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[semyaza]

2. How did The Lord of the Rings (the book) change your life? I was going to ask about the films as well but I see that claudia603 has just asked that question. Feel free to answer it a second time, if you like. A good thing bears repeating. If neither the book nor the films changed your life then you can tell me about your favourite body moisturiser

Comments

[addie71]

I first read LotR 40 years ago. I was 18 and fell in love with it and it has remained my favorite book for all that time.

[semyaza]

Did it change the person you were before you read it? You mentioned not being a lover of fairy tales -- did you read fantasy when you were a child or was LotR a departure?

[addie71]

True, I'd never cared for reading fairy tales, and I'd never read any other fantasy, so yes, LotR added a whole new genre to what I would read.

[dianora77]

I don't know if it has changed my life, but I remember that after I finished it (I think I was 14 or 15) I remained in a kind of a daze for the next 2 or 3 months, and I'd just come home, lay on the bed and stare at the ceiling, unable to shake the feeling that that entire world and its history was real, that it actually existed. And then crying cause it didn't. :)

[semyaza]

And then crying cause it didn't.

But of course it does. *pets*

[claudia603]

I read it the summer I was 12 and was recovering from a nasty flu. I remember reading the parts with Frodo and Sam at Mount Doom and I was just...words can't even describe how I felt transformed. I felt as if I had entered into another world and that I would never be the same afterwards. I wasn't.

haha, and I have yet to find a body moisturizer I really like that much!

[semyaza]

My flu read (at a slightly older age) was the Gormenghast trilogy. It's funny how one remembers those things. Mount Doom must have been exhausting when you were post-viral. :D

[lenine2]

Hummingbird in December? I don't even get them in the summer here.

LOTR did make a big impression on me. I was around 13, I think, the first time I read it, and was started to develop my current cynical attitude toward life. LOTR helped it along.

There are passages in the book that were so intense I can picture where I was when I first read them. The biggest was when Eowyn killed the Witch King. I was on my blue-shag-carpeted bedroom floor. OMG Dernhelm was Eowyn! Then, later, Faramir gave her his mother's blue cloak with the moon and stars.

*sigh* I wanted to be Eowyn. Except for the mooning over Aragorn. I liked him as Strider, but as the book progressed he didn't seem so hot. I think it was his wimpiness in Lothlorien that did it. Faramir was a much better catch.

[semyaza]

Anna's Hummingbird is a year round resident. The Rufous Hummingbird is seasonal. I'd better have the blow dryer handy because if the nectar freezes solid, as it did yesterday morning, I'll feel so guilty.

How did LotR make you more cynical about real life? Because you couldn't be Eowyn? I'm not wild about female characters, for the most part - yes, sweeping generalisation - but she impressed me no end. When I had the chance to buy a painting inspired by LotR I chose one titled 'As a Steel Blade (Eowyn)'.

[lenine2]

Well, even though Good won over Evil, it wasn't a totally happy ending. Characters died (I loved Theoden so much), the world was changed, the Elves left, and Frodo never really healed.

I have to agree with dianora77. The first time I read LOTRO it consumed all of my waking thoughts. When I finished it, I felt sad that the characters and Middle Earth were done. When The Silm came out I was ecstatic, until I tried to read it the first time.

[semyaza]

Theoden's death was perfect and right. As for the ending - necessary but hard to live with. I don't usually read that far (or watch that part of the film).

The Silm came at a bad time. Seen in the context of the annotated HoMe as we have it now it's easier to take in. Certainly, it wasn't for the person I was thirty years ago but then neither were a lot of things.

[rakshi]

The book, which I read at 15, and the movies both changed my life, but in different way

[semyaza]

Did you throw the book at the wall and then read the appendices?

[rakshi]

*laughs* Honestly? I don't remember. I just have this vivid image of lying on my bed being so upset I just threw the book against the wall. I can SEE that wall so clearly!

No question I read the appendices later. And the histories as well. I believe that Tolkien originally was going to have Sam GO with Frodo. But.. if he had we wouldn't have had such fertile ground for fan fiction.

Great questions!