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RangerNorlin
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Post Fans over Forty
on: June 26, 2003 02:49
Tired of fans who think The Professor stole ideas from Harry Potter? Let's talk about a lifetime love of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien, aka The Professor - how has it shaped and changed your life over the years?
NenyaGold
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: June 26, 2003 05:23
For me, The Professor provided a total escape from my reality into another world that was just as real, in my mind, and yet wasn't of my time. Unlike with other stories, I feel I am at *home* when I read them, as though I belong in Middle~Earth. I don't know if it shaped or changed my life as much as it enhanced and brightly colored my imagination.

The characters are people whom I love and cherish, so much so that I am unable to read the end of Return of the King because the words become blurry through my tears. I don't like giving them up at the end and most of the time I don't finish reading it. I just don't want it to end! And so I start reading them over again...

"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit
DaisyBaggins
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: June 27, 2003 11:59
I've been reading the LOTR for about thirty years. I have no idea how many times that I've read it, but I always find new reasons to like it each time I read it. I'm able to get to the end of the book, but I always feel a little disappointed when I finish reading it. I wish that like the road that the book could just go on and on.
Celebrian
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: June 27, 2003 01:20
I am over forty and have lost track of how many times I have read these books. And I would definitely welcome some adult conversation regarding them.
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: June 30, 2003 06:46
That was the idea behind this little area Celebrian, a place not devoted to a love of Orlando and how cute Pip is, but an area to dicuss how reading the Saga as a teen shaped who we are today. All these wonderful fans will get where we are in 20 or 30 years.

I found it so amazing when I first saw WWJD bracelets - as I spent years living and making life changing choices based on the idea that Elbereth was watching me. It really helped me.
CarolP
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: June 30, 2003 03:01
I first read LOTR around 30 years ago. I've read it about once a year since then. What's wonderful now is introducing the story to my children, one who is almost the same age as I was when I first read it. I also talk to them about the differences between the movie and the books. It's funny, my son says "I know that part of the story, it's in the cartoon!" (They saw the cartoon version in the store, and had to get them)
I am also sad when I finish ROTK, the ending is so bittersweet. I can't wait to see the movie!
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 01, 2003 02:41
I think one of the greatest pleasures for me, like you Carol, is introducing the book to first-timers. As a teacher I have been teachng the Professor for 5 years. Being able to use the Bakshi, Rankin/Bass, and now the PJ version as comparison helps. Kids today are so visual.
BelleBayard
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 01, 2003 05:57
Wonderful topic, RangerNorlin! I have loved Tolkien and his Hobbit and LoTR for years, but since the movies, I have renewed my love and expanded it to many of JRRT's other writings. I delve into the universe he created like a starving man into a feast. Yes, the visual bounty of PJ's vision helped a great deal and has brought him to the attention of many younger folks. Once the intial reaction to the beauty of the scenery and the actors wears off, I think you'll find that people will be drawn into the world more deeply, wanting to find out what drove the characters to be as there were. For me, it has been like an epiphany... Reading and writing (yes, I do fanfiction) in JRRT's sandbox has made my life richer with all the nuances I find there. And when a character is only shown briefly or his or her past not expanded upon, it drives me to think and create, something I believe the Professor would have applauded among those who read his stories.
TheBaggins
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 01, 2003 11:20
I am pleased to see that there are others of my maturity on this site. I was beginning to feel like Legolas when he journeyed with Gimli and Aragorn. I joined your illustrious Group (40+) only 3 weeks ago.

This book has nearly been the centre of much of my thinking for the past 25 years and I am now reading it again for the 15th time. The movies have added new dimension to the book as I can now visualise these wonderful written creations and put voices to the text as I read.

But the movies are just fragmented shadows of the Professor's vision. Here is not just a fantasy world with surreal characters and settings, JRR created life! I have read many other fantasy works and you can see JRR's influence in all of them. He's like the Beatles influence on Pop music.

I am looking forward to introducing my sons to JRR - starting with The Hobbit as I did - in fact I may do it very soon. Like Celebrian said, I welcome this forum as an avenue to discuss the LOTR at a more mature level also.
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 02, 2003 03:21
I am so glad the this thread is being enjoyed!!! All the film versions - Rankin/Bass, Bakshi, and PJ's are wonderful tellings of the Professors Saga; and as weknow, those of us who have been reading and re-telling the stories for years, the Saga changes with the telling, and that is all right. We always have the Word to go back to, to dig deeper into the geography, themes, characters, and motives.

