Chris Newton's Blog - Posts Tagged "tolkien"
Tolkien Reading Day: Re-reading The Lord of the Rings
It started in a bookshop in Oxford in the ’90s. Well, actually, it started much earlier than that: in a bedroom in Bispham when I first heard the words 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.' My Dad read that book to me and then, many years later, when I was 12, bought me a one volume paperback edition of The Lord of the Rings with the epic Gandalf cover by John Howe. ('Gandalf in the Rain' as we always called it!) I read the first chapter, but was disappointed when Bilbo left. How could you have a sequel to The Hobbit without the hobbit? And then my Dad chastised me for skipping the prologue. So I gave up for a while.
At fourteen (in a bunk bed in a hostel in Arnside – these things matter!) I began reading The Lord of the Rings properly, beginning with Concerning Hobbits. We went on holiday to Herefordshire that year – The Lord of the Rings was going to be my holiday read. But then… disaster! I had Ieft the book at home! This was long before Spotify, so my packing had been preoccupied by filling CD wallets with enough music to keep me going for two whole weeks. Over the road from the place we were staying was a… Well, I still don’t know what it was. A café, and an antiques shop, and a second hand bookshop. And possibly a pub. The important thing is that they had battered paperback copies of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers - the Unwin 1974 editions with cover artwork by Tolkien. The Fellowship cover depicted Rivendell. By the time I reached The Return of the King, it seemed a shame to bend the spine of my, mostly unread, pretty one volume John Howe edition, so I took the third volume out of the school library. It was a Harper Collins 1991 edition. (shorturl.at/KNV37)
For years, those Unwin paperbacks sat proudly on the shelf of every house I Iived in, until the fact I didn't own a matching ROTK bugged me so much that I bought one on eBay. (https://bit.ly/3n9mS4j) And yet... obsessive completeness aside, it wasn't *my* copy of ROTK. When the Lord of the Nazgûl rode through the Gate of Gondor and all fled before his face... All save one... the cover I had gripped anxiously was another of Tolkien's illustrations, but this time rather minimalist depiction of the White Tree. So, when I found that same edition in my local second hand bookshop, I was honour bound to buy it. Which left we with a lonely, mismatched ROTK. You can see where this is going. When I just accepted the fact that I couldn't see a second hand copy of LOTR without buying it, life became much easier.
But when was I going to read them all? As any collector knows, the joy of owning multiple copies of what is effectively the same thing is picking them up at random, reading a favourite chapter or passage, starting at the illustrations, comparing the maps and, most importantly, smelling them!
But still, it seemed a shame to have unread books. What If I re-read the whole thing? All 61 Chapters, plus appendices, but read from a different edition for each chapter? (I don't own 61 copies of LOTR, but hey, one should have aspirations.) As I began to plan my epic re-read, it occurred to me how enjoyable it would be to read The Lord of the Rings in real time! To read Frodo's departure from Bag End on the 23rd of September as the leaves are beginning to fall outside; the Council of Elrond by lantern light on the 24th October; the destruction of the One Ring on the 25th March when the light is returning.
Of course, technically speaking, I should read the first chapter, Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party, on the 22nd September this year (2023) and then wait 17 years to read chapter 2. Call me hasty, but I just don't have the patience. And, if you want to be exact about, I can promise you that I absolutely will have read A Long Expected Party at some point back in 2006! So, my chronological re-read will begin proper with The Shadow of the Past on the 12th April, when the cool pale evening quietly fades to night.
However, it seems a shame not to read from the beginning - so what better time than Tolkien Reading Day itself?(https://www.tolkiensociety.org/events... theme of this year's Reading Day is, rather appropriately, Travel and Adventure, so I'm celebrating by reading Bilbo being swept of his feet at last. This began as my excuse to savour my many second hand editions, but I thought in honour of my own literary adventure, I should treat myself to a new edition. Previously, I only owned one hardback one volume (another John Howe edition - more on which anon!) so today I am reading from the recent Harper Collins The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Edition. It came in a beautiful blue box depicting The Doors of Durin and has remained unopened until today!
The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Good-bye, my dear Bilbo - until our next meeting.
(Although, I'm still not convinced 'The New Hobbit' will be any good without Bilbo as the hero...)
