Lord of the Rings: What % of movie-goers have read the books?

Cafe Society
81

My getting into Tolkien, went along rather strange lines. Aged 14, I chanced upon The Fellowship of the Ring in the library, and borrowed it – I’d never previously heard of Tolkien or his works. I enjoyed the book – Bombadil and all – and was aware that it was the first volume of three; but was plainly not sufficiently impressed, to go on to the other two volumes. (What can I say? – I was a weird kid. If it makes any difference, seemingly no-one else I knew then, was aware of Tolkien or made any mention thereof.)

Four / five years later, early in my time at university, I found that many of my fellow-students were big LOTR fans (this was the late 1960s): having heard their high praise of Tolkien, I got the three books of LOTR, and totally loved and rapidly devoured the lot. Read The Hobbit a bit later, also with enjoyment.

I saw the Jackson LOTR films; but whilst they are impressive technically, I wasn’t highly keen. Am basically not a “film person”, and don’t think I have ever found the film of any book, as good as the book. Could not help focusing heavily on the things which IMO the films got wrong / left out.

82

I was actually introduced to LoTR by the BBC radio dramatisation when I was tiny, not the book or the films, though my parents were big fans, and I think I had The Hobbit read to me at about the same point as well as the radio version of that. When I think of Gollum, especially, it’s the voice from the BBC version, not Andy Serkis.

I’ve read the books about once a year since I was in my early teens, so definitely before the films.

83

My introduction to Tolkien was when I found an old copy of The Hobbit on a bookshelf in a back room in Mom’s house, and thought “Hm, I think I’ve heard of that, I’ll give it a try”. Some years later, I stumbled across similarly old copies of the trilogy on a bookshelf in a different back room (Mom thankfully belongs to the interior design school of “cover every wall with bookshelves and fill them all”), and thought “Hey, isn’t that the same author as The Hobbit?”. Fortunately it was summer vacation when I found them, because I took the book to bed with me, and didn’t put it down until the end of Book 1.

By the time I found Tolkien, I had already been read, read, and re-read multiple times both the Narnia books and the Prydain books, so I had a pretty good idea that I liked fantasy. I was very excited when I learned that Lewis and Tolkien had been close friends, and critiqued each others’ writing (I think Mom told me this when she saw me reading Tolkien).

84

I re-read each of the books in 2001-2003, just before each of the movies came out, so they’d be fresh in my mind. It worked out well.

85

The BBC Radio Drama is pretty brilliant, and I enjoy it much more than the movies.

86

I think my favorite version is the unabridged reading by Rob Inglis. Wonderful for a long trip. He does different voices for each part, his pronunciation is perfect and even created melodies for all the songs.

87

Topic-drifting somewhat, as is my wont: my parents were quite well-educated, and readers, and IIRC not averse to the general idea of “speculative fiction”. Unlike many kids of my time (1950s) and later, though, I was not brought up on the Narnia books (I was a Beatrix Potter brat). Maybe Lewis / Narnia were not on my parents’ radar; and if they had known about same, I suspect that they would not have been keen on them – they were atheist / agnostic, chary of religious propagandising. I discovered Lewis and Narnia for myself, a couple of years before I stumbled upon Tolkien – even then, the IMO very blatant, “bash-them-over-the-head-with-a-club” Christian allegory and intended proselytising, came across clearly to me, and turned me off. (Prydain, I’m afraid I’d never heard of before reading your post – have briefly Googled.)

Though I’m no fan of Lewis, I like the bit about him and Tolkien being good friends, and critiquing each other’s writing. I gather that – subject to a certain degree of mutual respect – they were far from 100% keen on each other’s stuff; which circumstance they valued – it made sure that each spoke his mind, without fear of offending. Though I’ve learnt on SDMB, that the succinct and exasperated comment re Tolkien, “Oh, no ! not another fucking Elf !” was not from Lewis, goaded beyond his usual godly pure and moderate language; but from another of their literary circle.

88

::snaps fingers right and left, points at Chronos::
THERE you go! :cool: You totally nailed it.

89

The Hobbit is only one (very thin) book. The movie version has been stretched to 3 movies, with a lot of padding.

I’d always prefer to read the book first. imho

90

I first read LotR in 1960, as a college sophomore. The guy I was dating lent me Vols. 1 & 2, but not the third because he figured I couldn’t possibly read them all over the weekend: hah! So there I was on Sunday, faced with dealing with the ‘real’ world, hanging out laundry and vacuuming and doing dishes, when Frodo had been taken by the enemy; auuuggghhhh! The set pushed all my buttons (love of language, myth, poetry, Brit lit) and I immediately re-read it. And again 2 or 3 months later, and again in another 2 or 3; have read the trilogy over 150 times by now. Luckily I didn’t read The Hobbit until a year or so after that, as I wasn’t anywhere near as enchanted by it; the Silmarillion I devoured and loved; and these two have been read dozens of times also. His Unpublished Works I did not manage to slog through, so presumably I’m not a True Fanatic.

