The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien

When I was quite young and still a very new reader, I asked my dad for something to read and he handed me The Hobbit. I read that book and then immediately wanted to reread it, I loved it so much. But instead I went to my dad and said, Do you have any other books like this? He handed me all three books of The Lord of the Rings. I think it took me almost the entire summer to read them all, but I was hooked. I probably didn’t understand half the words I read, but I loved them so much. I had no idea that books could evoke such strong emotions. I was hooked. For years, when I was younger, I read these books almost every year. Around my early 20s, I stopped reading them, I’m not sure why. I probably felt like I’d read them enough. (I did read The Hobbit to my kids, though. They weren’t swept away by quite like I was.)

Earlier this year, when I lost my job and the world started catching on fire, literally and figuratively, I found my mind returning to The Lord of the Rings and I began to want to read them again.

So I did.

I think it was the right choice. There’s a sort of time travel magic in rereading books from long ago, I find. A way of walking a path with my past self. Only with these books, I found myself walking a path with a decade or more of my past selves. Reading these books was such a cozy and also fortifying experience for me. I found nuance and subtlety that I’d never noticed before. The kindness of Sam and Frodo felt much richer. The Shire felt infinitely more pleasant. I found that all of the things that bored me as a child (the long walks through the countryside, the long conversations about what to do with the ring, the digressions) were the things I never wanted to end. I would’ve happily read a book about hobbits gamboling their way through the countryside for hundreds and hundreds of pages.

Thank you, Professor Tolkien. Your books have proved a mighty treasure in my life.

3 thoughts on “The Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *