Dichroic Reflections

finally, Tolkien

So. I'm part way through Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings (Chorus: And about time, too!) That's Book 1 of the six parts Tolkien originally wrote it in. I did know he'd intended it to be published as one, but not that he'd divided it into six segments rather than three.

There are really two types of Big Important Everyone else has Read'Em speculative fiction classics I haven't read.

1. The ones I haven't read because I think I'll hate them. Just because everyone else (or a large percentage of everyone else) thinks well of them doesn't mean I will. Asimov's Foudnation series is a good example There are enough books in this category that I have read, mostly because someone I care about loved them, that I can be fairly sure that if I browse through it and it looks unpleasant, I will probably find it so on a full reading.

2. The ones I haven't read even though I'd probably like or love them. I think it's just stubborn recalcitrance in this case, not wanting to read something just because I "should". This is probably a side effect of growing up when F and SF were at least respectable, if often not considered on a level with Litrachure, yoked to a wide streak of mulishness.

Actually, that probably applies to classics I haven't read of all genres, except that I'd have to add category #3, the ones I just haven't gotten to yet. (That's where most of Trollope resides in my mental catalog, for example.)

It's probably obvious that LoTR falls in category #2, though I have read The Hobbit. I'm finally tackling it now, spurred on by the movies and a birthday present from my in-laws of the gorgeous 50th anniversary edition, with what feels like calf binding, creamy paper, rubrics, and tipped in maps. I'd put a set of the books on my list (my in-laws' tradition is that you make up a list with several things on it so gift-givers can choose and there's at least some surprise) but this particular edition is a pleasure even to hold, let alone to read.

One thing that surprised me is that it's a fast read, even with the three forewords and a prologue. I guess I expect classics, even recent ones, to be ponderous, especially when they're this huge. Another surprise was when after reading the scene where Strider speaks with the hobbits in Butterbur's back parlor, I put the book down to let the cat out (and find the other had returned - yay!) and realized I had a vivid image of the scene I'd just read in my mind. It wasn't because of the movie, or not entirely, because the descriptions I'd visualized from don't entirely match the way the movies did it (though they did do well). Also, I think I only saw the first movie on an airplane, on those tiny seat-back screens, so I don't have vivid images of it. Yet there's the parlour, and there's disreputable Strider, with the gray in his hair, and there are the hobbits, all big-footed and fuzzy and they're all right there hovering by my chair. I have similar images of hobbit houses and the road to Rivendell, though the latter is less distinct because more variable.

I don't think I do this often. I do have misty images of characters I read - skipping the ones overlain by movie images I could still describe Will Stanton to you, or Jo March (several movies, but I saw them so long after internalizing the book that they don't matter). Sometimes I also have an image of the setting, especially where it's important - I could describe New Moon as well as I could Emily Byrd Starr. But they're not usually this distinct, and certainly not on first reading. At least not any more; when I was young if my book were very good I would reread it immediately after finishing the first reading so as not to have to leave that world right away, like having an alrm clock rip you out of a dream. This is more like that.

I was afraid the writing would be a little precious, or self-consciously mystical like so many of Tolkien's imitators. I can't really tell, because I've been reading my immersion rather than by careful consideration of sentences, but I don't think the book would be so vivid if that were so.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to read it this weekend - we're going to Long Beach for a regatta and this physical book is just too beautiful to risk spoiling it with travel and sand and water. I could buy a cheap paperback, but the experience of reading a story this good in an edition like this is just fine enough to be worth postponing.

Posted by dichroic at March 16, 2005 01:58 PM