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Jan. 19th, 2008 01:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sebastienneI've just finished re-reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
These are books that I loved, and read repeatedly, between the ages of 12 and 15, when the films came out. And the films ruined the books for me: I couldn't read them then. (Repeated failures to get through the Silmarillion at this time probably didn't help.) I have been consciously avoiding the films, the fandom, even still images, for upwards of two years. And, finally, just before Christmas, I found that my mental palette was clean enough that I could try them again.
And oh, oh, how much I love them.
Even if I was still driven to go and listen to Annie Lennox singing "Into the West" on a loop for an hour or so when I was done.
I've posted this before - perhaps many times? - but if there's one person here who has not seen it then I'm afraid it bears repeating.
When all was at last ready Frodo said: "When are you going to move in a join me, Sam?"
Sam looked a bit awkward.
"There is no need to come yet, if you don't want to," said Frodo. "But you know the Gaffer is close at hand, and he will be very well looked after by Widow Rumble."
"It's not that, Mr. Frodo," said Sam, and he went very red.
"Well, what is it?"
"It's Rosie, Rose Cotton," said Sam.
~p369
....
"I wish I could go all the way with you to Rivendell, Mr. Frodo, and see Mr. Bilbo," said Sam. "And yet the only place I really want to be in is here. I am that torn in two."
"Poor Sam! It will feel like that, I am afraid," said Frodo. "But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be."
~p372
....
1421 Frodo and Bilbo depart over the sea with the Three Keepers. Samwise returns to Bag End.
1427 Samwise is elected Mayor of the Shire.
1469 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the seventh and last time, being in 1476, at the end of his office, ninety-six years old.
1482 Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid-year's Day. On September 22 Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over the Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.
~Appendix B
Now, I think, I am ready to watch the films again...
These are books that I loved, and read repeatedly, between the ages of 12 and 15, when the films came out. And the films ruined the books for me: I couldn't read them then. (Repeated failures to get through the Silmarillion at this time probably didn't help.) I have been consciously avoiding the films, the fandom, even still images, for upwards of two years. And, finally, just before Christmas, I found that my mental palette was clean enough that I could try them again.
And oh, oh, how much I love them.
Even if I was still driven to go and listen to Annie Lennox singing "Into the West" on a loop for an hour or so when I was done.
I've posted this before - perhaps many times? - but if there's one person here who has not seen it then I'm afraid it bears repeating.
When all was at last ready Frodo said: "When are you going to move in a join me, Sam?"
Sam looked a bit awkward.
"There is no need to come yet, if you don't want to," said Frodo. "But you know the Gaffer is close at hand, and he will be very well looked after by Widow Rumble."
"It's not that, Mr. Frodo," said Sam, and he went very red.
"Well, what is it?"
"It's Rosie, Rose Cotton," said Sam.
~p369
....
"I wish I could go all the way with you to Rivendell, Mr. Frodo, and see Mr. Bilbo," said Sam. "And yet the only place I really want to be in is here. I am that torn in two."
"Poor Sam! It will feel like that, I am afraid," said Frodo. "But you will be healed. You were meant to be solid and whole, and you will be."
~p372
....
1421 Frodo and Bilbo depart over the sea with the Three Keepers. Samwise returns to Bag End.
1427 Samwise is elected Mayor of the Shire.
1469 Master Samwise becomes Mayor for the seventh and last time, being in 1476, at the end of his office, ninety-six years old.
1482 Death of Mistress Rose, wife of Master Samwise, on Mid-year's Day. On September 22 Master Samwise rides out from Bag End. He comes to the Tower Hills, and is last seen by Elanor, to whom he gives the Red Book afterwards kept by the Fairbairns. Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over the Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.
~Appendix B
Now, I think, I am ready to watch the films again...
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Date: 2008-01-19 02:52 pm (UTC)Among them the tradition is handed down from Elanor that Samwise passed the towers, and went to the Grey Havens, and passed over the Sea, last of the Ring-bearers.
I have tears in my eyes. Damn you, wench. And now I'm listening to 'Into the West', which I've loved since I first heard it. Waaaaah.
I came at the books quite differently: Middle-Earth was coming to life all around me, in Wellington, yet I'd only ever read the Hobbit as a child. I think I started the first book, but was put off by the slow start.
