Back to the books (Nostalgia ain't like it used to be)

Seeking knowledge in, of, and about Middle-earth.
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TolkienJRR
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Re: Back to the books (Nostalgia ain't like it used to be)

Post by TolkienJRR »

yovargas wrote:I split this off from the News from Bree thread - VtF

(I can't find any existing thread where this would seem to fit, and I don't feel like starting a new thread, so I am sticking it here.)

I first read Lord of the rings when I was around 10 years old and fell head over heels in love with the books. I reread them every year or two until about the time that the movies came out, which were in my early twenties. For whatever reason, the last time that I had read the books was the year after the first movie came out, before The two towers came out. That would have been 2002, so it had been nearly 20 years. In that time, I have seen the movies dozens of times, and I usually name them as my all time favorite movies.

Increasingly, as time went by, one reason that I was reluctant to read the book is the observation that as time goes by and I get further and further from my 20-year-old self a lot of things that I loved back in those days don't particularly resonate with me anymore. The thought that I might read them as my older self and not love them seemed an unhappy thought about something that seemed so important to me in my youth. So I kept putting it off and putting it off, while feeling like I had to go back to them again someday. And now, a few months after turning 40 years old, I have finished reading Lord of the rings again.

The result? I could say a thousand things about it, but suffice to say that unfortunately, my fears were right. I largely enjoyed the books, much of it is quite wonderful, but I don't think I can truly say I especially loved it. It did not grab me and move me the way it did my younger self. Honestly there are large stretches of the book that I found rather dull. I'm fairly certain that if this had been my first time exposed to this story in any form, it will have just been another nice, enjoyable book amongst many other nice, enjoyable books.

On a more personal note, it is something that saddens me and weighs on me a bit more than a simply finding one's opinion of one thing change over time. For I keep feeling over and over, as I get older, that it gets much, much harder for me to truly feel passionate about something, and easier and easier to find fault in things. It is a sombering thought. I am only 40 now. What will life feel like at 60?

One final, controversial thought: the movies did it better!

I have noticed the opposite effect. The older I get the more I love them.
“I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late.”
-J.R.R Tolkien
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RoseMorninStar
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Re: Back to the books (Nostalgia ain't like it used to be)

Post by RoseMorninStar »

TolkienJRR wrote: I have noticed the opposite effect. The older I get the more I love them.
That view is entirely valid too. Each of us take away something different that we relate to and those things may change over time based on our experiences. Some may enjoy it for it's pure fantasy and others may find deeper philosophical truths, etc..
My heart is forever in the Shire.
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TolkienJRR
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Re: Back to the books (Nostalgia ain't like it used to be)

Post by TolkienJRR »

RoseMorninStar wrote:
TolkienJRR wrote: Some may enjoy it for it's pure fantasy and others may find deeper philosophical truths, etc..
Or both.
“I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size). I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking; I like, and even dare to wear in these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late.”
-J.R.R Tolkien
N.E. Brigand
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Re: News from Bree and other random discussions

Post by N.E. Brigand »

yovargas wrote:One thing about the movie vs book thing, Tolkien spends an extraordinary amount of time describing in enormous detail the landscapes that the characters are traveling through. Putting asides that I now found this tendency pretty damn tedious, it is hard to argue that if one wants to describe in detail a landscape, pictures are a far superior medium to do that then prose. One beautiful image of a landscape can accomplish more than five paragraphs worth of describing the land. And there is so very, very much describing of the land.
I love Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as much as I ever did, but I've also mellowed as to how I feel toward its detractors. I like hearing what they have to say.

And while I disagree strongly with the particular point you raise here, I will say that, while I've pretty much continuously read and reread LOTR for a few decades now, I found on rereading, for the first time in a long time, another book I loved in childhood, that in one facet of this aspect you identify, it is superior to Tolkien's writing. Not because it uses fewer words to describe the landscape, but because it is even more detailed in describing one feature of the landscape: plant life. And that book is Richard Adams's Watership Down.
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Frelga
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Re: Back to the books (Nostalgia ain't like it used to be)

Post by Frelga »

I think it was Mark Oshiro who pointed out that the lengthy descriptions of landscape convey to the reader the great distances covered at the walking pace by the heroes. Even if the reader scans through them, the impression remains.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.

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Voronwë the Faithful
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Re: Back to the books (Nostalgia ain't like it used to be)

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

TolkienJRR wrote:
RoseMorninStar wrote:
TolkienJRR wrote: Some may enjoy it for it's pure fantasy and others may find deeper philosophical truths, etc..
Or both.
:agree:
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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Voronwë the Faithful
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Re: News from Bree and other random discussions

Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

yovargas wrote:If you really want to split it go ahead. I don't see much point to it though as I doubt there'll be much more discussion about it.
:)
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
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