The Two Towers

Earlier this evening, I finished reading the last few chapters of The Two Towers to my children — including my oldest, now back from his mission. As always, it was a bit of an effort to pull them away from their various evening pursuits to listen. But once I started, they were quickly drawn in.

Generally speaking, I tend to read only a chapter at a time. This time, though, we read three chapters with only a couple of relatively short breaks. Partly, that was because I feared that if I stopped, they'd never let me start again. It's pretty intense.

Reading aloud is one of those things I like to do with my children, even though I don't do it often enough. Our current project of reading The Lord of the Rings is one that we've been working on for over a year now.

My 16-year-old is finding it a revelation. After tonight's reading, she commented that Eragon (a favorite of hers from a few years back) is really a pale imitation compared to Tolkien. Even our 11-year-old seems absorbed by it. I think he wanted to start reading ahead a few months ago, but reluctantly deferred to my desire to have this be a family activity.

There's a lot I'm finding in it that I don't remember noticing either, despite the many times I read the books during my growing up — and the master's thesis I wrote about it, once upon a time. Reading aloud brings some things to one's attention that are easy to skip in silent reading. Part of it, too, may be that I've spent more time trying to write narratives myself since I last read Tolkien's work. There are things I notice now because I'm seeing it from the writer's perspective.

It's a good experience for our family. And it's a good experience for me as a writer. One thing I know: I'm still just as blown away by Tolkien's writing as I was when I first encountered it almost 40 years ago. More, maybe. Nobody does it better…