Lord of the rings

[FlorenceFierce]

I read 2 of the trilogy when I was 11, decades ago 😂
I thought then that it was the best book ever. Never got around reading the third.

How did you find the trilogy? Did you read it recently? I haven't yet been able to convince my book mad 14 year old to have a god even though she devours any and all books.

Is it as good as I remember? Or too slow for modern tastes and attention spans?

I read it when I was a teen and loved it. But, from my point of view, there is absolutely no shame (and no loss) if you skip the poetry.

I'm reading it right now. Just coming to the end of the first part of the third book. I recently treated myself to a Folio Society set, which I love so much.

That's fancy @OneRingToRuleThemAll is the edition lovely?

Excuse the missing book, I'm about to pop out and it's by my bedside, but it's this set. It's a pleasure to hold and read.

I read it the summer I turned 11 and was absolutely absorbed, to the point where I went to the library and borrowed the Silmarillion and anything else I could find by Tolkien, including, I think, his Beowulf translation.

I've not reread it in years, but I think today's first-time reader of whatever age will probably be encountering it, not as I did, but in the context of lots of other fantasy/high fantasy series, so won't have the same sense of discovering a fictional world that was unique in its detail, worldbuilding etc.

Reading it in adulthood does make me annoyed with its depiction of women as elemental supernatural beings, Amazonian shieldmaidens, or comic Hobbit battleaxes. And let's not even get started on race.

Read it when I was 11 and was hooked, and loved it ever since. Have reread many times. Some of the language can be a bit ponderous at times, but it gets into your souls, and now I'm in my 70s and love it just much.
I dreaded it when Peter Jackson was making the films, but he mostly got it right I thought, apart from a few howlers, and his actors didn't wreck the images I had in my head. (Aragorn is my all time hero).

I read and re read it for three or four years from 11ish, then not again for many years until I heard the excellent BBC dramatisation. That, and later the fiims, sent me back not just to the book but also to all the supplementary stuff and a lot of the discussions.

Tolkien's description of dwarves not having any visual distinction in the way males and females present, and in their privacy about discussion of sex, left me feeling free to decide Gimli is a dwarf woman. Which makes many things, including her close relationship with Legolas, feel a bit different.

Sam is my all-time hero (had a little rant on the Archers thread a couple of days ago when someone dissed him).

I tried reading the first one as a teenager and couldn’t get into it at all, I think I said it was the most difficult book I’d ever seen! Then watched the films about a dozen times so tried the books again in my 40s and loved them this time around, but skipped most of the poetry and some of the descriptions. There is a large river near me which I took to calling the Anduin in my head, hopefully I’ll never accidentally say it out loud!

ph yes, skipping the poetry is necessary (the more so the older I get).

Particularyy the Tom Bombadil bits - a pity because the concept of Tom is really interesting, but he suffers terribly from Tolkien's refusal to edit him as the book developed. Much too skippy.

Well, why don't you buy her The Hobbit and see what happens?

But what really interests me is, don't you think it's odd that you thought the first two were the best ever, but it didn't motivate you to continue on to the third?

Haha, this happened to me too and my explanation for this is: "teens gonna teen" 😂 Life gets in the way of books sometimes, even for bookworms!
When they were making the movies, I made my mission to finish the third (and did it) before watching the movies. The actors were so different from the characters I had pictured in my head...
I haven't re-read them in years, but they hold a special place in my heart. Maybe they're too slow for nowadays, but precisely for that they are precious and necessary 🙏

Who could diss the Great Samwise?? Why??

I read it for rhe first time in my later teens and loved it. But I re-read after the films and I actually prefer the film style now. The books stick too rigidly to one set of characters, so I prefer the back and forth between stories of the films. The simarillion was utterly impenetrable and I can't even face watching anything based on it.

She has read the Hobbit and found it ok but not amazing. I know, thanks for asking, it's ridiculous. I was away on a long summer holiday in my dad's country of origin visiting relatives in the summer for several weeks. I had brought 2 of the trilogy, read them, adored them, and when I got back home, never read the third. I somehow had lost interest completely after a few weeks🤔.

Haha, this happened to me too and my explanation for this is: "teens gonna teen" 😂 Life gets in the way of books sometimes, even for bookworms!

This, absolutely. I didn't want to write it down as it sounds so silly but after the holiday puberty kicked in and I guess, somehow I was distracted.

Devoured it for the first time when I was 6 , and probably reread it annually for over 20 years. Loved the BBC radio adaptation. A few quibbles with the films, but loved the casting. Hmm, way overdue for a reread.

My bookworm 11 year old demolished them over the summer. I did the exact same thing, and so did my mum. It's a family rite of passage to read LotR just before starting at secondary school!

I love it so much I even have the white tree of Gondor tattooed on my wrist

6 nocoolnames! I thought I was a precocious reader!

I've read it at least 25 times. Devoured the Silmarillion but only read it once. I've always skipped the poetry.

I didn't watch the films when they came out but watched them a few years later then watched them continuously for about a year.

I was always into fantasy as a child, loved Wynne Jones, Pratchett and Le Guin.

Yeah, I was a precocious brat. When my older brother started reading I was jealous, and my mum taught me to read to shut me up. When I read The Hobbit, I absolutely had to know what happened next...

That's why I now tend to avoid movies from classic books I've loved, like Jane Austen's.

The movie made Sam, Pippin and Merry yokels, very different from Tolkien's yeoman, and upper class young squire and young scholar personification - they were all so influenced by the generation of friends he'd lost in WW1.

Interesting thread - as re-read the Hobbit recently, and now on with first book of Lord of the Rings.

Very much enjoying it. Read it first when 16/17 - now somewhat longer in the tooth at 60