Well, I’ve memorized them, so rereading won’t be on my agenda. <g>
Here’s an idea: read the trilogy right away, then, a couple months from now, read the annotated versions, starting with “The Return of the Shadow”. Then you will have read a good part of the relevant background. Although the annotations are rather trying, there are also several dozen very good paragraphs that do not appear in the “final” books, including, if I may say so, a couple that seemed to have been left out by mistake.
No, no, no. For me at least, the definitive Gandalf (at least his voice) will always be John Huston. And Frodo’s theme song will always be Frodoooo of the Nine Fiiingers, and the Riiiing of Doooooom . . .
Well, Smeghead if you have a lot of time on your hands I heartly recomend that you pick up the other Tolkien Middle Earth works.
Silmarilian is not for everyone but some of the stories are among Tolkiens best. It is too bad that he never finished it. His son finished it after his death and released it. It is much drier and large sections you have to just wade through to get to the good stuff. But the good stuff makes it all worth while.
The Unfinished Tales are even better as it is filled with more short stories that never made it into his published works. In it you will find stories like the battle of Gladden Fields and the hunt for the ring from the nazugls’ point of view.
The History of Middle Earth is only for a truely obssesed/obssesive soul. They are up to about 12 volumes now and contain Tolkien’s working notes. These are the notepads he used when writing his stories. They are facinating as you can see how his stories, both the published and the unpublished, changed over the 40-50 odd years he was writing. They do contain small pieces of varies parts of the stories that never appeared anywhere else.
However the best of the bunch is a completely unrelated but very engrosing story titled Farmer Giles of Ham.
What? Portnoy’s Complaint ISN’T a children’s book?
By all means, reread the Hobbit! And you don’t even need to use the upcoming movies as an excuse!
(Peter O’Toole? BLEAH!!!)
Hmmmmmmmm as a Tolkein fan for over 30 years, this may come as a shock, but…
Don’t bother reading The Hobbit unless you don’t mind spending the time. It is almost wholly irrelevant to The Lord of the Rings. Other than meeting Gandalf, Bilbo and Elrond (who doesn’t behave in the least like the Elrond of LotR), and finding out how Bilbo got the damn Ring (which at the time Tolkein never intended to be anything like the Ring of LotR), there isn’t anything else in the story that helps you understand the occurrences or story in the main work. Indeed, the geography of the area west of the Misty Mountains isn’t completely consistent between the two works (or, if you will, Tolkein glosses over the geography of the area considerably). So, really, read The Hobbit if you want to, but don’t read it to help you get back into The Fellowship of the Ring.
Also, I have another thought on this reading prior to the movie bit: don’t do it.
Let me state that a bit more emphatically: DON’T DO IT!!!111
No matter how hard they try, the movie will take liberties with the books. If you have just completed a re-read, you will notice this as you watch, probably spoiling the enjoyment of the movie. If you watch the movie without a re-read, you will notice some vague discomfort with the movie, but you can always read the books after watching the movie to nail down the differences, if you wish.
Oh, and as for Arwen… stupid movie people who don’t think a major movie can do well without love interests!!! Arwen only exists in the book to help you understand Aragorn’s drive to succede (not only a reclaimed kingship but a fairy princess to go with it!), and Eowen’s presence is intended to show not a tragic love scene, but to emphasize the theme of depth versus surface; “not all that glitters is gold”. Or, as Faramir chides her later, she wants him only because he is mighty and puissant. At least Tolkein gave her a bit more in the way of intelligence and discernment than Rostand gave Roxanne. But I assure you we will be treated to long scenes of lip-locking kisses and tragic female angst, etc. Gah!
Yes, read The Hobbit, but forget the Ring Trilogy. The Hobbit was my favorite book as a kid (and this was before it was hip to have read it). I loved the fantasy environment, the maps and the intertwined stories.
But when I ran across the Ring books later, it was too dark, too involved, too complicated, too spiritual,if you know what I mean.
IMHO,The Hobbit has just the right mix of these elements; like Goldilocks, not too much, not too little.
I think the Hobbit is perfect for reading aloud to kids, especially as a bedtime story.
I agree absolutely with Atreyu about the Shannara ripoff of LoTR.
Oh, look, the mysterious spellcaster hero has fallen into the Pit during mortal combat … he must be dead. No, he’s alive! He held on to a tree branch :rolleyes:
I thought of writing to the talentless plagiarist:
Dear Mr. Brooks,
I have just finished your book. I think you should sue Professor Tolkien, because he has obviously ripped off your work. There are far too many matches in the plot to be coincidences.
Of course his work is immeasurably superior to yours - he has better names, narrative style etc. In fact the only good thing about your writing is that you had the original idea!
I remember watching the Ralph Bakshi semi-cartoon with the English Tolkein Society. Just before the Fellowship reach Rivendell, an elf joins them. “Welcome”, he says “My name is Legolas!”.
… English Tolkien Society …
Wow, it seems everyone hear loved Tolkein’s work. I thought I should speak up and offer a dissenting opinion. I last attempted to read The Hobbit / Lord of the Rings when I was probably 15 years old. So maybe I lacked a certain maturity. However, I really thought the writing was poor. The prose was just very difficult to wade through. I now don’t think this was just me, I’ve heard the same complaint about Tolkein in respectable places.
Also, Tolkein’s anal-retentiveness got on my nerves. Any fantasy book with an appendix takes itself way too seriously. No, I don’t need to know the history. No, I don’t care about the runes. Tell me a story - that’s what I expect from a non-fiction book.
I’m planning on reading them again before the movie (okay DSYoungEsq maybe I’ll hold off on it), so it should be interesting if I still think it is unreadable.
Re-read The Hobbit
Uh, you mean that’s what you expect from a fiction book, right? Cause as far as I know, it’s not a true story. 
Oh, dantheman…you’re so naive.
Well, I’m not sure about anal-retentiveness, but there’s some justification to what you’ve said. By saying I like Lord of the Rings I didn’t mean to say I thought the whole thing was well-written. In particular his poetry is so awful it should almost without exception have been struck from the book (or at least dumped in an “appendix”). Why authors automatically think that because they can write they can also compose good poetry is beyond me.
However Tolkien was not necessarily trying to write something slick and accessible, the Lord of the Rings is meant to have a heavy flavor of medieval and epic literature. If you’ve ever read that, you’ll know it’s far more difficult than what Tolkien wrote. What he did is to modernize what would otherwise be a nearly inaccessible (and certainly unsalable) style.
Mt two cents:
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Yes, by all means, re-read the Hobbit. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve done it. I have friends who love sf and fantasy who hate the Bobbit, but if you’ve been through it at least once you’re probably not one of that type.
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It is a children’s book. But it’s a good one.
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I’m not sure it will help you with LOTR. When originally written it was somewhat different, and didn’t match the LOTR background. Tolkien later rewrote it to try and bring consistency, but The Hobbit and LOTR still aren’t completely consistent. (Look up the history of Gondolin, for example.)
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If you can, get hold of The Annotated Hobbit. Lots of nifty notes and illustrations, and more nitpicking details on texts and consistency than you’re likely to want.
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I have to agree about Terry Brooks and The Sword of Shannarra. After I read that book I was so disgusted at how close a parallel it was to LOTR that I never read another of TB’s books.
I’m a few pages shy of the start of Book IV. This series is amazing, and I love pretty much every page of it. I don’t even mind all the songs. It’s a little campy and a little over the top, but it helps to give me a feel for the way his Middle-Earth society is. Makes it feel very medieval.
I can’t emphasize how much I’m enjoying these books.
Speaking of inconsistencies, I never quite understood why they call Sauron the “Necromancer” in The Hobbit.
There’s a great two-part article about the trilogy up at Salon. It talks at length about Tolkien himself and about the genesis of the work.
I believe that the Council of the Wise suspected, but did not know for certain, that Sauron had returned and set up shop in southern Mirkwood. It wasn’t until somewhere in the middle of the book that the Council drove him out, forcing him to reveal himself openly in Mordor. (This appears to have been what Gandalf was up to during one of his lengthy disapperances.)
I don’t think this represents an inconsistency, especially given the differing tone between the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. One is a self-contained, “fairy-tale”-like story (at least in the common useage of the word), while the other is part of a sweeping saga with a lot of back story and more adult tone.
I suspect that Avumede might be one of those guys who can’t see the sense in reading a book a second time, because you already know how it turns out.
By which I mean that using a “boogyman”-like name like The Necromancer might be appropriate for one, while the name Sauron (with accompanying back story) is appropriate for the other.
Sorry, I must have missed something. 
I am reading LotR right now, I’ve reached the part where the Riders of Rohan have turned up at Gondor (I wonder if Faramir will be okay?).
And I have to say - it ain’t all that.
I have read hundreds of books that I’ve found better written, with more involving plots, more likeable characters, and a much more readable style than Lord of the Rings.
From what I can recall, The Hobbit has an annoyingly twee style where the author refers to the reader a few times, and dated nonsense like that.
I realise I’m comparing a book of a particular era, one that is, furthermore, trying to evoke the sense of another era of long past, with books of a more modern style - but that doesn’t excuse the fact that I tried to like it, I enjoyed some small aspects of it, but overall it creates hardly a ripple of pleasure of any kind within me.
It lacks humour, it is somewhat superficial over some events, characters predict how things will unfold just by instinct, and they happen exactly that way…
Well, anyway. I can’t fathom it’s legendary status and loyal popularity. It really isn’t that good.