Hobbits can't "handle the truth" (1 Viewer)

[Scott]

Reading LOTR again, this passage hit me.....


'. . .What roads would any dare to tread, what safety would there be in quiet lands, or in the homes of simple men at night, if the Dúnedain were asleep, or were all gone into the grave?

'And yet less thanks have we than you. Travelers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names. "Strider" I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so. That has been the task of my kindred, while the years have lengthened and the grass has grown..."

 

[theBaron]

Though when the time came, they rose to the occasion. Though Peter Jackson's production is fantastic, I was a little disappointed that he omitted the Scouring of the Shire. That part of the story showed how Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin had grown through their adventure, and in turn, how they rallied their countrymen to action. I thought it could have been included, but understood that it might have added another hour to the film's length.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Scott]

I finally read it starting last summer and then my daughter wanted me to read it to her and do the voices. We just finished last week. That passage spoken by Aragorn hit me as similar to Nicholson's speech in "A Few Good Men."

I liked the scouring of the Shire part as well. A bit of Lexington and Concord about it. The Hobbits handled it themselves as Gandalf told them they could. There is a war gaming scenario out there complete with the figures of the battle.


Sam gets the girl and everything.

 

[theBaron]

That's great that you're reading the story to your daughter like that. My introduction to Tolkein was in 6th grade, when our teacher read us "The Hobbit". At first, it offended my top-reading-group pride, the very idea that someone would not let us read it for ourselves. But after the very first session-15 minutes before lunch each day. She finished "The Hobbit" and began "The Fellowship of the Ring", before the school year ended. I bought my own copies and I was hooked. Tolkien influenced my choice of study, when I went to college, to study languages.

I like the story of the restoration of Bagshot Row:

"There was some discussion of the name that the new row should be given. Battle Gardens was thought of, or Better Smials. But after a while in sensible hobbit-fashion, it was just called New Row. It was a purely Bywater joke to refer to it as Sharkey's End.

Prost!
Brad

 

[mikemiller1955]

I believe I read somewhere that it was the second most read book in the USA...or maybe even world...

the Bible being the first...

 

[Scott]

Nobody kills anyone over what LOTR means. ("WINK!!!")

 

[modwalls]

I read the Hobbit in two days, could not put the darn thing down. Then I read the Trilogy in a week. I think it was around 1982 or 83. I thought the movies were great, did not like the death count with Gimli and Leglas. The weapons and use of were down well, instead of fire shooting the bows, they should have said loose. If the movies were all 4 hours long, I would have sat through it. I think Jackson picked great actors to play the parts. The Ringwraiths were done to my minds imagination. I think the Armies of the Middleearth figs from Playalong are fantastic.

 

[Scott]

I'm glad I got the extended versions of the movies. More Boramir and Faramir. Sean Bean really gave it his all. Faramir gets the girl. Aragorn gets the girl. Sam gets the hottest girl in the movie.

It took me several viewings to see that Legolas was walking on TOP of the snow as in the book.

It still looks to me that the Shire is somewhere in our 1600-1700s while the rest of Middle Earth is 1000-1200.

I had to explain to my daughter that Sam wasn't thick, just "rustic."

One of the best lessons of the story is that you may unexpectedly find good people in the middle a war (but keep your hand near your sword hilt just in case.)

We're reading the Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" but I have to stop and explain the the 1960s humor to my daughter.

The Hobbit is next.

 

[theBaron]

You're right about the time analogy of the Shire, Scott, if I'm not mistaken, Tolkien's model was the pre-industrial English countryside. For the rest of Middle Earth, he was influenced by the old Germanic stories, poems and sagas, out of the time of the great migrations (the "Voelkerwanderung") to the beginning of the early Middle Ages.

In the course of my schooling, I went from "The Lord of the Rings", to "Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs", to "Das Nibelungenlied", with side excursions into Mallory's "La Mort' d'Arthur" and Sir Walter Scott's "Ivanhoe", and even further sidetracks to "Bored of the Rings" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail". And from the written word, that path led to "Excalibur" in film, and Wagner in music.

Prost!
Brad

 

[Scott]

Baron, I think we talked about this before.

Sorry to get too much into the Middle Earth culture. It has room even for some kind of Neanderthal/Aborigines that help the Rohirin. I wondered about Tolkien making the "bad" guys black and swarthy but since the heroes accept all kinds of peoples that are on the good side I don't see any intentional racism in Tolkien. People said and wrote things that sound off now without meaning to be offensive then.

Some that look at Frodo and Sam's friendship as strange. I take it that there were unmarried scholarly types in Tolkien's real world that needed heroes. Besides, Sam went on to have a gang of kids with the hottest girl in town.

I knew about LOTRs many years ago but I dismissed reading it then because it seemed like only the hippies read it. My one experience hearing someone read it aloud was the chapter with Tom Bombadil and you need to have an introduction to that guy first.