Also, I've never been too quick to read/watch things because everyone told me I should! I didn't read Douglas Adams until my friend pushed H2G2 into my hands and said 'read this now!', I didn't watch Firefly until I was recovering from surgery and had nothing better to do, and I'm only now watching Babylon 5.
So my saintly then-boyfriend (a huge Tolkien fan) undertook to read it to me while we were away on holiday, summarising the duller parts and answering my questions. From then on there was no stopping me, and I read the whole trilogy. I think I had them all completed before seeing FOTR, but I now can't recall.
So I consequently have a different view of the films - much less critical, because the characters weren't so fully realised in my imagination. And my viewing of them is coloured by patriotic pride, and a fierce love of the landscape that sometimes brings me to tears when I watch them far from home.
One good way to start a stand-up argument in Taruithorn is to defend Peter Jackson's handling of Faramir. Oxford-educated Tolkien fanatics, it turns out, are really good at arguing :)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 03:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 03:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 03:38 pm (UTC)Tissues, please.
While we're comparing positions on the fims - to me, the books and the films will always be two separate texts, both to be criticised when they deserve it, and both to be loved with all my heart.
There's a DVD box set up in my room with our names on it, the next time you're feeling at a loose end...
(ooh, and also, take my old-school vintage back-in-the-day fandom quiz! (http://www.quizilla.com/users/mistressscarlett/quizzes/What%20The%20Hell%20Kind%20of%20Tolkien%20Fan%20Are%20You%3F/)
no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 03:43 pm (UTC)and it's beautiful, to me anyway, incredibly so.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 05:45 pm (UTC)Lord of the Rings changed all that. Despite some heavy-handed humour regarding Gimli, and a moment of utterly inexplicable, utterly inexcusable mis-scoring on the slopes of Mount Doom the films win hands down for me in any comparison. Tolkien told wonderful stories, but Jackson is the better storyteller.
The decision not to even introduce Tom Bloody Bombadil speaks for itself.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 10:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 10:40 pm (UTC)You are an...OBSESSIVE TOLKIEN FAN.You speak several different kinds of Elvish, and probably write your bathroom graffiti in Tengwar. You've spent at least six months' salary on LOTR merchandise in the past three years. Books, movies, toys, KFC Popcorn Chicken deals, you love 'em all. The good news is that you're dedicated, loyal and forgiving, sticking by your favourite text even through nightmarish moments like the shield-surfing and acceptance speech travesty. The bad news is that you must bear the responsibility for making Peter Jackson rich, and New Zealand cool...
But on behalf of my proud and awesome nation: grrrrr! I bite my thumb at you, sir!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-19 10:48 pm (UTC)Ebay will let you pick up one or two tickets for a very decent price.
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Date: 2008-01-20 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 09:19 am (UTC)and I loved it, counterpointed like that, it brought home the absurdity and the incredibleness of what they had acheived, given their origins; and it explained how Sam could be hopeful, always, even in the middle of a volcanic eruption at the end of the world.
still, not expecting to convert anyone!
no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 11:40 am (UTC)You are a...
PARTNER OF AN O.T.G (Obsessive Tolkien Geek).
You poor, long-suffering creature. Although you might not like Tolkien very much for its own sake, you've been drawn into the maelstrom by getting involved with someone of the true fandom fellowship... ticket queues, massive credit card bills, screaming arguments about Helm's Deep, endless boring banging on about minutae... you've endured them all for love. That's actually kinda romantic; reminds me of the time Beren met Luthien in the forest and they...
Oh. Right. Sorry.
no subject
Date: 2008-01-20 12:36 pm (UTC)``If you ever touch me again, you yourself will be cast into the cracks of Doom'' (or words to that effect).
And because Gollum is bound by his oath to Frodo and to the ring, this will definitely come true. And so, when Gollum does touch Frodo again, he and the ring are cast into the cracks of doom by the ring itself.
They had the scene, they had the moment for Frodo to say this... and then he just didn't. Plonkers.
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Date: 2008-01-21 01:07 am (UTC)Ahahah, I do love the films, but...ahaha. I think I got it because I thought going to a costume party as Tolkien was a BRILLIANT idea to be stolen as soon as I have an excuse...