Rereading Tolkien

[Bêthberry]

Many of us here admit to reading LOTR, and Tolkien's other works, many times over. (For some, it is an annual affair.)

Why do we do this? Do these rereadings change us, or change the books? Is rereading a ritual which we return to for renewal or does it offer new enlightenment/ entertainment? (Maybe there's no difference between these two states?) Given that we are men and not elves, what does time do to our sense of Tolkien?

The span between my first and subsequent readings of LOTR was long, very long indeed, and so I will wait to hear from others before I try to give expression to my readings. (Assuming there are replies, of course!)

Bethberry

[Gandalf_theGrey]

Hullo Bethberry,

My motivation in rereading is a practical one ... as simple as wanting to refresh my memory (OOC: the better to portray and stay in character as a certain wizard at places like the Barrow Downs, heh). [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] If I thereby pick up as an added bonus some deeper insight, or fresh insight glinting from a new way of looking at something, or newly seeing something I missed the first time around, it's all to the good. :-)

At your Service,

Gandalf the Grey

[Gayalondiel]

I find that every re-reading gives a fresh insight, a new slant or angle on things, or will consolidate ideas you've discussed with others. Also i find that reading to another helps - you consciously read every single word and so pick up on quite a lot you skipped over or just didn't pick up on.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Bethberry --

Good thread. At this point, I'm going to address your question of what we gain by going back to the books more than once.

For me, there is the basic, unchanging emotional (dare I say spiritual?) refreshment of approaching a work which has profound things to say about who we are, where we should be going, and the values central to our lives. And that intrinsic meaning does not change from year-to-year or reading-to-reading.

Having said that, however, I think there is something else as well. For, while the writing stays the same, I keep changing. And I keep changing in different ways, and this affects how I perceive the books.

First, there is the intellectual component. As I learn more, I'm able to put more into the books and get more out of them. For example, I read Tolkien's Letters in 1981, and many ideas in the story fell into place. Similarly, in graduate school, I learned about epic literature and Anglo-Saxon world views and I was then able to apply these to Tolkien.

In January 2002, when I read LotR after seeing the movie, I kept making mental comparisons--what the movie left out, what PJ did well, and how my perceptions of the characters agreed or differed from the film.

Now, I'm reading LotR again (twice in one year--I'm in trouble!), and this time it's for a different reason. I've been on these boards since March and, as I said on "Hey, I finally get Silm", this is the first time I've had a handle on the Legendarium. This came from reading the posts of people who knew more than I, as well as spending time with HoMe. So now, I'm seeing and understanding the book's history and background, those "distant mountains" which Tolkien refers to in his Letters. Indeed, LotR has become part of a larger history, rather than a stand-alone piece of literature. And, because of that, my appreciation of what the hobbits managed to do has grown even larger.

But other "changes" in me are emotional rather than intellectual. And these also affect my reading. As a young person feeling I was a fish out of water, an academic kid in a loving, but nonacademic environment, I was looking both for escape and validation. I wanted to forge my own path based on my values and beliefs. And this is what I found in the books.

Later in life, my husband and I had the great sorrow to lose our seven-month old daughter to SIDS (crib death). At this point, the depictions of Frodo's grief and sadness were absolutely rivetting to me. For the first time, I truly understood that some griefs do not heal in this life. Her death changed many things in my life, including the way I viewed Frodo.

This is why I argue so vehemently against those who say despair and shock were the sole reasons that Frodo sailed West, and that this was a wholly negative response. I hated when people equated me with my grief, saying in effect that what I felt and thought before had no meaning. Frodo's longing for Elves and beauty did not go away simply because he was in deep grief. Maybe others couldn't see it, maybe he couldn't even see it, but it was still there.

Moreover, I know from personal experience that it is impossible for a person in acute grief to change their attitude just by willing it. The only thing to do is change behavior, and then the attitude change will follow. This is why Frodo's departure was one of the most positive things he could do, reaching out for help rather than sitting in the Shire bemoaning his fate. (Enough ranting!)

So for all those reasons, I read LotR again and again at different points in my life over the past thirty-five years. Sometimes I read once a year or twice a year, and sometimes not for several years, but it's always there on my bookstand waiting for me if I need it.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Alkithilien]

Nice topic to think...so in my opinion it looks like that : if we like, or even love book we want to know everything, we want to study it and know all little things in it. I always feel happy and sad when I finnished reading good book. Sad 'cause it was so great to sit and dream about this other world. Sometimes if we read book after year, or more we see new things, new ways of understanding it... 'cause ppl are changing, and theirs view for everything too:] so when I will finnish LOTR, then in few month or maybe more I will try to read it one more time ^^

[Liriodendron]

I enjoyed reading that Child of the 7th age, Thank you. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] I have re read LoTR several times since first reading it in 72. I forget things, and I must admit to missing a lot of stuff the first time out cause I would skip through passages to find out "what happened" as quickly as possible. I have just read the Silmarillion and plan to reread it again, (to clarify it all) then go back and reread LoTR. A friend told me that rereading the LoTR after the Sil, was as if the light had been "turned on". So much more made sense with all the history in mind, particularly the verse and song, which I have just skimmed in the past. Anyhow, I reread it cause I love it! [img]smilies/cool.gif[/img]

[ July 16, 2002: Message edited by: Liriodendron ]

[Ravenna]

i reread on average once a year, and have done for longer than I care to remember.
Partly because it is simply the best and perhaps the most complete story I've ever read and partly because there always seems to be something I haven't noticed before. I also find that when life is getting me down it's nice to read something that leaves you feeling that even when theing slook their blackest, there is always hope, no matter how dim and distant.

[Birdland]

I personally don't find it peculiar to read a favorite book over and over, and Tolkien is not the only book I will seek out. Through the years I have read and re-read:

"I, Claudius" and "Claudius the God" by Robert Graves
"A Winter's Tale" by Mark Helprin
"Dombey and Son" by Dickens
Anne Rice's "Interview With the Vampire"
"Once and Future King"
"Last Unicorn"
"Maia" by Richard Adams (OK, it's a bodice-ripper, but a very good bodice ripper!)

The list goes on and on. Few books survive for long on my bookshelves if I'm not drawn to re-read them, and I can usually tell right from the start which ones will be "one night stands". [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

The common element for all of them (besides a list heavily skewed towards fantasy) is the wealth of detail, the complex characters, and the incredibly beautiful, deep writing style of the authors. I am not reading a book when I choose these authors; I'm entering worlds.

I could no more read a favorite book only once or twice then I could visit a dear friend only once or twice. Doesn't everyone feel that way?

[Calencoire]

Well, the first time I read LOTR, I read it in a week so I could see the movie. There were some parts in which I was unclear and is was more like a scan through the books. After the Fellowship split up, I was unlcear on where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli were going and what they were doing. The second time, I payed attention to the details and made sure I knew exactly what was going on.

Now that I understand it, I reread it for sheer enjoyment of the awesome world and people that exist in it. I will always keep rereading it until my last day because it is and will always be my favorite book.

[Arwen Imladris]

Well, for me, the first time I read it was a couple of years before I read it again. I had forgotten a lot of it and needed to read it again so I could compare it to the movie. Many books, especially Tolkien, are very deep and have storyes behind the stories. You can always discover something knew everytime you read them. It also helps, when your memry is as bad as mine, to read it so you can sound like you know something at the BD. I also sometimes re read things for lack of anything better to read! [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[mark12_30]

Bethberry,

Great thread. And since you set the pace, I'll add my list of stuff I reread on a fairly regular basis, and finish with "why":

By Tolkien: Lord of the Rings; also suspect "Leaf By Niggle" from now on
By George MacDonald: The Golden Key, The Castle, Photogen And Nycteris, Little Daylight, The Wise Woman; also The Highlander's Last Song, or What's Mine's Mine; Phantastes
By Gene Edwards: The Divine Romance; A Tale of Three Kings
By Hanna Hurnard: Hind's Feet On High Places; Mountains of Spices
By C. S. Lewis: Chronicles of Narnia

....and why do I reread them? Simply put: Deepening revelation. In my mind, a work worth rereading is one that keeps delivering revelation on deeper and deeper levels. Those works are God-driven into the soul. And because I change, the effect of the work on me also changes.

Tolkien's work is so rich (one last thought!) that I tend to land in different cultures at different times. One time through I may follow Aragorn closely, another time Boromir and Faramir, another time Legolas, Eomer, Merry and Pippin; another time Sam, another time Frodo. My "favorite place to live in Middle Earth" has changed many times! Minas Tirith, Rivendell, Ered Luin, Rohan, Lothlorien, Amon Hen... the list goes on...

--Helen

[mark12_30]

ps. to use Tolkien's word: eucatastrophe-- those moments when you weep with joy, or your breath catches and you feel as if you might burst. There's revelation of the mind, and revelation of the heart. Mythopoeia tends to produce the latter, and when it splashes over into the mind it's all the sweeter.

Good topic. For me, re-reading the stories gives me a fresh look on things. I have been reading the books once a year since 1994. Each time I see things differently or pick up on something I never noticed before.

[Child of the 7th Age]

I'm intrigued by the list of books that Birdland and Helen put up. I will try some of those that I haven't read.

Other multiple time books for me:

Once and Future King by T.H. White (I read it when I was 12 and have reread it numerous times --White's papers are in Austin and I even went there to look at them.)--This was also on Bird's list.

Anything by Jane Austen and several things by Madeline L'Engle

The Hobbit

The Chronicles of Narnia

Most things by Elie Wiesel and Abraham Joshua Heschel

The poetry of Emily Dickinson

Just a bit ecclectic, I think! But Tolkien is my favorite.

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Lady_Galadriel]

For me it's a chance to see Middle Earth from a different point of view, and to catch things I may have missed the first time around.

[Bêthberry]

There are many very interesting thoughts to consider here, so please bear with a long post! (RL renovations to my kitchen have kept me from responding sooner. I am becoming more intimately acquainted with aisles 18-21 of Home Depot than I ever thought possible.)

LOL,Gandalf the Grey! I should have known you would take a tangent I'd overlooked! Yes, I reread specific passages for RPs purposes, too. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Gayalondiel, reading Tolkien orally is an intriguing idea I'm going to use for my twelve-year old daughter. She is so wrapped up in her 'female empowerment' books that she isn't interested in Tolkien. I'm going to suggest reading The Hobbit while we're at camp. Some of those passages should make for great campfire reading!

Child, there is so much to think about in your post. My Tolkien history has similarites to yours. I first read LOTR years ago and enjoyed it as a great read and then was overwhelmed with other reading demands.

Then, I was introduced to a different Tolkien in graduate school, through his Old English work. My prof gave us a brief chronology for the period, ending with "Sic transit gloria mundi." ('So goes this glorious world', for those of you who haven't had the glorious experience of Latin.) That expression reverberated through all our reading of the OE canon. It became more profound when, a few years later, that prof died while I was still in grad school. And later again when his daughter appeared in the first freshman comp course I ever taught. 'Poignant' does not adequately describe my feelings about that.

"Sic transit" returned for my second reading of LOTR, at my mother's bedside last November, for four excruciating weeks while she underwent medical tests in hospital. My mother has survived three primary cancers. She and my father put their faith in medical science and it worked over twenty-five years. Now, although that science can tentatively explain what is happening, it cannot understand it or stop it. My purpose as I sat with my mother was to help her and my father voice and admit what they knew, that my mother was dying, and to find ways to bring passages of the Bible to them that would provide some meaning for them as their science reached its logical conclusion. That reading of LOTR was the revelatory one for me. There were times when I would simply have to put the book down to catch my breathe.

Liriodendron , as someone who reads The Silm as an encyclopedic kind of history, I am intrigued by your comment that it provides illumination for the songs and verses in LOTR. I think they are generally not adequately appreciated by fans.

Ravenna, "Hope" indeed. I can think of few other modern works which provide such a sense of hope as does LOTR.

Birdland, point well made and taken! What did you think of Derek Jacobi in the televised Graves? [But honestly, Dombey? I was so overwhelmed by Paul's death that I couldn't go on. But Little Dorrit... [j/k)] Those books I wish to inhabit, I reread. But I do have a sense that Tolkien is an author who is particularly reread so often. Maybe I'm wrong about this, though.

Calencoire, your statement makes a great refutation for all those 'speed reading' courses marketed around these days.

Arwen Imladris, that's an interesting relationship you mention between being at The Barrow-Downs and rereading Tolkien!

Helen, I, too, would add other Tolkien works to my reread list, particularly 'On Fairy Stories.' I don't think his conception of eucatastrophe has ever received adequate recognition. (Is there a new thread possibility here?) To me, the extent of Tolkien's use of revelation is profound. (George MacDonald is on my fall/winter reading list.)

To conclude, here's my--partial--list of rereads: Anything by any of the Brontes, from Emily's Wuthering Heights through Charlotte's four novels, to Anne's overlooked The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Ditto Austen. Not George Eliot. John Donne's poetry and meditations. Once upon a time, D.H. Lawrence, but I've outgrown that. The novels and poetry of Canadian Jane Urquhart.

Bethberry

[mark12_30]

Bethberry-- Good call on Donne--yeah, yeah, yeah-- and to my list I'll add Milton on His Blindness. And George Herbert: The Pulley; and Love... "...Quick-Eye'd Love..."

And John of the Cross, "Dark Night of the Soul". Just the poem-- although the book is good, but the poem is where the eucatastrophe reaches deep. "....leaving my cares forgotten among the lilies."

This is cool, I'm going to build a reading list off of others' lists... thanks!

