends in high school that thought I should read both The Hobbit and LOTR, neither story got read until I was out of school....
Jockeystreet,
Yeah, I used to play DnD with guys like you. Kill stuff and talk to it later. :)
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