I'll be keeping this blog updated throughout, so I'll be back on the 12th if April for Chapter 2 with a different edition! In the meantime, you can find all 3 Book at Breakfast Lord of the Rings episodes here: https://linktr.ee/abookatbreakfast
Namárië.
At fourteen (in a bunk bed in a hostel in Arnside – these things matter!) I began reading The Lord of the Rings properly, beginning with Concerning Hobbits. We went on holiday to Herefordshire that year – The Lord of the Rings was going to be my holiday read. But then… disaster! I had Ieft the book at home! This was long before Spotify, so my packing had been preoccupied by filling CD wallets with enough music to keep me going for two whole weeks. Over the road from the place we were staying was a… Well, I still don’t know what it was. A café, and an antiques shop, and a second hand bookshop. And possibly a pub. The important thing is that they had battered paperback copies of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers - the Unwin 1974 editions with cover artwork by Tolkien. The Fellowship cover depicted Rivendell. By the time I reached The Return of the King, it seemed a shame to bend the spine of my, mostly unread, pretty one volume John Howe edition, so I took the third volume out of the school library. It was a Harper Collins 1991 edition. (shorturl.at/KNV37)
For years, those Unwin paperbacks sat proudly on the shelf of every house I Iived in, until the fact I didn't own a matching ROTK bugged me so much that I bought one on eBay. (https://bit.ly/3n9mS4j) And yet... obsessive completeness aside, it wasn't *my* copy of ROTK. When the Lord of the Nazgûl rode through the Gate of Gondor and all fled before his face... All save one... the cover I had gripped anxiously was another of Tolkien's illustrations, but this time rather minimalist depiction of the White Tree. So, when I found that same edition in my local second hand bookshop, I was honour bound to buy it. Which left we with a lonely, mismatched ROTK. You can see where this is going. When I just accepted the fact that I couldn't see a second hand copy of LOTR without buying it, life became much easier.
But when was I going to read them all? As any collector knows, the joy of owning multiple copies of what is effectively the same thing is picking them up at random, reading a favourite chapter or passage, starting at the illustrations, comparing the maps and, most importantly, smelling them!
But still, it seemed a shame to have unread books. What If I re-read the whole thing? All 61 Chapters, plus appendices, but read from a different edition for each chapter? (I don't own 61 copies of LOTR, but hey, one should have aspirations.) As I began to plan my epic re-read, it occurred to me how enjoyable it would be to read The Lord of the Rings in real time! To read Frodo's departure from Bag End on the 23rd of September as the leaves are beginning to fall outside; the Council of Elrond by lantern light on the 24th October; the destruction of the One Ring on the 25th March when the light is returning.
Of course, technically speaking, I should read the first chapter, Bilbo's eleventy-first birthday party, on the 22nd September this year (2023) and then wait 17 years to read chapter 2. Call me hasty, but I just don't have the patience. And, if you want to be exact about, I can promise you that I absolutely will have read A Long Expected Party at some point back in 2006! So, my chronological re-read will begin proper with The Shadow of the Past on the 12th April, when the cool pale evening quietly fades to night.
However, it seems a shame not to read from the beginning - so what better time than Tolkien Reading Day itself?(https://www.tolkiensociety.org/events... theme of this year's Reading Day is, rather appropriately, Travel and Adventure, so I'm celebrating by reading Bilbo being swept of his feet at last. This began as my excuse to savour my many second hand editions, but I thought in honour of my own literary adventure, I should treat myself to a new edition. Previously, I only owned one hardback one volume (another John Howe edition - more on which anon!) so today I am reading from the recent Harper Collins The Lord of the Rings Illustrated Edition. It came in a beautiful blue box depicting The Doors of Durin and has remained unopened until today!
The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.
Good-bye, my dear Bilbo - until our next meeting.
(Although, I'm still not convinced 'The New Hobbit' will be any good without Bilbo as the hero...)
I'll be keeping this blog updated throughout, so I'll be back on the 12th if April for Chapter 2 with a different edition! In the meantime, you can find all 3 Book at Breakfast Lord of the Rings episodes here: https://linktr.ee/abookatbreakfast
Namárië.
Three is Company: A Last Look at The Shire
It's finally September! I read of the two carts leaving Buckland on the 20th, and Frodo's birthday on the 22nd, but now this readthrough begins properly with Frodo's departure from Bag End!