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: mark12_30 ]

[Gandalf_theGrey]

List of Rereads:

List A

1) League of the Iroquois, by Lewis Henry Morgan
2) Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, by Anthony FC Wallace

The books on List A give me the background I need the better to portray a Native American for my living history volunteer work.

List B

1) Birds of North America, by Golden Books
2) Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Birds
3) Stokes Field Guide to Birds

Okay, okay, so maybe I should just dye my wizardly robes brown and call myself Radagast Bird-Tamer! [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

~~ Gandalf the Grey

[Naaramare]

A fascinating topic. ^^

I have a list of four or five books that are my comforts and retreats. LotR, the Fionavar Tapestry, the Last Herald Mage trilogy (yes, mere sword and sorcery fantasy . . .the heresy of it all!), His Dark Materials . . .these are the books to whom I go when stressed, overwhelmed or simply angry.

They're also the books that profoundly altered me. LotR . . .well, in several other topics I've said that it's quite simply always been a part of my life. Fionavar and HDM . . .heh. Suffice it to say that these two books are intrinsically and inseperably linked to my own spirituality and religious choices. LHM trilogy . . .ah. I'm not sure that I can explain the huge attitudinal shift I went through in the process of reading that book.

Apart from the sheer greatness of these books, however, is also the times in which I was reading them. LotR will always take me back to being five, six and seven again, curled up under my covers in a half-hypnotized state by my father's voice (my father is an excellent story reader), images of the story flitting before my eyes. These images evolved as I grew older--my first visual of an orc resembled a pumpkin with legs and a head and a snarl--but they were always there, almost tangible as I fell asleep.

Fionavar links to finally discovering that yes, it is possible for a twelve year old with a university-level ability to read to have friends. HDM, I remember a particular teacher who encouraged me to read them. LHM was the first link between me and my absolute best friend.

So I'll reread Tolkien for pleasure, for details, for escapism, for all those reasons mentioned above. I'll also reread Tolkien--and Kay, and Pullman, and Lackey--to be able to recapture those feelings, however visceral, of safety and love.

[ July 17, 2002: Message edited by: Naaramare ]

[Catherine]

I need to reread TLotR!!!! But I have stupid summer reading for school to do first [img]smilies/mad.gif[/img] !!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bêthberry]

So then, it can definitely be said that Tolkien is not the only author who is reread! I would still like to know, however, if rereading his work is any different from rereading the work of other authors.

Also, many of us say that rereading Tolkien allows us to attend more closely to the nuances of all the details. Is it merely a matter of adding on more quantity to the story? I guess another way of asking this is, does the building up of these details change the story or simply give it more depth, make it a more fully realized 'sub-creation' (to use Tolkien's own term)?

Bethberry

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Bethberry, this is a great topic!! I just reread LotR while away for a week’s vacation, so my impressions are fresh.

Child, much of what you said applies to me too. Because I change, there is always something that I perceive differently. Some aspects that were not previously important to me are now. I appreciate wise statements and the underlying wisdom of the story that I overlooked before. My identification with characters changes – I now feel closer to some that I did not when I read the book earlier. Yes, movie comparisons play a role too – PJ’s interpretation made me see Boromir differently, for example, and added to my perception of Aragorn.

This time, there was one huge change that made me read differently – the Barrow-Downs!! For the first time, reading LotR is not a solitary experience – I have someone to share with, to discuss with, and from whom I have learned much I didn’t know before. All the while I was reading, I thought: “This information could go on a thread I remember” or “What a great question for a quiz”. I followed a major theme that I plan to post when I have put my ideas into words. Also, because of this site, I read the Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and reread Carpenter’s Tolkien biography. That has definitely given depth to my realization of the background history.

Another perception connects to what Liriodendron said – when first reading the book, I skimmed scenes to find out what happened. Now I take my time, noting details, reading the poetry out loud to myself, for lack of other interested listeners! I even read the battle scenes slowly to get all aspects straight, or I look at the maps when the journeys are described.

But what is it that makes me read a book again and again? It’s going back to meet dear friends. Birdie, you summed it up well:

I am not reading a book….. I’m entering worlds.

I go back to old favorites when I feel lonely. Since I read a lot, there aren’t too many of those – only those that touch my heart are worth it. Narnia, C. S. Lewis’ space trilogy, Little Women (a remnant of my youth), Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, The Far Pavilions by M. M. Kaye (historical novel, my favorite genre) are a few that occur to me. I haven’t had much access to English literature since living in Germany, but I appreciate hearing what you all read and will try to get some of those books.

Bethberry, in answer to your last question, I think both things happen - the increase of information adds to the subcreative aspect, and through my changing look on life, the story changes in meaning for me. It takes a tale with that richness of plot and characters before that can happen - which are rarely found in other books!