I read Hobbit aloud to each of my sons when they were young, probably kindergarten or first grade, and continued with Fellowship…  hard on my high-pitched female voice to make all the voices distinct and deeper, but I managed.  Son 1 had no interest in going on to Two Towers and I don’t recall if he even read The Hobbit , but his younger brother also fell in love with the books.  I bought him a copy of the Rankin-Bass illustrated Hobbit, which he read himself by the end of kindergarten.  When it was an assigned book in 4th grade, he’d re-read it often, so he turned in his book report on the trilogy instead; and told me one of his goals was to read the books as many times as I…  he’s getting there.  We would challenge one another to “identify the quotation” (speaker, setting, book, chapter and sometimes approximate page), and eventually had to forage in the appendices to have a chance at stumping the other.

When the first movie came out, I looked forward to it with both eagerness and justifiable trepidation, and of course went to the midnight showing, having waited 40 years (the Bakshi attempt didn’t really count.)  As Eric and I discussed it afterwards, we kept coming up with the parts we didn’t care for, until one of us said to the other, “Wait, did we like this or not??”  The next two were even worse in that regard, and although we have the extended version DVDs, I have yet to watch them.  DAMN, I wish Peter Jackson had made more of Tolkien’s version rather than his own, and surely he could’ve cut some of the interminable battles to put in the culminating final chapter!  

Number 1 son, who saw the movies before finally reading all the books, loftily tried inform me why the films are so much better for the reprehensible changes, but gave up the attempt; I think his wife also prefers them, though she did like the books, except vol. 2 because her best friend said she’d find it boring and so of course she did; but at least my grandson thinks they were all great, even though he read books after film.  There’s hope for him!  

(By the bye, Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles make an excellent young person’s introduction the world of Celtic myth and a taste of Tolkien; I came to them long after LotR, and loved them.  I came to Narnia also as an adult, found them OK except for the heavy-handed Xianity; never read them to my sons but they saw the TV show.)

So: back on topic after meandering and animadversion, yes, a number of people I know came to the books because of the film, and quite a few of them prefer the author’s version to the director’s, as indeed they ought; and certainly there have been many newer editions of the volumes in bookstores in the wake of the films. And absolutely, one should read the books before seeing the films!!!
91

And in fact the Ainulindale specifically mentions that Eru was able to take even Melkor’s loudest and most dissonant attempts to make the Music all about him, and incorporate them into His design so that they only served to accentuate Eru’s own music rather than take it over. So that’s a good jazz band improvising around the wannabe soloist and making the performance that of a successful ensemble despite his best efforts otherwise.

92

Prydain is a thing of wonder. Honestly, I would suggest it to people unsure about ‘fantasy’ before The Hobbit or LotR.

93

If nothing else, Prydain is a quicker read, so you’ll form an opinion one way or the other with less effort in it (though Taran Wanderer is a bit slow).

94

37.269%

95

The Lloyd Alexander Prydain books are good. I certainly liked them better than the Narnia books. They have elements inspired by Welsh mythology - the group of Welsh myths known as the Mabinogion. Evangeline Walton wrote a series of 4 books with these myths as the source. (Alexander’s books are more for younger readers.) The first is Prince of Anwin and it is good but the rest of the series is even better. Incredible, some of my favorite books. Shouldn’t be missed by any Tolkien fan.

96

I became a Tolkien reader via a juvenile science fiction book written by, as it turns out, a Tolkien fan, Jay Williams. In 1969 when I was in 4th grade I read Danny Dunn and the Voice from Space, which was written with the cooperation of Frank Drake at SETI. The kids want to go to England to investigate outer space signals with the Jodrell Bank radio telescope. One of the kids makes a speech about England to persuade the adults to let them travel there, citing notable English cultural achievements, namely “that great book The Hobbit and that rotten book Silas Marner.”

Jay Williams also wrote detective novels under the pen name “Michael Delving,” an obvious allusion to the Hobbits’ capital city, so he was a Tolkien fan.

That strange word *hobbit *got its hooks into my brain and I couldn’t rest until I found out what it was. Fortunately, the school library had a copy of The Hobbit, and I devoured it immediately. I’d never read any book I’d ever enjoyed so much. I had to find out more about the author with that weird-sounding name Tolkien. I did not rest until I had the Ballantine American paperback volumes of LOTR, and I promptly devoured them. As soon as I’d finished LOTR, I was determined to read the Silmarillion, but it was not to be published for another 7 years yet. In the meantime I bought a copy of the songbook The Road Goes Ever On, played all the songs on the piano, and devoured Tolkien’s scholarly notes on “Namárië.”

I still have not read Silas Marner by George Eliot (though I liked her Middlemarch).

97

The Book of Lost Tales and the rest of the History of Middle Earth are rather a slog, and much more interesting in the glimpse they give into the writing process than they are in themselves. There are very few people, even Tolkien fans, that I would recommend them to. Unfinished Tales, on the other hand, is quite fun, as long as you don’t mind that everything in it is, well, unfinished. And the recently-published Children of Hurin has some absolutely amazing writing in it, but it’s also incredibly depressing, so be warned.

Johanna, I absolutely loved the Danny Dunn books, but never noticed that reference in them. Man, I need to find those somewhere to re-read them.

98

Yay! An actual answer!

Now we have to say “where did you get your data?” :slight_smile: