fic suggestion - more ot4 (heh)
fierydragonsky suggested heroes and villains and everyone in between, and the story of someone rediscovering him or herself. that's a novel right there, but my scope is a little smaller....
When Francis Black is five years old, he discovers dinosaurs, King Arthur, and JRR Tolkien. His mom reads him The Once and Future King and his dads take turns reading first The Hobbit and then, after an argument with mom, The Lord of the Rings. Francis, being five, has no patience for Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot, or Aragorn and Arwen, or Faramir and Eowyn. He wants to hear about the battles and the sorcery and the good guys and the bad, the monsters and the magic and the blood and the guts. He wants to hear about the Knights of the Round Table jousting and questing for the Grail. He wants to hear about lizards bigger than his house taking down other lizards and eating them for dinner.
Daniel makes up dinosaur stories because Francis doesn't quite understand Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder," which is only peripherally about dinosaurs anyway. Neil is vaguely disappointed, because he likes Bradbury, but Megan suggests he try again when Francis is older and can better appreciate the nuances of time travel. She adds that she has to skip chunks of TH White too, but Francis doesn't seem to care how much of the story he's missing, as long as she reads all the parts about Mordred and Merlin.
Nash and Neil push furniture out of the way and act out the scene between the hobbits and the Black Riders on Weathertop while Daniel reads it. Even though the scene in the book is only a page and a half long, the boys manage to drag the fight out fifteen minutes. Francis is thrilled. Later Nash puts on a posh English accent and pretends to be Elrond at the council in Rivendell, while Daniel and Neil try desperately to do the voices for the rest of the characters. Megan tries desperately not to laugh at them. Francis wants them to get to the good stuff.
By the time Neil reads the last page of The Return of the King Francis has forgotten the beginning of the story and makes him start over. He immediately passes the torch to Nash, who passes the torch to Daniel, who can at least pronounce all the Elvish words and has more patience for Tolkien. Francis also pesters Megan to read The Once and Future King again, but she buys Malory to read to him instead. She knows it's too old for him but he doesn't seem to care.
Later on, when he's old enough to read all these books on his own, Francis decides that he still doesn't have any patience for Aragorn and Arwen, or Faramir and Eowyn, but it's harder to separate Guinevere and Lancelot out of Arthur's story. Dinosaurs don't have this problem, being lizards and thus uninterested in any kind of love story.
true story: when i was six or seven my mom bought me a box set of the hobbit and the lord of the rings, four little paperbacks with reproduction tolkien covers in a slipcase decorated with crests and a little painting of a numenorean tile. she wouldn't let me read lotr because she thought i was too young for it. maybe i was - i read the hobbit then but didn't get to lotr until i was eleven. when i bring this up now she denies it.
When Francis Black is five years old, he discovers dinosaurs, King Arthur, and JRR Tolkien. His mom reads him The Once and Future King and his dads take turns reading first The Hobbit and then, after an argument with mom, The Lord of the Rings. Francis, being five, has no patience for Arthur and Guinevere and Lancelot, or Aragorn and Arwen, or Faramir and Eowyn. He wants to hear about the battles and the sorcery and the good guys and the bad, the monsters and the magic and the blood and the guts. He wants to hear about the Knights of the Round Table jousting and questing for the Grail. He wants to hear about lizards bigger than his house taking down other lizards and eating them for dinner.
Daniel makes up dinosaur stories because Francis doesn't quite understand Ray Bradbury's "A Sound of Thunder," which is only peripherally about dinosaurs anyway. Neil is vaguely disappointed, because he likes Bradbury, but Megan suggests he try again when Francis is older and can better appreciate the nuances of time travel. She adds that she has to skip chunks of TH White too, but Francis doesn't seem to care how much of the story he's missing, as long as she reads all the parts about Mordred and Merlin.
Nash and Neil push furniture out of the way and act out the scene between the hobbits and the Black Riders on Weathertop while Daniel reads it. Even though the scene in the book is only a page and a half long, the boys manage to drag the fight out fifteen minutes. Francis is thrilled. Later Nash puts on a posh English accent and pretends to be Elrond at the council in Rivendell, while Daniel and Neil try desperately to do the voices for the rest of the characters. Megan tries desperately not to laugh at them. Francis wants them to get to the good stuff.
By the time Neil reads the last page of The Return of the King Francis has forgotten the beginning of the story and makes him start over. He immediately passes the torch to Nash, who passes the torch to Daniel, who can at least pronounce all the Elvish words and has more patience for Tolkien. Francis also pesters Megan to read The Once and Future King again, but she buys Malory to read to him instead. She knows it's too old for him but he doesn't seem to care.
Later on, when he's old enough to read all these books on his own, Francis decides that he still doesn't have any patience for Aragorn and Arwen, or Faramir and Eowyn, but it's harder to separate Guinevere and Lancelot out of Arthur's story. Dinosaurs don't have this problem, being lizards and thus uninterested in any kind of love story.
true story: when i was six or seven my mom bought me a box set of the hobbit and the lord of the rings, four little paperbacks with reproduction tolkien covers in a slipcase decorated with crests and a little painting of a numenorean tile. she wouldn't let me read lotr because she thought i was too young for it. maybe i was - i read the hobbit then but didn't get to lotr until i was eleven. when i bring this up now she denies it.