I Am a Fan of Jrr Tolkien Books

I was in my late teens when I was blown away by the Hobbit first and especially by the Lord of the Rings later. Next logical step was reading Silmarillion. I had learnt that it was not really a novel, but a true mythology created by Tolkien and spread during different eras. I had read that it was harder to read, more dense, that one could not identify the characters as easily as in his other works.

And those warnings were true. I could not finish. The action from his other works was missing. I could not hear the drums of war or feel the magic spells. Instead I got hundreds of names. My love for Tolkien ended there. My literary path took me to different directions. I watched the Lord of the Rings movies and enjoyed them, and remember the thrill of the young me reading the book.

But it has not been until now that I have decided to read Silmarillion again. I decided to do it precisely due to its very nature. I want to read a mythology, a cosmology of a different world, to escape this one. I want to go through its pages and live in a world where there is good and evil, not the ambiguity and relativism we have today in our world. I want to live in a world where values make characters act and fight, not interest. I want to live in a world where those who create beauty are admired. And yes, there are a lot of names but no writer has invented names as beautiful as those of Tolkien's creatures.

sometimeslonelytoo · 51-55, M

I was first mesmerised by The Hobbit when I was about ten years old, and immediately then moved onto The Lord of the Rings. I remember trying to imagine a film version of it, all those years ago. I loved the novel enough to re-read it every few years, for many years. Then I re-read both many years thereafter and they didn't quite have that magic for me any more. I too tried Silmarillion and left it, and have never really been drawn back to it. I think the films were quite a good adaptation, though they had more of an action feel than the novel. I thought the film adaptation of The Hobbit was very over-the-top in places though.