Describe the 1st time you read LotR.

[Aule]

I first read The hobbit in Class 6 when i was 10, i thouroughly enjoyed so i started LotR right away, and loved that, the the silm, but gave up as i couldn't understand it. I have reread the Hobbit and LotR 2/3 times a year, each time understanding it more and more each time. I finally got up the courage to read the silm again when i was 17 and found it extremely easy to read this time around. I wizzed through it, then again, then went onto UT and loved that so much that i reread it instantly, and i am now reading the silm again while listening to the BBC's adaptation on radio

[Nurumaiel]

Let me see....

Well, for Christmas when I was 5 years old my dad got me and and my brothers some LOTR cards. By the beginning of the new year my older brother and I were running around being Frodo and Beregond, and I was begging for a LOTR movie for my birthday. When my birthday came I got as a present the animated ROTK, which I loved (I was very young [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] ).

After my sixth birthday I began listening to the BBC tapes with Ian Holm, and learned all about that world. My brother and I then began to be Sam's children. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

A couple two or three months after I turned 7 my dad begun reading FOTR to us, and finished the trilogy a year later. Then, just last year, I heard a movie was coming out! Hurray!

It became the favorite book of my older brother and myself, and to this day we'll still be Frodo & Beregond, though usually Merry and Pip. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

So I was pretty young. *shrugs* But it was nice to hear the story at such a young age, for I sort of feel as if I've grown up in Middle-earth...

~Nurumaiel

[Kalessin]

I first read LotR at age 11 or so ... or I should say, I started it. I tried again a couple of times over the next three years, but although I was a major fantasy fan and an avid reader, I found it like wading in melted chocolate, stodgy and unreadable.

When I revisited it a couple of years ago, I could understand the reasons for my early reactions, but this time found it enthralling and it was a real revelation. I have subsequently re-read it a couple of times, and it means a lot to me. I am really pleased that I found it again ... or did it find me? [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

It just goes to show you never know how things will turn out [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Peace

Kalessin

[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]

[Eruwen]

Oh, wow. It was almost a year ago. I started actually the day after Christmas last year. I jumped in with the Fellowship head first. It was so amazing reading something that extraordinary. I had never read anything that deep and thrilling in my entire life! {My life, of course, only being a little over 15 years long. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] }

It was kind of slow at first. But once I got to around the 3rd chapeter in the Fellowhip of the Ring, I could not put it down. The only time I had to read it was at night right before I went to sleep. So I remember sitting at school and at basketball games and places like that just waiting until I got home and I could start reading it again. I was so into the story.

I got done with the Fellowship around a month later. The day I finished that book, I had to beg my mom to take me to go get the second one. I just couldn't wait at all. And it was the same thing all over again with that book. I think I was a little more into this book though than the first one because I had gotten sort of...attached to the characters. I remember when I finished the second book, I sat on my bed screaming, literally, about how it ended. I was so mad that it ended like that.

My mom wouldn't let me go get the 3rd book for a while. So I sat forever waiting to see what happened to Frodo, he being my favorite character at the time. It wasn't until another month later when I got the 3rd book! I got it on a Saturday, and I had finished it the next day. I literally did not put it down. I read about 2 chapters on that saturday, and I spent my whole Sunday afternoon reading that book. It was so good.

At the end of the book, sadly though, I almost started to cry. Not just because Frodo had left Middle Earth and everything was sad, but because it felt like I was leaving Middle Earth. It was like I had been in that wonderful world so long, and now I had to leave. When I read the last words...

He drew a deep breath. "Well, I'm back," he said.

I felt so sad and lonely. I remember saying to myself "It's over. I'm finished. I cannot believe it just ended like that." It almost felt like a part of me was missing. Like the story had captured part of my soul. After that moment, as often as I could, I spent my days re-reading the books and searching for websites about it just to learn more of this magical land called Middle Earth. And here I am. Still on this site searching and searching for more information just to thrill me and take me back to that place J.R.R. Tolkien created.

[Laialthriel]

Hey, this is a great topic by the way!

I had always heard about this great trilogy called "The Lord of the Rings" but I never bothered to check it out. I was a very foolish child. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] But after I saw FotR in theatres, I decided I absolutely HAD to read the book(s).

