Public Research: How did you become Tolkien-lover?

[HerenIstarion]

How did you come to read Tolkien? Was it a long road or short - have you been hesitant or eager to approach the books at all?

Public Research Project

[Lhunardawen]

I'm one of those "late-bloomers" who probably wouldn't have heard of Tolkien if not for Peter Jackson. So I watched the film, got interested, picked up the book nearly a year later, then got hooked.

[ohtatyaro]

I'm one of those "late-bloomers" who probably wouldn't have heard of Tolkien if not for Peter Jackson. So I watched the film, got interested, picked up the book nearly a year later, then got hooked.

Same story, but for 'year later' part . I mean, in my case it was half an year later, the rest the same

[Hilde Bracegirdle]

I will be ever indebted to my brother for introducing Tolkien to me...well his books anyway!

[Feanor of the Peredhil]

My original introduction was through school. My introduction to LotR was through my brother. I feel that I should thank him for trying to keep me away from the books. His stubborn refusal to let me read (he wanted to turn me into an experiment as to how reading changes if you've seen the movie first) meant that I went and begged an ancient copy of The Fellowship from a teacher that I barely knew.

[Celuien]

Other.

There was a brief excerpt from LotR in an extra practice appendix in my grammar textbook in 6th grade - something to do with analyzing sentence structure I think, so not really a section that was teaching about the books - which immediately captured my interest. Thank goodness for grammar class!

[Folwren]

Originally Posted by Hilde Bracegirdle

I will be ever indebted to my brother for introducing Tolkien to me...well his books anyway!

Same here, and what better way to put it? Aren't (older) brothers marvelous?

-- Folwren

[Balin999]

I first read about Tolkien in an article about satanism (back then, I was 14, *shiver*).
It was all about some crazy guy (he called his music project "Burzum" and himself "Grishnakh") who was burning churches in Scandinavia and who actually killed another Black Metal-guy.
So at first I thought LOTR had something to do with Satanism and didn't really want to read it.
Some months later I found out that my parents were given it at their marriage. Since we had no one in the family whom I suspected to be into satanism, I decided to read the book, since I always enjoyed reading and wasn't scared of the many pages.
I can remember that I re-read the book twice since I didn't want the story to end. Then I read The Hobbit and The Silm.
Then I joined the Barrow Downs and finally got to know at least a few people (The BD only had 5 members at that time) who shared my enthusiasm for anything connected with Tolkien. In real life, people thought I was a freak. That was, until the movies came out (tah!).

[Nilpaurion Felagund]

I was showing my customary interest in the Fellowship film--i.e., not much--, until I pestered my sisters about petty details, like the distance between Rivendell, Mordor, and Isengard. She didn't answer me, so, on 31 December, 2002, in the town of Concepcion--my mum's hometown--, in the province of Tarlac, in the country of the Philippines (*national anthem, Lupang Hinirang, playing in the background*), immediately after reading Volume 2 of a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories, I cracked open Fellowship. Haven't left me ever since.

That counts for 'Heard about him from a friend/sibling,' right? (Or rather, 'Didn't hear . . .' )

I got one up on her now, though: I've read HoMEs I-V--and would read VI (that Kath gave me for my birthday) if I wasn't so much obsessed with doing better on my studies this term.

[Lhunardawen]

...until I pestered my sisters about petty details...

Daga. I never knew another sister existed. Duling ka ba?

[Cailín]

Well, this is rather well known.

I joined the Downs.

[Kath]

My dad read the books as a child and still had them from all thos years ago. When I was about 3 or 4 he and my mum read The Hobbit to me and to be honest I think they soon started to regret it as I demanded to be read it every night. This, I believe, is why they didn't tell me about LotR til a few years later! I got into other books for a while and then reread The Hobbit for myself when I was 7 and continued on to LotR (which my parents finally told me about ).

So definitely the parent option!

[elronds_daughter]

Heren, you need another category!

I cast my vote as "Watched the movies", because my dad heard about the movies, and decided to read the books to us as a consequence. So, I discovered Tolkien because of the movies, but for me, the books came first.

I suppose I might have chosen "Been read his work by a parent", but I decided the movies deserved some credit.

[radagastly]

Great question! I was a late child. What I mean is that when I was young, my older brothers were all much older than I was. I remember being embarassed knocking on their bedroom door asking if I could pick out a book to read because they were all teenagers, and I was only ten. (Indeed, when I first read LotR, I my oldest brother had already left for college). They made their own money, and therefore bought their own books, and I was a slave to the assorted book clubs through school, and only those books that Scholastic Book Club considered appropriate for 3rd or 4th graders. That's when I read "Romeo and Juliet." As a result of that embarassment, I tended to choose books that were longer so I wouldn't have to go back as often. I was overjoyed to find three books with a common cover, and I remember choosing that immediately. They were the 60's editions with the mural cover that many sixties readers remember. It was some time later that I discovered "The Hobbit."

I eventually owned those sixties paperback covers, and went to college myself, and bought the seventies editions, with the Tolkien-illustrated covers, because my first copies were literally falling apart. I made the mistake of lending those to a friend at college (who I hope, still has them) and my brother, whose books I borrowed in the first place, bought me a hardcover set, including "The Hobbit" for Christmas one year when I had no money. That's the set I still use. The paper jackets are very tattered, but I still have them.

[gralin musicteeth]

As I recently posted on the "Which book did you start with" poll thread, my first (and by far kindest) social worker read Roverandom to me when I was a kid in her care. She used to read it to me over the phone at night. She was an amazing person who really cared about her charges, which is hard to come by sometimes in the social justice system. It was this lady who got me into reading fantasy books to try and develop some sort of imagination in my little head, but I never really liked anything she read to me until we she started Roverandom when I was seven. Then I was totally hooked on Tolkien and I read as much by him and about him as I could. Before she was transferred to Nova Scotia she bought me the green hardcover trilogy. I am eighteen now, and on special occaisons she still calls me and we read to each other over the phone.

And that's my sappy Tolkien story. I picked the parent one because she was like a parent to me.

[Lalwendë]

It looks like brothers have a lot to be thanked for (except in the case of Nilpaurion Felagund, who has a sister to thank ). I of course stole my own brother's copies of the books all those years ago; I saw him reading them and being late for meals because of them and thought they had to be good! Looking back I must have been such a pain, as not only did I pinch his Tolkien books so that he had to come into my room to get his own books back, but I used to pester his friends about them too. As I got older I got even worse as I started nicking his records too.

Brothers always use to have such interesting stuff in their bedrooms though! Good books, noisy records, weird things they'd found like bullet casings and spent grenades and collections of knives and stones and that kind of thing. One of the things I always associate with reading Tolkien is grey walls as my brother had decided to make his room look more 'military' and painted the walls to resemble the innards of a battleship, so if I had been told not to remove his books then I had to go and sit in there to read them and put up with the gloomy atmosphere!

Then my mother bought me my own set of LotR but the nicking didn't really stop as I had the David Day Bestiary and the Carpenter biography while he had the Journeys of Frodo and the Foster Complete Guide. Being the parent of a brace of young Tolkienists must be a nightmare in household discipline terms!

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

How did you become Tolkien-lover?

I thought Tolkien was a faithful, monogamous husband. Just how many illicit affairs are you suggesting he had, HI?

[JennyHallu]

My introduction to Tolkien was my father reading my the Hobbit when I was very small. My dad is one of those people with an absolutely magical reading voice...I was enthralled. He even did different voices for all of the Dwarves. And he read it from a very old, large book with a bunch of full-color illustrations...beautiful.

[Márcolië Lamen]

My mom read Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit as a kid. She pulled from what she grew up reading for stuff for me, and pretty early on she started reading the Hobbit to me. I loved it, and in third grade or so I started reading it myself and was obsessed with it...had it more often than the library we got it from. In 5th grade, I think, my mom found her copy of Lord of the Rings, and gave it to me to read because I loved the Hobbit. This copy now has no front or back covers to any of the three books because of being read so often.

My mom got this copy as a gift from her father because she loved to read. I don't know exactly why this one, but they have the Silmarillian at my grandparents house still, though not as obsessive of Tolkien fans as people here.

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by Bb

I thought Tolkien was a faithful, monogamous husband. Just how many illicit affairs are you suggesting he had, HI?

Don't know about 'illicit', but 56 up to know on this very board, millions out there... don't know about 'affair', but call it 'friendship' if 'love' does not suit your palate in the case... Ain't friendship kind of love in itself?

[Lush]

I was recruited by Peter Jackson and Orlando Bloom, and am not ashamed to admit it.

[Holbytlass]

How did you come to read Tolkien? Was it a long road or short - have you been hesitant or eager to approach the books at all?
I saw the trailer to FOTR, a vague memory popped in my head of a cartoon that had a cute small person, a ring, a volcano and a frog that bit off finger of said cute small person.
Shopped at Wal-mart a couple of days later, saw cheap books- bought The Hobbit and LOTR. Read them in 'bout 2 weeks. Been buying and reading Tolkien's works ever since and hanging around here.

In a way, my journey was long and short. Long because that memory lied dormant in me for so long (oh the wasted years) and short 'cause when it was awakened well, I acted on it quick.

[mark12_30]

....meaning, I had The Hobbit read to our class by an enlightened Fourth Grade teacher.

Rediscovered it in sixth grade, reread The Hobbit then, attempted The Fellowship, & dropped it halfway through Book 1. Retried in 7th grade & made it all the way through.

Edit: BTW, Fourth grade-- that was.... 1969-70 school year.

I became a tolkien lover when I was 8 I found the books on my mum's book shelf. She didn't like the books when she was a child and was cind of mad when I found them lol
So i red them and then forced my mum to let me see the movie when I finished the book and i have loved it ever since.

[shieldmaiden4xsword]

hm. I read The Hobbit when I was 8 or 9. And i liked it, kinda, but I didn't quite understand it. It was a bit over my head.....

and i was always scared to read the books because......i saw some LOTR dolls in Wal mart and got freaked out.

then i forgot all that.....and i found the books in my library and decided to read it.

I literally fell in love with them.....

[Finduilas]

My brother started me into Tolkien, first by reading the Hobbit out loud to the family. As soon as he thought me old enough for LotR, age 10, he gave them to me to read. Since I highly respect my brother, I did what he told me to, and here I am.