[ July 18, 2002: Message edited by: Estelyn Telcontar ]

[Child of the 7th Age]

Hmm. There seems to be a strange link between Jane Austen fans and Tolkien fans, at least the female ones. I wonder why? And I wonder if Jane would have liked Middle-earth?

Come to think of it, isn't there a Tolkien fanfiction which is done in the style of Jane Austin. Or am I hllucinating this?

sharon, the 7th age hobbit

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Yes, Sharon, there is a Pride and Prejudice fan fiction - very well done too! As to the connection - hmmm, that's one to ponder...

[tangerine]

I have read and re-read books, since before i can rememeber. My sister doesn't understand; she thinks once though is always enough. yet understanding of the plot and characters does not come with one passing over; it takes going over, getting to know the character and the plot development well enough to be able to idenify with their decisions and their problems. I do the same thing with movies. I can pick up at any point in a movie or book and just keep reading for a while before finishing or jumping to another point.
I havent had the pleasure of knowing Tolkien's works for more than a little over a year, but the sheer size of it makes it inviting, setting aside the quality of the work itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I find that every re-reading gives a fresh insight, a new slant or angle on things, or will consolidate ideas you've discussed with others.

Nothing could be more true.

[tangerine]

Come to think of it, isn't there a Tolkien fanfiction which is done in the style of Jane Austin. Or am I hllucinating this?

Child, there is a Fan Fiction on this site that mixes LOTR with pride and predjudice. Apparently it got excellent ratings from the moderators. It even has a very similar title.

[greyhavener]

I'm a LOTR & Jane Austen fan also. I never really examined why.

I find that rereading something I know I enjoyed is comforting. My time is valuable to me and sometimes I'd rather reread something I know is worth my time. Besides, as Child of the 7th Age explained so well, each time I read it my perspective is different because the place I am in my life is different.

I can't tell you all how much I got out of reading LOTR aloud to my eight-year-old. True mythology began as a spoken communication and I think hearing it and speaking it brought to both of us that quality of myth that Tolkien intended.

It is the mark of a great work of literature that it is fresh every time.

[Bêthberry]

Hello Greyhavener and All other Austen fans,

I have little time today for the 'Net, but I have been running some ideas about Tolkien and Austen through my head. They are not a likely pairing, but, then, neither are Austen and Bronte, yet much can be learned from that pairing.

Austen's work exists in a clear and specific moral framework. (Self-centredness, selfishness, and self-gratification receive their comeuppance.)The heroines' journeys are moral journeys. Also, part of that framework includes an intimate understanding of social connections, of community relationships. Austen's community is more particularly a female community; Tolkien's, male.

A moral vision of the individual in the community is, I think, shared by both Tolkien and Austen.

Bethberry

well every time i read the books, which is about four or five times a year, i refresh my memory of the things that are going on in the story. every time i read i do it slower so i get more of the details and can visualize it better. i find that when you read a book once you dont get as clear a picture of what is going on then if you read it many times. sometimes i find myself reading so fast that i miss some of the main parts of the story. so i read to refresh and to get an even clearer picture of what is going on in the story. this was a great question.

[littlemanpoet]

Hmmm...How come I never read or posted on this thread back in July? [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]

Anyway, I've read LotR six times. The first time for plot. The second time for characterization. The third time for description of Middle Earth. The fourth time for the fun and deepening of it. The fifth time for the emotional depth. The sixth time, a spotty reading just to aid Barrowdowns posting. [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img]

I've read the Sil twice. I read Smith of Wooton Major at least twice a year. It's far and ahead my favorite thing Tolkien ever wrote.

Other authors: Richard Adams Watership Down and Plague Dogs, twice each. I've read Maia once - bodice ripper indeed! shee... I get red-faced just thinking about it.

Chronicles of Narnia about three times each, but not in years. Space Trilogy twice, again not in years. Till We Have Faces twice.

Charles Williams, a couple of his spiritual thrillers, twice.

Well, so much for the list. And even regarding Tolkien it's only the most cursory of introspections. The reading for emotional depth was the most profound. By then I could pretty much recite the entire story, point by point, if anybody asked me to, but the sense of sorrow mixed with joy at the end just washed over me like a wave. It came at a time when I was dealing with a very strong and debilitating sense of loss. So Child, I can truly identify with what you shared.

But Smith of Wooton Major takes me on a journey that can't be taken with any other story. Which is why my location is where it is - the Edge of Faerie.

[Bêthberry]

Time for a reality check, to see what I have reread since last July. I really am having a hard time understanding where my head was at during the first life of this thread. btw, the kitchen renovations still aren't completed.

