Tolkien

I had other things to read. I was planning on whittling down my “to read” list. As in,  all those things I’ve never read before. Things people are waiting on me to read so we can discuss them, in some cases. According to Goodreads that list is in the hundreds. But then I glanced (just glanced, mind you) at my copy of Lord of the Rings and it was all over. Over the course of days I’m hundreds of pages in with no end in sight and my interest has not flagged. I’ve neglected Netflix, the Xbox, my family and friends, even biological imperatives like eating and sleeping. I’ve read this trilogy probably four times in my life, but it doesn’t matter: I’m still surprised by every bend in the road, by the vividness of every blade of grass in Middle Earth.

Tolkien is damned brilliant. First of all, his command of language, both in poetry and prose, is prodigious. He manages to evoke fascinating, important characters without giving them any of that imperviousness that so often accompanies the Hero in contemporary fantasy. Obviously Tolkien’s interest in ancient Saxon and Medieval legends/poetry is a major source, but he manages to make these characters so relevant despite the great gulfs of time and culture between those works and our modern world– the characters positively leap off the page! And, I admit, Peter Jackson’s films have colored some of my ideas of what the characters look and sound like, but nevertheless the books are so much more detailed, so much deeper and richer. That’s no mean feat, considering Jackson’s deep and abiding obsession with re-creating Middle Earth. I’m nearly finished with The Fellowship of the Ring and then it will be on to The Two Towers…

So, my “To Read” list will have to wait until I’ve walked with Frodo to the cracks of Mount Doom, until the Enemy is defeated by the most unlikely of creatures, and until all is well under the hill. So be it. The road goes ever on and on…