How were you introduced to Tolkien?

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

I looked through the threads and didn't see one like this, but if there is then please forgive me...

Anyway, I was thinking about it and was wondering how BDers were introduced to the works of J.R.R. Tolkien...

I was introduced while my friend was over at my house and we were watching the movies (EE). I really liked them! When it got to the end of RotK my friend started complaining about the absence of the Scouring of the Shire and I was wondering why she was so upset, because I thought that they were pretty good movies. She was then talking about how the movies were so incorrect, so I decided to check the books out for myself.

About a month later I'd asked my mom over and over again if we could go buy them. And so when we were out with my cousin one day going out to eat we swung by the bookstore and bought them. I had them in the car all the ride to the restaurant, we then ate and played in the river. I got bored and got TH out of our car. I started reading and have been hooked ever since!

[MatthewM]

The Bakshi cartoon was my first taste of Tolkien back when I was around 8 years old...I've loved it ever since.

[Mithalwen]

There have been a few similar but ... why not...

My parents were readers but they never read Tolkien - just not their thing so I might have missed out but for the fact when I was quite young, The Hobbit was the book of the week on "Jackanory", - . In effect it was a televised version of a bed time story but with the voices done REALLY well. It was read by Bernard Cribbins (who played the station master in The Railway Children) and who was an absolute genius at such things.

I was hooked and listened each afternoon until Friday. On Friday I had Brownies and so I missed the ending. On Saturday I spent my pocket money on the book to find out what happened. So that was the start. I got LOTR from Father Christmas that year but I was a bit too young and ground to a halt at the end of the Two Towers.

A year or so later I was off school with one of those childhood diseases that mean don't feel THAT ill most of the time My mother had the strict rule that a child that was well enough to watch television was well enough to go to school so keeping quiet and reading was a good plan... and so I got addicted to LOTR at the second attempt.

[Maedhros_the_Tall]

I was also introduced by the films. I believe it was after watching the first film that I decided to have a shot at the books, but I read them in order, starting from the Silmarillion, through to the Unfinished Tales. Best thing I ever did, in literary terms anyway!!

[Lalaith]

My mother bought and read the Hobbit while she was in hospital having my little brother. I was about two months off my seventh birthday when he was born. I read it when she'd finished it. I loved it so they gave me Lord of the Rings some time after.

[Morthoron]

Oddly enough, I learned about Tolkien through his obituary. The Detroit Free Press ran the obit (actually a half page article, which I still have), and there was a photo of this jolly, old professorial type with pipe, and down the page were pictures of a hobbit, a wizard and a dragon (which of course I learned were Bilbo, Gandalf and Smaug).

Intrigued, I borrowed a copy of the Hobbit from the grade school library, and now, three plus decades later, I still keep the Tolkien Estate subsidized through annual purchases of their product (which has grown quite voluminous).

[Eönwë]

When I was around 7/8 I read The Hobbit, but it was only after the last film came out (maybe half a year) that I read LOTR. Soon after I read Tales from the Perilous Realm (but didn't get it), just because I liked Tom Bombadil so much. Then I read the Silm a few years later, which lead to me reading some of the others.

Yes, I'm a first generation Tolkien-fan in my family.

[radagastly]

When I was about ten or eleven years old, I went into my older brother's room looking for a book to read (I did a lot more reading then than I do now and my brother had a huge collection of paperbacks for a teenager.) I came across three books by the same author with fascinating cover art derived from this Barbara Remington poster. I wondered what kind of story could possibly lie behind such imagry. I read The Lord of the Rings straight through, and immediately read it all again. I think it was some time later that I finally read The Hobbit . That was almost forty years ago, and Tolkien is still my favorite author.

[Groin Redbeard]

I was twelve years old when I saw a poster for The Fellowship of the Ring movie at Burger King. At first I thought it was another stupid Hollywood flick, but then my mom told me all about the great works of Tolkien. I immediatly wanted to see the movie, but there is a rule in my house where you have to read the book before you watch the movie. I finished the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy in two weeks, and then from there I read the hobbit. I only just noticed that he wrote the Silmarilion around a year ago.

[Galadriel]

I was introduced to LOTR when I was around eight, when I watched the Bakshi films and was morbidly fascinated with all the blood and the twisted woods and the odd men with no pants (!). But that was all it remained for me for the next few years: a strange story that somehow both appealed to my inner child and revealed a starkly cruel world. Then, of course, the books happened. My mother had an old, battered copy of The Lord of the Rings, complete with yellowed pages and pencil marks and all else. I had just failed at reading War and Peace, and, out of stubbornness, wanted to finish a really fat book.

I got obsessed so quickly, I may have lost some friends. :/ I regret nothing! Nothing, I tell you!

[xMellrynxMaidenx]

I loved reading as a kid, so around my fourth grade year is when I picked up the Fellowship of the Ring. My mother and I ventured off to the public library, browsing around, and I happened to stumble upon the book. Being the kid I was, I asked my mom if she thought it would be interesting to read (I was a bit odd, what my mom thought was cool so did I) and she said it looked interesting enough.

Mind you back then I didn't quite grasp the concept of the plot being so young and all. I was no kid genius that was for certain. As I got older though, I picked up the rest of the books and read through them, finally being able to understand them a bit better.

[Galadriel55]

My mother first read LOTR to me when I was about 5 or 6. I re read it again (by myself) when I was 9, and that's when I begun understanding and really liking the book. I got hooked up on it at around 11 - took me long enough.

[Durelin]

I have to make a confession. When I was in grade school, something like 2nd grade, I picked out the Hobbit from the library cause it looked so cool and I think I was kinda aware of it being a classic of sorts. I started it, and didn't like it. I think my problem at that point in life was that I was really more interested in animals than people. I adored the Wind in the Willows. But I also couldn't get through The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. As soon as it got toward the end and the beavers and fox and etc. didn't really matter anymore, I gave up. Or maybe I just got too upset about Aslan. I don't remember.

Anyway, however many years went by...when the very first teaser came out for the LotR films, my dad saw it and said, "oh cool!" I think he'd rather forgotten Tolkien for the most part, but he owned copies of LotR. I think his brother might have been more into Tolkien than he ever was.

So he found the Bakshi movie (which he had seen in theatres, haha) and watched it with my brother and I, and then the Jackson flms came out, and it was ME-mania for a while...

I'm surprised and glad to see some others who were introduced by the Bakshi movie. Say what you want about it, but I think it was interesting!

[Snowdog]

Lets see if I can remember back that far....

It was 1975 and summer was in full swing in Seattle. I was walking about with my neighbor one warm night, and as we shared some pipeweed all rolled up in a ZigZag, he told me about this book he just read and enjoyed very much called The Hobbit. I asked what a Hobbit was, and he told me they were short care-free folk who like eating, drinking, & smoking! Said I'd be interested in reading it since I had finished one of Asimov's Foundation books and wanted something different to read. So he loaned me the paperback and said he was starting on the Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring. Read through The Hobbit and liked it, but thought it to be a bit juvenile. He said Fellowship Of The Ring was better and loaned me that paperback as he had just finished it. I read it through and indeed I enjoyed it much more than The Hobbit, so I read Two Towers as he had finished it. By this time I was eating the tale up, and I finished Two Towers while he had stalled a third of the way into Return of the King. After a couple weeks of bugging him about whether he finished it yet and he getting annoyed at me, I finally checked out an old 1957 copyright hardback of Return of the King out of the library and read on through. Loved the big fold-out map that was in the back of that hardback edition, so when I returned it I checked out Fellowship and Two Towers hardbacks and started reading the Trilogy all over again! When I checked out Return of the King the second time and finished it, I delved into the appendices and all they had to offer. Started learning the elven scripts and, lo & behold, I met a Tolkien geek babe in my senior year in high school. We would practice our Tengwar scripting and pass notes to each other, and sit by the flag pole at lunch telling tales to each other. When they started doing some renovation work on the bus-loading zone near the flag pole, we saw they had just poured fresh curbing, so we decided to cut the class after lunch and imprint 'Friends' in Tengwar. We made a couple mistakes, but it remained in that curb until 2005 when they totally re-worked the school and dug up the curbs and flagpole.

So yeah, I was a Tolkien geek since the summer of 1975. When word got out that the Silmarillion was going to be published, we geeks were overjoyed! Went to a book release line party and got my copy! Tried to read it, and couldn't get into it at all. I finally skipped the biblicy creation beginning and got into the meat of the book. Aside from a few takes of the Noldor and of Turin, it never really did that much for me. I enjoyed more Unfinished Tales when it came out, and I really enjoyed Children of Hurin when it came out a few years ago. Thought it was a proper treatment of the tale. I will always come back to read the Trilogy every now and again. I think I'm up to 11 readings in 38 years. Sadly, I have only read it through once since those PJ movies came out. I'm way passed due to read it through again.

[Snowdog]

Originally Posted by Galadriel

Sure it was...when I was obsessed with gore in cartoons O.O I watched it later and went O.O what the heck? Aragorn looked like a Red Indian, Boromir was a Viking, and the Balrog was a bear with bunny slippers. Gollum was good though.

Still, it has some atmosphere in it, and I suppose that's what I like about it.

I saw the Bakshi movie in a theatre when it came out, being hungry for anything Tolkien in those days. Yes, it was a rather interesting movie considering they did it all old school clip-art. Thought the real imaging of the orc bands from Isengard was pretty cool. Galadriel was quite the Disney Princess in it though.

[Belegorn]

For an English class in H.S. we had to read the Hobbit. That's when I got into LotR. I think it was in Freshman year so that was in 1997-98. The school library had the LotR books which I borrowed and read. I've been reading them ever since. I'm glad I got into them before the movies came out. I did see this animated film from like the 70s. My friend had a copy of it. It went through most of the 1st two books. I loved it when the Ringwraiths were like to Frodo, "The Ring, the Ring. Come back... to Mordor we will take you!" Then Frodo's like, "Go back to the land of Mordor and follow me no more!"

[jallanite]

I first encountered Tolkien as a child with The Hobbit in an edition from the local public library. I generally visited the library with my parents and brothers on Saturday, once a week, and used to take out about four books, each of which I usually read twice, before returning them.

I liked The Hobbit. I remember borrowing it at least a second time. I enjoyed it, but less than many other books: Walter R. Brooks’ Freddy the Pig series, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia books, Hugh Lofting’s Doctor Dolittle books, Robert A. Heinlein’s juvenile sf, Andre  Norton’s juvenile sf, E. Nesbit’s children’s fantasy, and Catherine Anthony Clark’s wonderful children’s fantasy (which is almost unknown outside of Canada) as well as other books whose names I do not now recall, including much non-fantasy fiction and books on myths and legends.

I next encountered the name Tolkien in the adult library in a note at the beginning of C. S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength which referred to Numinor [sic]. I wanted to know more, though I did not remember Tolkien then in connection with The Hobbit. But when I looked up Tolkien in the library card catalogue, the only books mentioned under that name were located in the stacks, not on the open shelves. Possibly the maps were the reason for their being so protected. But since I did not know if the books there listed had anything to do with the manuscript mentioned by Lewis, I did not bother to request them and soon forget about them.

Then, in my last year of high school, in a drug store where I often bought my sf, I saw a new book published by Ace which was then the most prominent publisher of paperback sf, with Ballantine following them. The book was entitled The Fellowship of the Ring, had a red background on the cover, and was about three times the thickness of a normal Ace book, and three times the price: 75¢ as against the usual Ace cost of 25¢.

I again did not remember the name Tolkien either in connection with The Hobbit or in connection with C. S. Lewis. But the book looked interesting. I wondered it it might be an Arthurian novel, since the wizard on the cover, dressed in yellow, wore a pointed hat usually associated with Merlin. Also the Ring in the title might refer to Arthur’s round table. I was already aware that in many sources this table was ring shaped, with an empty centre. But browsing through the book showed no mention of Arthurian names but much mention of Frodo and Gandalf, and other non-Arthurian names. I was somewhat disappointed.

Then, by chance, I flipped to the page which had the ring inscription and read under it the words: “‘I cannot read the fiery letters,’ said Frodo in a quavering voice.” There was also the blurb on the front cover which read: “‘Superb—one of the major achievements of epic imagination in our lifetimes, and your life is the poorer if you have failed to read it.’—ANTHONY BOUCHER”. There were other blurbs and recommendations on the covers and opening pages. I knew then that whatever this book was about, I had to have it.

Once at home with my new book, I began to read it, and discovered it was a sequel to The Hobbit which I had read as a child. This delighted me! Why shouldn’t a children’s book have an adult sequel? But I was going to read this book RIGHT! Before continuing I walked the half mile to the local library and again borrowed The Hobbit from the children’s section of the library to refresh my memory before I continued.

But perhaps this account is overlong. For further details on my first reading you my see my account published in Amon Hen 241. Here I will only mention that my greatest joy was reaching the end of Fellowship and being puzzled that the story was not yet complete. Searching for an explanation for this in the editorial matter at the front of the book, I found the explanation:

Now Mr. Tolkien has written The Lord of the Rings, an heroic romance published in three parts, the first of which is The Fellowship of the Ring.

I was ecstatic that I had yet two more volumes to read, presumably just as good as the first volume.

[Elyna of Rivendell]

My Dad read The Hobbit aloud to me each night for about two months when i was about 8, and i remember thinking it was awesome, but i didn't really get hooked on it until i was about 11 and my Dad and my older cousin were arguing about somethign to do with how Sauron should be pronounced, and i got a bit curious, so i got the book off my dad's bookshelf and started to read. It was the start of a very long, (still going) obsession.

[Zigûr]

For some reason when I was, I think, ten years old, my mother decided to read "An Unexpected Party" to me. I don't know why she did, I was certainly very much grown out of having books read to me by that age, but I think she just wanted to get me interested in a new book and thought this was a good way to do it.

The thing that captured my attention the most, for whatever reason, were the Dwarves. Much like Bilbo is temporarily enraptured by their song, I found the Dwarves very interesting. In any event I promptly read the rest of The Hobbit on my own, followed by The Lord of the Rings (I was at first resistant, confusing its title with Lord of the Flies of which I had been told before, and not interested at that time in reading about boys trapped on an island!). I even attempted The Silmarillion all before age eleven but it wasn't until a few years later that I was really able to get to grips with that and start working on bringing the whole legendarium into focus.

[Elyna of Rivendell]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I even attempted The Silmarillion all before age eleven but it wasn't until a few years later that I was really able to get to grips with that and start working on bringing the whole legendarium into focus.

I know what you mean, I read it when i was 12, but i had to read it twice in a row to figure it all out!

[Belegorn]

Originally Posted by Elyna of Rivendell

my Dad and my older cousin were arguing about somethign to do with how Sauron should be pronounced

hahaha, funny. Saw-Ron, Sou [like Sour] -Ron, etc? haha

[Lotrelf]

Thanks to Peter Jackson. Tolkien's books aren't much popular in my country like Harry Potter's are. I saw the movies in 2010-11, and wanted to read the books. And finally, I did read them. Hehehaha!

[King Naugladur]

Me, too, was exposed to Tolkien via PJ's movies. I was 12 years old when the "Fellowship of the Ring" was released and I was so thrilled, that I went to the library and purchased the LOTR books, as well as "The Hobbit". Needless to say, I was hooked. Subsequently, I bought the "Silmarillion" and "Unfinished Tales". I remember myself n 2007 jumping up and down from joy about the release of "The Children of Hurin". What about you, guys?
King Naugladur.

[Orphalesion]

I was very much into British fairy mothology (you know, fairies, elfs pookahs, brownies etc.) ab reading lots and lots of reference books about them. One of those reference books alluded to "Tolkien portraying the Elves as a tribe of beautiful, musical beings and the primary force of good in his Lord of the Rings trilogy" or something to that effect. So I asks my mother (who worked at a bookstore) if she would order the Lotr for me. Coincidentally that was like perhaps 1 or 2 years before the movies were released.
I was halfway through the Silmarillion before I saw Fellowship. Never was so disappointed in a movie.