I bought the novel and started in on it. I was hooked. It just about killed me to put it down. I would read it at every moment I could and some of the moments I shouldn't have been. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

When I got toward the last of the book I felt very uncertain as to if I wanted to finish the book. (I know it sounds odd, but bear with me for a second. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]) I was so gripped by the story and very much enjoying the suspense of not knowing what was going to happen, yet I was absolutely dying to finish it!!! Of course my fate was decided for me because I seriously couldn't put it down until I had read the very last page.

It was undoubtedly the most gripping, well written book I've ever read. I'm starting on his other books now. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Nenya]

*smiles of the memory*
I am a REALLY emotional reader.Really. When I get hooked on a book, i can't get it out of my head for months.
I won't tell you how I got started on LotR beacause you have heard the stories of my fellow downers, and mine is quite similar. Anyway, there i was (about a year and a couple of months ago), totally addicted to Lotr and only a couple of chapters left until the end, when i decided not to finish it until Wednesday. (the day was Monday)That was because i wanted to devote the whole day to LotR and couldn't do it sooner. I tell you, the two days were loooong. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] I remember running home from school to read it. So, I got to "Well, I'm back", cried a river ( [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]) and started my life as the other Elina. You know that other person, you've all become that after reading LotR. I'm hoping a slow return to my old self after the third movie. But i know I will always return to being the other Elina, when i re-read the book in the up-coming years. And she will allways be curled up in me, ready to take control when someone want's to discuss good books with me. Amen. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

~Elina~

[Neferchoirwen]

I finished all 3 2 months ago, and the experience was as everyone felt it.

I read the last 3 chapters of The Rerutn of the King out loud, alone in my room. When I got to Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin seeing each other for one last time, I cried. I kept on reading out loud, and I was practically sobbing. Keeping that in mind, I can't imagine how I'll be taking it when I actually see it on screen...
...but I expect to be changed more than I already have been.

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: Neferchoirwen ]

[Orual]

My mom read the Hobbit aloud to my brother and me when I was about ten years old. I have very fond memories of my brother and I on either side of my mom, listening to her read--the one line that stayed with me the most was "I am Gandalf, and Gandalf means me!" Years after I can still hear my mom reading that line.

A few years later, on my mom's recommendation, I picked up Fellowship. Unfortunately I was not then mature enough to really appreciate it, and got stuck in the first half. After literally losing the book, I started over and finished it. By the end I loved it. (That was the day that the movie came out--Wednesday, December 19th, 2001.) Soon after I read the Two Towers, and finished Return of the King immediately after. I'll by the first to admit that I cried uncontrollably after I finished Return of the King; I felt as though I had lost a friend, or was leaving home, never to see it again. Frodo was leaving, and though Sam, Merry, and Pippin were staying, another boat was taking me off to a distant, unhappy land, far away from the Shire. (You won't be surprised that shortly after I discovered the miracle of re-reading.) I've read it the whole way through twice now, and what I call "skip-read" several times. (As in, I read the parts that I liked best.) Now I'm eagerly awaiting the Two Towers (THREE DAYS!). I plan to give the gift of Tolkien to my children very early on...I can only imagine. Forget Dr. Seuss, let's get straight to Bilbo Baggins!

~*~Orual~*~

[ December 15, 2002: Message edited by: Orual ]

[Iarwain]

I loved the Hobbit movie before I was even in preschool, and I must have watched it a hundred times! Eventually, I found out that there were more movies, but my mom thought that they would be too scary for me to watch, but she said that I could read the Lord of the Rings, eventually. Obviously, I couldn't read it for a couple of years, but by the third grade i was deep into the FotR. I got the centeniary edition for Christmas that year, and finished the book in the next year. Since then, I have read it faithfully once a year (and more), and I'm currently going though for the eighth time.

