blackjml ([info]blackjml) wrote,
@ 2005-10-23 14:33:00
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Farewell to Lorien
I am reading The Lord of the Rings again, for what may be the last time.

I first read the book when I was ten. I remember being worried that my parents would catch me awake reading so late into the night, but being terrified of the Black Riders. I remember crying when Gandalf died. And I remember the first time I saw Lothlorien.

I've lost count of the number of times I've read it since — more than ten, less than twenty. But this time, for the first time ever, I feel cut off from the pleasure and delight and warmth of Middle-Earth. My only pleasure is in the memory of pleasure.

Perhaps in later years this will change. Until then, namárië!



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[info]puzzlement
2005-10-22 11:49 pm UTC (link)
Do you have any idea of what changed? I know that somehow the movies (which I enjoyed, I've seen them twice each against rereading the books about 5 times cover-to-cover and twenty to fifty times for parts I particularly enjoy) seem to have sapped my desire to reread the books again.

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[info]blackjml
2005-10-23 03:18 am UTC (link)
It could be the movies (I hated them each on first watching and really enjoyed them on second). It could be the excellent BBC Radio 4 drama. I don't think I've read the books since I've dipped into the other versions.

I've also read a lot more widely since my last LotR -- particularly, lots of non-fantasy fiction (Chandler, Melville, Steinbeck, Austen etc) and quite a lot of pre-Tolkien or non-Tolkien-clone fantasy (E. R. Eddison, Lord Dunsany, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber etc).

Those are the changed circumstances. I don't really know where the cause lies -- I wish I did.

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