[Iris Alantiel]

Amen, Saucepan. How can anything that brings more attention to the wonderful world of Tolkien possibly be all bad?

In my particular case, I achieved short-term celebrity status among my circle of friends for having been the only person who read the books before the movies came out. Everybody came to me to have certain things clarified when they didn't understand. But then something even better happened. People who would have never gone near Tolkien (or, in some cases, any books) in their pre-movie lives started reading LotR - and they got hooked. Now I am no longer a lonely, solitary, nerdly Tolkienite in a sea of people who think I'm crazy - I can go out for dinner with a friend and end up in a lengthy conversation about The Silm, or chat about LotR (the books ) with people who are just falling in love with it for the first time. (They still think I'm crazy though.) And of course I can be happy for them because they've discovered the beauty of Tolkien's works too . . . they're happy, I'm happy, we're all happy, life is good.

And yes, there are some people who are all about the movie and it's sad that they don't know what they're missing. Usually I don't try that hard to convert them, though, because you do what makes you happy. The book makes me happy. The movie makes them happy. It's all okay. The world is not going to end.

Would Tolkien have hated the commercialism that surrounded the movie? Probably. But don't even get me started about that. I'm sure he'd be somewhat pleased that people who never had the opportunity to get into his work before have now discovered it and can get excited about it. Not everyone who fell in love with the books post-movie is an evil Tolkienite wannabe.