The Atlas of Middle Earth has been fairly constantly at my side, while LOTR, The Hobbit and The Silm have seen piecemeal readings, mainly for RPG purposes.

As for other reading, I have reread parts of Brontë's Shirley, in response to a chat with Belin Ibaimendi, but haven't touched any other classic novels.

But much poetry has been reread: Jane Urquhart's Some Other Garden. Several of Anne Carson's books of poetry: Glass, Irony and God, Men in the Off Hours, The Beauty of the Husband, the last of which drew me back to Keats' Letters, which of course then led me back to his poetry.

Rereading Rimbaud's Une Saison en Enfer (now who would have prompted me to do that) led me on to read his Illuminations and then his earlier poetry for the first time. Oh, his prose! Rereading Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelaire in conjunction with another friend also inspired a wider reading of his work, which suffers in comparison with Rimbaud's, I think, for its contained forms.

Mainly I have been immersing myself again in Anne Michael's work--her novel Fugitive Pieces and the poetry of The Weight of Oranges/ Miner's Pond. And this had taken me to her new Skin Divers. Her metaphors awe me; her lines dance through my memory; the luminosity of her writing, completely unsentimental sentiment, draws me back over and over again.

Yet the poetry of one other person should be mentioned. It was the death of one of my friends from grad school two years ago which motivated me to join discussion rooms on the Net. Her poetry I had helped edit at grad school and when she died her family knew nothing of it until I told them to look for it. Her work, too, I have been rereading as the anniversary of her death approaches:

Oh my dears--here I am with a pen in my hand--not dead.

Bethberry

[ February 26, 2003: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[ February 26, 2003: Message edited by: Bethberry ]

[GaladrieloftheOlden]

Normally I read LotR once every 3/4 months, but since the movies came out, I read suspiciously little else. I reread everything on my bookshelf, but especially- The Time Quartet by Madeleine L'Engle, all of the S. E. Hinton books (that was my addiction- before LotR), especially Tex, he Outsiders, and That Was Then, This is Now (except the piece when the police come- that never lets me fall asleep, I feel guilty for Bryon all the time [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img] , and don't pay enough attention in school), Little Women, Дорога уходит в даль by Александра Бруштейн,and many others. These were just the irst ones to come to mind. I actually have only read Jane Eyre twice, but maybe I should read it again, with all of these recomendations. But still, most of all, Lord of the Rings.

[propagandalf]

Many of us here admit to reading LOTR, and Tolkien's other works, many times over. (For some, it is an annual affair.)
Why do we do this?

Because reading LOTR makes me feel safe. (like chocolate). I don't know how to explain that so I won't.

As for the second question, reading it again does not change the story for me, it merely gives it more depth. But not because I missed things before. I find that as I get older, my perspective becomes more vast (duh). Lemme explain- the more experiences you gain in life- the more things you are able to relate to, right? Everyday I learn something new, everyday I change. My ever-new viewpoint allows me to see things I’ve seen before in a new light. This makes reading books I’ve read before a whole new experience. Anyway, I’ve forgotten what I’m getting at. Sorry, I’m very tired… I had a point there somewhere..

other stories that I’ve reread:
erm... Wuthering Heights by emily bronte
The Metamorphosis by kafka
parts of Homer's Odyssey (translated by f. scott fitzgerald)
A Season in HelL by arthur rimbaud

I’m more of poem re-reader really (they’re shorter and easier to reread).
Prose/poems that I’ve read a thousand times:

old age sticks/ humanity I love you/ since feeling is first by ee cummings
Sunflower Sutra/Transcription of Organ Music by ginsberg
shakespeare’s sonnets
The More Loving One/September 1,1939 by w.h. auden
and lots lots moooooooooore

Thank you.
Good topic. Enjoyed reading

[HerenIstarion]

uppers

[Child of the 7th Age]

I am feeling a little schmaltzy today so please bear with me.... (This, by the way, is a second go round on this thread.)

I've recently been thinking a lot about this. As life trundles forward, I've become more aware of the preciousness of time. There is a finite measure in my basket. I only have so many hours in the day and so many days in my life to do what needs to be done. So if I re-read this book year after year, sometimes more frequently and sometimes less so but with it always being nearby, I want to understand why this is so.

I could list a dozen quick answers why I find Middle-earth so compelling. There's the undoubted charm of hobbits; the pull of characters like Faramir and Frodo; my personal sympathy with Tolkien's rejection of irony that permeates so much of modern literature; or merely a desire to step beyond what I know and explore another world and history, one that is drawn with such depth and care. But I think the real answer goes beyond that.

