Why did you read LOTR

[Lollypopgurl]

I was going to San Francisco for winter break the year the first movie came out. I needed something long to read on the plane, and I had remembered seeing a LOTR poster somewhere, so....

I didn't see the movies until the next June.

[Valaróma]

I read the Hobbit in the Juniors with my school. I remember my teacher. She wrote storys all the time and she got alot of her insperation from LotR. She read us the Hobbit and I fell in love with it, well with Bilbo mostly.
A few years later my brothers were reading LotR and I often hid it from them while they were reading it, I don't think that actually knew that it was a sequel kind of thing, I was running from my brother and I dropped it on the floor and it fell open. I reached to pick it up and my eyes fell on the word Bilbo when I found out it was the same Bilbo as in the Hobbit I hid the book in my cupboard and read it at night, it was a little hard going for me then but I kept reading it again and again because I felt I had to understand it!

That's why I started but only the beginning of a long addiction

[Elenna Alaniel]

I first saw the cartoon when I was about 5 and after that everything have come naturly.Hobbit,after few years Lord of the Rings,after few more years Sillmarilion...

[Guillaume le Maréchal]

I thought this would be a good place to post my first "real" reply on the forum.

I first read The Hobbit in the seventh grade upon the recommendation of my best friend. The rest of the trilogy and the Silm soon followed, and I read nothing else for pleasure well into my sophomore year of High School when I discovered CS Lewis, TH White and medieval history, especially RW Southern. For many years I neglected the LotRs, and didn't read the books again until it showed up on one of Prof. Cantor's bibliographies. I read LotR right after Ivanhoe by Scott in the summer between my junior and senior year of college. By comparing these two romantic novels, I gained a new appreciation for Tolkien. Tolkien's achievement is so much more than just a quaint children's tale, but his work circumscribes the full range of human (and elf) emotion, thought and ambition. In comparison, there is more saga in two pages of Tolkien than there is in the whole of Scott's Ivanhoe, and Tolkien is well beyond Scott in the category of pure writing ability. Ever since that summer, I have religiously read Tolkien's LotR every year.

Regards
--Dave

[Lizra]

Welcome to Entmoot G le M.

[RohirrimGuy]

I read them 'cause I heard about them somewhere, and I absolutley loved them.

[Anadriewen]

My sis watched the movie, i watched the movie, she told me there were books, she bought the books, she read the books, i read the books, and loved 'em!

[Silmo]

I read the hobbit about 5 years ago, but (i hate to admit it) was not really promted to read LOTR until after I watched the New Line Cinema FOTR. After completing LOTR I proceded to read the Simarillian and am soon gonna read UT and buy the Complete History of Middle Earth.

[Bacchus]

I was assigned The Hobbit in 7th grade. I read LOTR soon after. Since then, I've read LOTR approx 35-40 times in its entirety (and selected passages uncounted times). I've also taken a college class on Tolkien at Rice University in Houston.

[Elvengirl]

I think I've already said this but oh well,

When I was ten my brother gave me The Hobbit, he told me I should red a "real" book (prior to that I had been reading silly children books) I was a bit skeptical, but once I read the first few pages I couldn't put it down. I then tackled the LOTR and well of course I loved it.

[crickhollow]

My older sister read LotR first, and then she went to the library and got the Hobbit. She and I read it aloud to our younger siblings, and by the time we had finished it, I was finally interested enough to go on and read LotR. I think I was 15 the first time I read it.

[Beor]

My little brother read the Hobbit when he was in 5th grade, and I was always curious about JRR Tolkien. Then when I was in New York, my buddy and I were drinkin' and listening to Led Zepplin and he said that the song we were listening to (Battle of Evermore) was based on LOTR, and he said that there were a few other of their songs that were the same way, so I figured that Robert Plant couldnt be wrong, so I kept it in mind. Then when I heard that there was a movie coming out, I figured that I had better read the book; always better to read the book first; so I did. It was awesome...

[Gamigar]

Originally posted by Hobbette
Just curious about what prompted people to read The Hobbit and LOTR initially. School? Just interested? Coaxing from a friend?

I read The Hobbit in school (6th grade maybe?). I enjoyed it, but didn't love it. My husband, who is usually not an avid reader, loved all four books. He read them on his own as a child, reread them as an adult, and then reread them again when he heard the movies were being made. Curious, I reread the Hobbit just last summer and enjoyed it for what it is (a children's story). I then made my way through LOTR - making sure to get through Fellowship before seeing the movie. Now I'm hooked. Looking forward to reading LOTR again (and again... and again...).

So what prompted your first time?

Because I wanted to.

[Imric]

I came to Lord of the Rings in 1973 having first encountered mention of the trilogy in a book devoted to the history of fantasy, Imaginary Worlds, which the late Lin Carter had written. After delving into Mr Carter's Tolkien: A Look Behind ''The Lord of the Rings'' I adamantly insisted upon recieving a copy as my Christmas present. I have been a fan ever since.

As to why I continue to adore LOTR after thirty long years, I can say only that as a lover of saga and epic and myth from my earliest years, I find the story of Sauron's Ring to be hopelessly enthralling, a reflection upon the too easily forgotten heroism of the small and the tragic failings of the mighty, a sorrowful song which pays tributes to all those values of courage, hope, pity and self-sacrifice which modernity appears so eager to renounce. How could I not be bound to love such a magnificent achievement?

[ryttu3k]

When I was ten, in year five at school, our substitute teacher evidently couldn't be bothered to teach us maths or anything, so she read us The Hobbit, which I loved, and got us to make papier mache masks out of the characters. (I got Balin.)

Later that year, I was looking through some old cupboards and came across a book called, what else? Lord Of The Rings. I recognised the author and sat down to read it. Two months later I FINALLY finished it, and was actually crying by the end... the next time I read it, just after I turned eleven, it only took a day. (Starting about seven in the morning and finishing about nine at night.)

And from then on I was hooked

(I'm seventeen now, and I've read the book sixteen times. The Hobbit I've read twelve.)

[Aden]

I read my first Tolkien book 6 years ago. Some friends of mine were obsessed with Tolkien and just out of curiosity I went to a bookstore to buy LOTR. But the only book avaliable was the Silmarillion...so Silmarillion was the first Tolkien-book I ever read

[Nurvingiel]

Originally posted by ryttu3k
(I'm seventeen now, and I've read the book sixteen times. The Hobbit I've read twelve.)

Wow. I thought I read a lot. *impressed*

I read LotR because my dad read it to my brother and I when we were young, so I read it myself a few times because it was so great.

[Falagar]

My father read the Hobbit and the LotR to me and my sister when I was around 7-8 years.

[ryttu3k]

Originally posted by Nurvingiel
[B]Wow. I thought I read a lot. *impressed*

*laughs* Well, I don't have much of a life...

[Nurvingiel]

What do you mean? Tolkien is life! (Don't worry guys, I'm not that obsessed. Some people are though, and that's okay.)