This Saga, like the Kalevala for JRR, has helped shaped the hero and villian that lives within my soul. Hopefully I have recognized the villians quickly and then strived to be the hero. After all being a hero is where it's at! Doing the right thing, not for an audience, but because it is the right thing to do. Hope in the face of hopelessness.
Aowyn
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 02, 2003 03:25
Being able to use the Bakshi, Rankin/Bass, and now the PJ version as comparison helps. Kids today are so visual.

*Hopes the Ranger won't mind her sneaking in (I'm about 10 years too young for the thread)*:blush:

Are you an English teacher? Which ages do you use the books with? I just love hearing that other teachers are using these works! (I'm a science teach. but one of my friends has been using LoTR in her curriculum for a while now)

Sorry for dragging it off topic--will mentioning that I've been reading JRRT for about twenty years help?
Naurlas
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 02, 2003 10:45
Although i definetly qualify for the 40+ , I have just recently come to the world of ME. I was one of the people who came in backwards...from the movie to the books and I can't imagine my life now without Tolkien's enriching influence. I've since read LOTR numerous times and am amazed that with each reading I pick up more and more pieces of the puzzle that hopefully will never be completed !
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 03, 2003 02:52
Aowyn,
I teach History, Social Science, and English. I have been using the Professor since I started teaching; and I am happy to say you too could use it in your Science class. If you do anything with Physical Geography, Plants, etc, use the descriptions provided by JRR. His detail rivals any text I have read.
Scothia
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: July 03, 2003 08:40
I can't remember when I first read LotR, but it was sometime in 1971. I had just turned 20 and traveled to California for the first time; the hippie thing was happening in a major way, and this book enthralled me. I read it through a couple of times before I met a tall, quiet guy the following year who could quote entire passages and arcane Tolkien trivia by heart, and who set some of Tolkien's songs to music. He wrapped himself in a khaki cloak-poncho garment, carried a sturdy walking stick, lived in a lean-to in Vermont, had eyes deeper than dreams and oceans' waves, and was called, of course, Strider.

This past April we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary. Though the cloak is long just a memory and he's gone by his real name, Patrick, for many years, in the corner of our bedroom still leans a fine maple bough which he smoothed and polished by hand so long ago--just the thing for Rangering over mountain and glen, where there ever "grows another green".

My Strider still waxes forth on all things Tolkien. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to find anyone better able than he to disseminate the stories and characters of Middle-earth, their histories and their family trees, and their meaning, than Patrick. And evn though the films do play fast-and-loose with a scene here and a character there, all in all, we both find them superb.

(Caveat: I am still trying very hard to forgive Arwen for taking Frodo's finest scene and indeed, his best line in the entire epic, declared at the Fords of Bruinen:"By Elbereth and Luthien the fair, you shall have neither the ring nor ME!!!")

LotR has changed our lives in so many ways, it's impossible to separate them from the other things that go into making up who we are. But nothing beat when our son was finally ready to give it a try--we were amazed, since he wasn't much of a recreational reader all the way through high school--and he was reading the master! The source! The "greater magic from before the dawn of the world" as JRRT's buddy CS Lewis would've put it. Jeremy (our son) grew to love the epic as much as we did. (Of course! He's a Shannon, not some blockheaded Bracegirdle from Hardbuckle! ) In preparation for the first film, he and I read it together--each in our respective ends of the continent. He loved the book immensely, and it was his favorite until the day he left this Earth for the Undying Lands.

Our daughter hasn't yet truly entered Middle-earth, being much a creature of this one; but we trust that, in time, it will fall over her as a wave of joy from an endless sea.


[Edited on 8/17/03 by Scothia]
Arvedui
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 01, 2003 08:13
I read the Hobbit and the Trilogy for the first time in the years 1975-76 when I was in high school. I read it again and then looked forward to the release of the Silmarillion as it was more Tolkien!