Stepping back, I'd have to say that I return to Tolkien because his view of existence and my own strangely coincide, only he expresses his ideas with far more grace and art than I ever could. This isn't what first drew me to the book, but it is what keeps pulling me back. I must say it's very odd that this should be so, since on the face of things I have little in common with JRRT in terms of either background or formal beliefs.

Let me try and explain. There is a core of sadness in Middle-earth that surely must reflect what Tolkien saw in the "real" world about him. It is a core that I have felt many times. It's that sense we have little choice but to fight the "long defeat".....that whether we are Frodo Baggins, Gollum, Lúthien or even Child of the 7th Age, we all face things inside and outside ourselves that make it impossible to succeed in a moral sense. At the heart of both Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, and even of the Hobbit, there lies a recognition of an essential tragedy. No matter what we do, no matter how many good intentions we have, the bad things don't go away.

Like the people of Middle-earth, we are in the position of trusting and hoping for a rescue with no firm guarantees that it will ever come. Yet whether we define that rescue in terms of providence or the caring of others, Tolkien's message is clear: if we hold back from despair, if we summon up our courage and keep putting one foot in front of the other, there is at least the possibility of help coming, usually at the most unexpected of times. I feel that when I read about the Rohirrim gallopping onto the field of Pelennor with their horns wildly blowing, or when I see Frodo and Sam snatched up by an Eagle as the great mountain explodes, or when Lúthien's request for Beren's life is inexplicably granted. Just as in real life, nothing comes without a price. There is no eucatastrophe in our world that is granted free and clear. Frodo must leave the Shire, and both Beren and Lúthien will eventually die. And that too is how I've come to understand that things must be.

There is so much truth in this portrayal that I have to laugh when someone says going back to reread Tolkien is nothing more than an escape or an obsession. The truth is when I read the book, I often come face to face with myself, and the mingling of the sweet and the bitter seems to encapsulate that truth. I may not be Frodo Baggins, but which of us hasn't sometimes felt we are holding back a personal night with a single sliver of light? Tolkien isn't the only place where I find this truth. I have seen it in a friend's eyes or in other expressions of creativity or in my own formal religious beliefs. But, more than with any other author, I feel this truth in Tolkien's world and it mirrors what I understand about myself.

[Imladris]

I used to read Tolkien several times within the year, though I haven't read it this year (which is quickly going bye-bye) because of time issues.

However, when I was reading Tolkien yearly/semi yearly it was because he gave me something that other fantasies that I had read lacked. It was...depth...myth...he waded into the MacDonald's sea of shadows, saw one, and described whatever it was that reflected it more clearly than any writer that I had known. It was as if I had tasted ambrosia (for it was true myth though I didn't recognize it) and I wanted more.

I don't believe that I feel LotR as deeply as Child because I haven't lived long enough yet.

I suppose I come back to it for the various reasons that others have mentioned. I read it because the writing style is good -- the story in and of itself is a very good teacher for writers. For me, it teaches how to write, and how not to write.

Other re-reads:

The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander.

A Horse and his Boy b

Peter Pan by J. M. Berry -- it keeps me young at heart. Corny I know, but it makes me realize that life is short...and that we mustn't become like John (or was it Michael?) who grew too old for stories.

The Harry Potter books

Till We Have Faces by C.S Lewis.

There are more....but those are the main ones. The link that all of them have with Tolkien and LotR is nobility and self-sacrifice. True mythic elements.

[Lalwendë]

I often re-read books that I've enjoyed, and I don't think it's a strange thing to do at all. With poetry nobody would think it odd to read it several times over, so I don't see that it should be different with fiction, after all, reading is a pleasure!

I don't have any set pattern for re-reading LotR, I often just pick it up to look something up and find myself a few hours later having read far more than I intended to, I just get swept up in it. This goes for anything by or about Tolkien too.

How strange though that there are so many other Tolkien readers who also like Austen - I also re-read Austen. What does this mean? I suppose that we like good writing! What else do I re-read? I've read most of Thomas Hardy's novels several times over - especially Jude the Obscure, and I also re-read anything by the Brontes over and over. Other favourties I read many times are Possession, The Secret History, HDM, Gormenghast, Dracula, The House of the Spirits, and in the non-fiction genre, anything by Bill Bryson. Sometimes I just read favourite 'bits' over, sometimes the whole thing. I could make a huge list here actually, because once I've read a book I invariably go back for more. I will even read favourite books from childhood, and never get rid of books because if they were good enough to buy they are good enough to keep!

[Formendacil]

Yesterday I brought back What Breaks the Enchantment?, which struck a note with me by showing a significant change or two in my own reading habits with Tolkien over the years, and in today's perusal of the forgotten archives, this discussion of rereading seemed to resonate with a similar theme.

