Chris Newton's Blog, page 4
April 12, 2023
The Shadow of the Past: Part 1
The Easter Bank Holiday weather was idyllic, and our street was full of cherry blossom from the neighbours' tree. The grass is growing fast, and we mowed the lawn for the first time this year. But, like Sam Gamgee, I have more on my mind than gardening.
I looked forward to sitting outside on a "cool pale evening" to embark upon my chronological reading proper (having read Chapter 1 on Tolkien Reading Day.)
But shadows are clearly stirring in Barad-dûr, and yesterday it poured with rain all day as ominous thunder clouds gathered. I was kept awake at night by the sound of our wheelie bin blowing down the street. However, I woke up on Wednesday 12th April to birdsong and the sky was indeed "clearing after heavy rain" as I began to re-read The Shadow of the Past up to Gandalf's return after his long absence.
What's strange, re-reading this 22 years after the first time, is that at the age of 15 I had no real concept of how years can slip by like days, and what it might be like to go 9 years without seeing somebody. The chances are that if I did run into someone from 2014 I, like Gandalf, would probably greet them with a casual "All well eh?"
There are a few people I don't keep in touch with as much as I would like to, and I hope they know that when we do run into each other it is always a "surprise and great delight".
It seemed only right to start with this 2020 Harper Collins edition of The Fellowship of the Ring (click the title for details - this is why I love Goodreads!) Typically, this was a hardback edition I had treated myself to but never read.
As much as I love Tolkien's own illustrations, and as much as John Howe's depiction of Gandalf was so important to me when I was younger, I have always thought Alan Lee was by far the best Tolkien artist, and there is no substitute for a Lee illustrated edition. But more on that tomorrow...
I looked forward to sitting outside on a "cool pale evening" to embark upon my chronological reading proper (having read Chapter 1 on Tolkien Reading Day.)
But shadows are clearly stirring in Barad-dûr, and yesterday it poured with rain all day as ominous thunder clouds gathered. I was kept awake at night by the sound of our wheelie bin blowing down the street. However, I woke up on Wednesday 12th April to birdsong and the sky was indeed "clearing after heavy rain" as I began to re-read The Shadow of the Past up to Gandalf's return after his long absence.
What's strange, re-reading this 22 years after the first time, is that at the age of 15 I had no real concept of how years can slip by like days, and what it might be like to go 9 years without seeing somebody. The chances are that if I did run into someone from 2014 I, like Gandalf, would probably greet them with a casual "All well eh?"
There are a few people I don't keep in touch with as much as I would like to, and I hope they know that when we do run into each other it is always a "surprise and great delight".
It seemed only right to start with this 2020 Harper Collins edition of The Fellowship of the Ring (click the title for details - this is why I love Goodreads!) Typically, this was a hardback edition I had treated myself to but never read.
As much as I love Tolkien's own illustrations, and as much as John Howe's depiction of Gandalf was so important to me when I was younger, I have always thought Alan Lee was by far the best Tolkien artist, and there is no substitute for a Lee illustrated edition. But more on that tomorrow...
March 25, 2023
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.