It was and is a sort of escape from the daily hassles.
Something I fear is lost to the new readers of Lord of the Rings is they will read it picturing the faces of Orlando and Elijah asLegolas and Frodo, and not have the beautiful experience of seeing them only as described in the books. But I am glad to see more young folk reading the books!
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 14, 2003 10:48
Mae Govannin
Sorry I have been away so long. Summer school let out, I ran away for a time but am back and would love to contiue this thread if intrest is there, let me know, RangerN
gwendeth
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 14, 2003 02:57
PLEASE! Continue the thread! I just found it!!!

Although i definetly qualify for the 40+ , I have just recently come to the world of ME. I was one of the people who came in backwards...from the movie to the books and I can't imagine my life now without Tolkien's enriching influence. I've since read LOTR numerous times and am amazed that with each reading I pick up more and more pieces of the puzzle that hopefully will never be completed !


I'm afraid I'm with Naurlas - 40+ and "new come" to JRRT, and like Naurlas - came in backwards - and almost :blush: kicking and screaming... For some reason, "The Hobbit" and the LoTR books had never interested me :blush: (again) I'm sorry to say.

However, since I have read the trilogy, Silmarillion, (yes FINALLY) The Hobbit, and am currently reading "Lost Tales", I really wonder why I denied myself this wonderful world.

Now, though, I could not do without them and their world, and they are integral to my life.

It has reawakened my love of languages, and I now desparately love Sindarin and am determined to know it as well as is humanly possible... :blush:

Do I make sense? It's been a long day! :dizzy:
"Tolo si, a tiro i cherth Eru" "Come now, and see the works of God"
Eothain
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 14, 2003 10:52
Tired of fans who think The Professor stole ideas from Harry Potter?


Does anyone actually believe that?!
Lady~of~the~Shield~Arm
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 15, 2003 01:50
I don't..
gwendeth
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 15, 2003 03:05
Me neither!
"Tolo si, a tiro i cherth Eru" "Come now, and see the works of God"
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 15, 2003 08:05
Glad to see people still posting. And yes there are people who come to the Professor via JK/Potter - and of course they believe that if they read Potter first it must have been published first - oh well.

I just received a set of Alan Lee artwork, six prints from LOTR and six from The Hobbit, from a friend; she knew I would love them in my classroom. I am devoting the better part of one wall to artwork based on The Saga.
Scothia
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 17, 2003 05:18
What truly annoys, irritates, and otherwise ticks me off is hearing some twit say, "Lord of the Rings stole from Harry Potter!" Wanna see flames shooting out? :evil::evil::evil:
gwendeth
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 17, 2003 11:50
LOL!!! I agree!! ~ And not only flames, but smoke from the ears! ~ :evil::evil:


"Tolo si, a tiro i cherth Eru" "Come now, and see the works of God"
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 18, 2003 06:25
And it is that reason this thread was created, for those of us who have been lost in ME for years and years. We are a special breed, we have known for decades what many peolpe have only recently discovered, that there is hope, even in the face of a great struggle, love in the face of great evil, and victory is possible even if you feel small in the vast universe.
morwenna
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 18, 2003 04:26
Great thread!.

I'm in the 40+ age group and still vividly remember the first time I read Lord of the Rings. The book was a Christmas present from my parents in 1972 when I was 16. I opened it and became immersed in Tolkien's world. I kept a journal in those days and copied many of the poems into it. One of them that meant and still means much to me is "The road goes ever on and on...". I suppose back then I felt I was setting out on my own journey.

I still have my original copy of the book, its a bit battered now. There are pressed rose petals in between some of the pages but alas I can no longer remember who the roses were from!
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 19, 2003 05:34
What a great telling Morwenna. The Saga has touched our lives in so many ways, I love the part about the roses.

The Road goes ever on is one of my favorites as well. I am a teacher and as the school year comes to an end I make copies of the poem for my students and always include it in Elvish.

The Tolkien Ensamble, on their CD "An Evening in Rivendell," perform a wonderfull version. If you have not heard it I encourage you to pick up a copy. It is available in a 2 CD set with A Night in Rivendell as well - a must have.
morwenna
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 20, 2003 06:37
The Tolkien Ensamble, on their CD "An Evening in Rivendell," perform a wonderfull version. If you have not heard it I encourage you to pick up a copy. It is available in a 2 CD set with A Night in Rivendell as well - a must have.