I was about eleven when I first read The Lord of the Rings* and I no longer remember much of that first read-through. Or the one that immediately followed. Or the one that immediately followed THAT. I do know that, between reading other books (I was a voracious reader as a child/pre-teen and shall forever regret that I have lost that Bombur-esque appetite), I returned again and again to The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit--though more especially the former. I went seeking as much that I could find that was similar. At first I thought I liked the fantasy genre, but I have never really found a fantasy author that pleased me, and I also tried to devour everything Tolkien I could find.

At first, The Silmarillion didn't cut it, but after a few attempts--and a year or two of growing up--that changed, and it was the added to the rotation. So too pieces of Unfinished Tales, and I have the dubious distinction of having RE-read each volume of the HoME--some more than once.

All of this was was before I was eighteen.

Then the Internet came (not all bad: note this website), and university, and growing up in general. Not that I ever laid Tolkien aside, mind you. I have reread bits and pieces here and there throughout the years, but the speed has decreased, largely because my overall reading has decreased and because, having read so repeatedly during those formative years, so many of the words of Middle-earth are lodged in the crannies of my skull with a persistence that might be inappropriate outside of a scriptural text.

But why? And why, having so thoroughly squeezed all the novelty out of these texts (the defence that "I learn something new each time" ceased to be 100% true--at least in the sense it's normally intended to have--a long time ago, though I by no means wish to suggest I know everything or have foregone learning) do I return to them? Yes, my current reread of The Two Towers is progressing at what 13-year-old me would have called a snail's pace, but that's as much because I'm savouring the process as because I have far less leisure time.

And it really is unique to Tolkien for me. Like Lalwendë above, I think rereading a thoroughly normal activity and I have reread many a good book--including mystery novels--but the extent to which I have reread Tolkien's work is a cut above the rest of it. I can safely say I will reread Tolkien on a regular basis for the rest of my life.

The main reason I would give is the same one that came up as I responded to the Enchantment Breaking thread: I have, essentially, become steeped in the text. It has thoroughly infected my ways of thinking, my ways of writing. Part of this is because I encountered the work at a pivotal age, but there is more. On this point, the words of Child, earlier in this thread, fit far better than my own:

Originally Posted by Child of the 7th Age

... my personal sympathy with Tolkien's rejection of irony that permeates so much of modern literature

[...]

Stepping back, I'd have to say that I return to Tolkien because his view of existence and my own strangely coincide, only he expresses his ideas with far more grace and art than I ever could. This isn't what first drew me to the book, but it is what keeps pulling me back. I must say it's very odd that this should be so, since on the face of things I have little in common with JRRT in terms of either background or formal beliefs.

...although, unlike Child, I do have a lot in common with Tolkien in terms of my formal beliefs.

In short, and in other words, I return to Middle-earth because it is like returning to my father's house: it is going home. Even if I am long away, I do not feel like a stranger upon returning because it made me who I am and I draw refreshment of self from being there.



*I honestly don't know how old I was. By the time I was looking back to figure it out, it was impossible to tell. But it was somewhere in the 9-11 range...

[Inziladun]

Very well written, Formy.

I first remember reading LOTR when I was maybe 10 or so. My father had read The Hobbit to me before that though, and I even have very vague memories of being taken to see the Bakshi film. In short, I cannot recall a time when Tolkien and Middle earth were wholly unknown to me.
Unlike many here, I have never been a 'fantasy' reader, unless you count Stephen King, most of whose works I've become well enamored of (at least until the early part of the past decade, but that's another matter). Tolkien is the sole fantasy author in my bookcase. I have on occasion leafed through some other authors works, but I just can't seem to get the fire to follow through. All I can conclude is that Tolkien spoiled me. His combination of story, characterization, and perhaps over all, the magnificent verbiage, are unmatched. That's probably why I'm so critical of attempts by others to 'adapt' the books and put a different spin on them. I'm just not interested.

Every couple of years, I seem to get it into my head to read Tolkien again. I finished the latest reread about 4 months ago. Each time I seem to have no trouble immersing myself, feeling the cool night air with Frodo, Sam, and Pippin leaving Hobbiton; following the dim glow of Gandalf's staff in the stifling darkness of Moria and hoping we'll get out again.
Though in latter years my tastes have mostly run to non-fiction, it's ever a blessing to know that Middle earth is still waiting patiently for my return.

[King of the North]

re reading LotR is much like re watching a very good movie. After you have seen it once u get the story and most of the details. But everytime I read Tolkien again I uncover new facts and details that I missed before. There seems to be an unlimited number of them.