[Sleeping Beauty]

Wow, Nurumaiel, I wish my parents could have done that. My dad was not much a reader and my mom doesn't really like fantasy. Anyway, I was in 10th grade and my history teacher was suggesting books to us to read. Only three of us actually took the bait and read the books he usually recommended. I still remember the day I picked up the Fellowship in the library and sat down to read the first chapter before I checked it out(a bad habit of mine). First thing I remember was reading Concerning Hobbits and thinking Tolkien was very boring.(Yeah, right) I checked out the book anyway. I went to history class later and Mr. Smith came up to me and made a joke about reading me reading the book and then said not to read that beginning till after I read the story.(which makes some sense) I went home that night and read all of it in one sitting(another bad habit of mine)and loved it. I went back the next day and got the Two Towers and you get the idea. Since then, I have read the books numerous times and have read the Similarion and the histories. I enjoy reading Tolkien not matter how many times I do it. I still find something new and interesting each time. ^_^

[Neferchoirwen]

Wish my parents did that too. It's such a shame that what ought to taught at home is just passed off to schools, which makes everything essential seem so "just that." So I owe it to myself and to my children to read to them, and to give them a great childhood. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

reading the book and then said not to read that beginning till after I read the story.(which makes some sense)

Well, that worked for me...at least just for "concerning the Hobbits"

read all of it in one sitting(another bad habit of mine)

No! it's a great habit! check out my post in here...I did all that read-out loud in one sitting!

[Sleeping Beauty]

I usually do consider it a good thing to read it all together at one time...unless I have a 15 page paper to write. *groan*

Yeah, a lot of things are passed on to schools for the teachers to do, which is sad sometimes. There's a reason I want to make sure my cousins have a lot of books to read even if their parents don't do it themselves.

[Arwen_Evenstar]

On my 13th birthday,(im still 13 now) a family friend gave me a book she had dearly loved as a child. Being a very rapid reader, plus the Hobbit was an EXCELLLENT book, i had it finished pretty soon. IT HAD BEGUN. My obsession for JRR Tolkien became worse and worse, and better and better, in the last 6 months I have read FotR, TTT and RoTK, 3times each plus the silmarillon and and now part way through the council of Elrond for the 4th time...my brothers say I need help. I say I need more TOLKIEN!!!!

[Neferchoirwen]

Sleeping Beauty? a 15 page paper? thought you were talking about me...a few days ago, I made one in ONE day, and it isn't pretty.

Anyways, reading all 3 at one take is better...keeps the suspense going. (Well, Tolkien intended for the whole thing to be contained in a single volume...phew!)

[vanwalossien]

First one thing while we are speaking of papers: I and my friend wrote 61 pages about Tolkien and Middle-Earth, and LotR and the movies in ONE WEEK! One LONG week!

I've always known about LotR, maybe because my mother is as big a bookworm as me. But I have to admit I didn't read it until the fuss about the movie started. I had always thought it was a very difficult book, so I hadn't dared try before (I was fourteen when the 1st movie came) because my pride plain denied me to read it in Norwegian. But when the movie hysteria grew really wild I realised that: 1) I had to see this film, and one should ALWAYS read the book first and 2) apparently, I was the only person on earth who hadn't read the book yet. So I get the Hobbit out of the library and read it in a week or so (Mock not! English is not my native language), but then there proved to be a problem. In mid-November 2001, of course there was no copy of LotR left in any library in all Norway... Early in December I got hold of my aunt's copy, and bragging a bit more than I perhaps should have, I told my best friend that I would finish FotR before the movie opened. And I did, late in the night the 19th I was done. When I had got that far my speed picked up a bit, and a month later I had read the whole book. I cried like a baby when I finished (Frodo left Sam behind at the Grey Havens *heartbreak*). So, that's my story. Or at least thje beginning of it, I've now read the Silm too, and am hoping for hard, square and (quite) flat Christmas presents.

I'd just like to add that the best friend I mentioned still hasn't finished the book, and she reads in Norwegian (just so you know..). [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]


[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: vanwalossien ]

[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: vanwalossien ]

[Dorathain_Flamesword]

Oh well, since this is the first time through LotR, this should be easy. When I first chose the Hobbit for a book report, I soon came to the feeling that I didn't read the Hobbit just to read and get it done with, I read it loving it and finding every written word of it exciting. I loved the feelings Bilbo had since Chapter 1, I loved that book down to the chapter names. When I had finished it about the same time my friend did, (last year), I thought the brilliant journey was over. I thought the world that I stepped into when I read the pages of that book had faded away from me in less than a minute. Middle-Earth was also, to me, a world I could go to when I was tired of this one. When I read the last words in chapter 19, The Last Stage - "Thank goodness!" said Bilbo laughing, and handed him the tabacco-jar." I was fairly disappointed. But when I turned the page, and it said in italic letters, If you are interested in Hobbits you will learn a lot more about them in The Lord of the Rings:

I. The Fellowship of the Ring
II. The Two Towers
III. The Return of the King

I loved it. I quickly consumed the Fellowship and The Two Towers, and I am on the first chapter of the second book in the Return of the King i.e. The Tower of Cirith Ungol. (I haven't been reading much, been too busy lately.) These years are sure to be the best years of my life, the movies are coming out, the books are being read: (2001-2003.)

Dedicated to J.R.R. Tolkien (John Ronald Reuel Tolkien) 1892-1973 who wrote the masterpieces, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion etc. They will outlast our time, but if and when they do die down from the public, true Tolkien fans, like Barrow-Downers, will always keep them in our hearts.

[ December 21, 2002: Message edited by: Dorathain_Flamesword ]

[Neferchoirwen]

vanwalossien: [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]!

I'm reading TTT again, just for a refresher... Hoping I'll finish it before it runs regularly...which is a WEEK from now *sob*

[zacattack]

I first started reading FotR when I was 8 I finished all of those books within 4 months and started to read the Hobbit which I found quite boring >.<.I looked for the Silmarillion but I could never find it but when I was 10 I was at meh Nana's house and it was in the Town Library,I hav not yet read UT but I'm getting it for christmas.

[Pookabunny]

My motivation for reading LOTR was so that I could see the film without being confused. Honestly, had it not been for the film, it would be many long years before I'd read LOTR since my reading skills suck.

I'm glad for two things - one, that I did read Lord of the Rings, and two, that I read it BEFORE the movie. I loved both the movie and the books, but I'm glad I got to read the books before film's release.

Lord of the Rings was the first story I've read and not felt burdoned by reading it. I always skimped out on books when I was in school (and I was in AP classes!), and the only other book that I read and enjoyed thoroughly before that was "The Catcher in the Rye".

I started LOTR in November 2001 and finished it in february 2002 (again, horrible reader). I read it again, in it's entirety, in August of this year. I can't wait to read it again!

I rember having to read The Hobbit in school a year ago and i fell in love with it. I diddnt know there were other books until about a halfa year ago and now they are my favorite books of all time!!

[Marileangorifurnimaluim]

Hi Brian, welcome to the Downs. Great topic.

My dad gave it to me. He's an avid and ecletic reader and noticed I was into Andre Norton and LeGuin, had devoured Alexander Lloyd. I'd read the 'Screwtape Letters' and liked it.

He scanned his shelves and said, "hmmm. Well, you're too old for Narnia really, besides I don't think I have them anymore. Ah! Maybe you'll like this."

Maybe.

I was at the dinner table still reading, when Dad made me finally put down the Fellowship to eat.

One of the most memorable moments was when I was reading the Fellowship in English class. (I tested six years ahead of my classmates so tended to ignore the class and ace the exams - a system that earned me a consistent 'B,' and put me below the geek radar screen for the school bullies.)

My frustrated English teacher saw me reading in class again, and kicked my chair.

Well, it was attached to the desk, and the whole ensemble rotated 45 degrees before we came blinking to a stop. I picked up my desk, moved it back into place. And went right back to the book without a pause.

I seem to recall the entire room roaring with laughter.

He took the book away of course. But I had plenty of time to read during Social Studies. I'd memorized the text book in the first month, and noticed that all Houghten-Mifflin had updated since the 50's was the pictures.

Maril

[Finiel]

I haven't heard anything about Tolkien and his ME before until I saw the film last year merely because Cate Blanchett was in it.

The first time I saw the books at a store i didn't like it because of its cover. The cover was Elijah Wood holding his sword, Sting and I didn't like ELijah Wood that time. And I thought that LOTR was just copied from Harry Potter ( forgive me for my ignorance [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] ).

But when I saw the film I was encouraged to buy the THE HOBBIT book (since it was cheaper than the LOTR books) 11 months ago and I got hooked because it was one of those books that kinnda like takes you to places. I felt like I was with Bilbo & co. on their journey. It was great.
I mean the opening: "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit..." just hooked me.

And the same thing happened when I read the LOTR books for the first time last September. And I almost flank in Anatomy class for reading LOTR rather than studying for the finals.

From then on I surfed the net for more info about ME. I'm saving money to buy the Silmarillon.

Thank God for Tolkien...and for Peter Jackson, too. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

[ December 23, 2002: Message edited by: Finiel ]