Thanks for the recommendation RangerNorlin. Sadly the 2 CD does not appear to be available where I am (UK). They do have a recent CD called Lord of the Rings (in conjunction with Christopher Lee) which I think I'll order.
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 21, 2003 06:32
Let me know how it is - The Tolkien Ensamble is from Denmark, you should be able to find it somewhere on yur side of the Atlantic, if not you could email me your address at [email protected] and I'll send you a copy, happy to do it. RangerNorlin
callë
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 22, 2003 04:39
for me, Tolkien is a very real part of my life. When you read the lotr books you grow to love the characters because Tolkien has a way of letting you get to know them. At 48,as I look back at all the different events in my life, (some good some bad) I can draw strength from these much loved characters living inside my mind and heart. Thanks Tolkien!:heart:
highlandergirl
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: August 25, 2003 06:07
I'm not forty yet...I'm thirty-ish- something, but I didn't read the books until I was an adult. My mom was a LotR lunatic though.( She had me memorize Three Rings..for poetry in homeschool.) I never read them because I thought they'd be dull..never read past Bilbo's party. I finally had tell (a very smug) mom that reading these was one of the best experiences of my life!

[Edited on 25/8/2003 by highlandergirl]
Arvedui
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: September 04, 2003 01:11
Yes! a very good thread! I have a question for you Merenwen~Goldsand. Since I read the books (meaning the trilogy, or the Lord of the Rings series) first so long ago and have re-read them several times since, and was only exposed to a Hildebrant Calender a few years after reading the books, the images I have of Frodo, Bilbo, the Nazgul, Boromir, Gandalf et al are ingtrained in my head as I made them out to be based on the descriptions in the book. My question is this: Do you 'see' the characters in the book as they appeared in the movie, or do you see them different than what they appeared as in the movie when reading the descriptions in the book? If I had seen the movie before ever reading the book, I doubt I could have made the various characters out to look much different.
NenyaGold
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: September 05, 2003 06:36
Arvedui and Merenwen~Goldsand, there is a thread I started back in February asking that very question, *Did you lose your book characters images after seeing the movies?* in the Discuss The Movies Forum. It is interesting, to me anyway, to see how people responded. I bumped it up for you. :love:

"He had a ring, a golden ring, a precious ring." ~ from The Hobbit
RangerNorlin
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: September 08, 2003 03:57
Love that this thread is going strong!

Sorry to have been away so long, new school year starting and teaching and advising takes so much of my time.

There is a Tolkien reading group forming, it is so cool to see my students into The Saga.

As to the movie depictions, for many of us we formed our look of the charactures based on the books, then along came the brothers Hildebrant, Lee and Howe - and some of those 70's book covers; I always added or deleated to the images based on what I saw in my head. Then along came Rankin/Bass, then Bakshi, now PJ. All different and yet the same. The greatest thing about The Saga is reguardless of the telling we still bring ourselves to it, and can embrace the differences based on the love of the tale. We long timers cannot be too influenced by another telling, but we can enjoy it.

I loved your comments Merenwen~Goldsand. It does not take long for The Saga to touch our lives, or any who read it. It does not matter how a newbie comes to it, once they read it, it effects them. I believe it is because living within everyone is a hero dreaming of a noble quest to test their metal. And we Fans Over 40 know that the quest is ahead of us every morning.
janora
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: September 09, 2003 12:05
what an amazing thread this is, being over forty it is good to see.

i have been reading lotr since 1971 but i am still only a learner on the computer and still getting to grips with the language.
so i hope i do not confuse anyone with my comments.

when i first read lotr it was quite an inspiration to me and still is. my daughter who has seen the films is now reading the books, my son however is still a freddy and jason fan but i will not give up on him




[Edited on 9/9/2003 by janora]
morwenna
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Post RE: Fans over Forty
on: September 09, 2003 12:28
We long timers cannot be too influenced by another telling, but we can enjoy it.
Absolutely.

RangerNorlin I finally have a copy of the Tokien Emsemble CD with Chrsitopher Lee. It's fantastic. Thanks for introducing me to them.
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