For my re-read of the remainder of Three Is Company, I thought the most appropriate edition was Volume One of the Six Volume movie tie-in edition published by HarperCollins in 2001.
The Ring Sets Out
Fittingly, its foreword by Douglas A. Anderson begins: 'The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy..'
Famously, it was written as a single, continuous, volume by Tolkien, but it was the cost of printing such a huge book which made the publishers suggest splitting the work. Unlike the three volumes we're familiar with today, Tolkien suggested six volumes, and provided a title for each. The first volume, covering everything up to Flight to the Ford, was named 'The Ring Sets Out', which seems apposite for reading the beginning of Frodo's journey away from Hobbiton.
As the pale golden sun shines on spiderwebs in the garden, and the geese fly away for the winter in formation overhead, it's clearly no accident that the beginning of Frodo's journey - 23rd September - coincides with the Autumn equinox, when the sun's power begins to wane and we move towards the darkness.
The tone of this chapter - complete with a talking Fox - is still very reminiscent of The Hobbit, although all is beginning to change. It's interesting that Bilbo began his journey - from which we were assured he would come 'back again' in April, when life was returning and the hedgerows bursting with activity. Frodo, however, wonders if he 'shall ever see that valley again', as he looks back towards Hobbiton in the Autumnal dark.
Yet, 'hope remains' as Galadriel will remind us in Volume Two. Another interesting thing to note about this time of year is that the Morning Star reappears in the sky, rising about an hour before the sun. Although we'll have to wait until we get to Rivendell to learn more about the 'Flammifer of Westernesse'.
One thing about re-reading a book in (at this point) smaller chunks is that you pick up on details it's often easy to forget of overlook, and I'm reminded of one of my favourite Sam moments in the whole book (and it's not even his emotional farewell to the beer barrel in the cellar!)
'Presently Sam appeared, trotting quickly and breathing hard; his heavy pack was hoisted high on his shoulders, and he had put on his head a tall shapeless felt bag, which he called a hat. In the gloom he looked very much like a dwarf.'
What happened to Sam's 'hat'?? I like to think he carried on wearing it all the way to the Cracks of Doom...
For my re-read of the remainder of Three Is Company, I thought the most appropriate edition was Volume One of the Six Volume movie tie-in edition published by HarperCollins in 2001.
The Ring Sets Out
Fittingly, its foreword by Douglas A. Anderson begins: 'The Lord of the Rings is often erroneously called a trilogy..'
Famously, it was written as a single, continuous, volume by Tolkien, but it was the cost of printing such a huge book which made the publishers suggest splitting the work. Unlike the three volumes we're familiar with today, Tolkien suggested six volumes, and provided a title for each. The first volume, covering everything up to Flight to the Ford, was named 'The Ring Sets Out', which seems apposite for reading the beginning of Frodo's journey away from Hobbiton.
As the pale golden sun shines on spiderwebs in the garden, and the geese fly away for the winter in formation overhead, it's clearly no accident that the beginning of Frodo's journey - 23rd September - coincides with the Autumn equinox, when the sun's power begins to wane and we move towards the darkness.
The tone of this chapter - complete with a talking Fox - is still very reminiscent of The Hobbit, although all is beginning to change. It's interesting that Bilbo began his journey - from which we were assured he would come 'back again' in April, when life was returning and the hedgerows bursting with activity. Frodo, however, wonders if he 'shall ever see that valley again', as he looks back towards Hobbiton in the Autumnal dark.
Yet, 'hope remains' as Galadriel will remind us in Volume Two. Another interesting thing to note about this time of year is that the Morning Star reappears in the sky, rising about an hour before the sun. Although we'll have to wait until we get to Rivendell to learn more about the 'Flammifer of Westernesse'.
One thing about re-reading a book in (at this point) smaller chunks is that you pick up on details it's often easy to forget of overlook, and I'm reminded of one of my favourite Sam moments in the whole book (and it's not even his emotional farewell to the beer barrel in the cellar!)
'Presently Sam appeared, trotting quickly and breathing hard; his heavy pack was hoisted high on his shoulders, and he had put on his head a tall shapeless felt bag, which he called a hat. In the gloom he looked very much like a dwarf.'
What happened to Sam's 'hat'?? I like to think he carried on wearing it all the way to the Cracks of Doom...
