Add me to the list, but I tend to lurk rather than post simply because, as a run-of-the-mill “guy who’s read the books ten times and owns a bunch of scholarly works on Tolkien,” I’m in way out of my depth with QtM and company. But I always read with interest, and frequently go back to my books confirming new trivia and insights I pick up here.
I can only speak for myself. I’m an otherworld geek. Believe me, if we had long, substantive discussions of the history of Toril, Westeros, Xanth, Wheel of Time, Phaze, (classic) Shadowrun, White Wolf games (Vampire, Mage, Changeling, Werewolf), etc., I’d be in there, too. Middle-Earth just has more detail and a more fully realized history than most of those.
(Note that I haven’t even actually played most of the ones that come from games…I just had a jones for sourcebooks back in the Golden Age of RPG)
I love Middle Earth. I love the extreme detail, the creation myth, the fact that this work really got the fantasy genre off and running, the fact that it is the primary source for the original D&D. I love the epic breath, the languages, the races, the love and that the hero was not a strong warrior but rather a very brave person.
I love the fact that in the end, he was not strong enough to complete the deed, but the compassion he felt for Sméagol is what saved the day.
I love the brave warriors, the humor and wisdom of Gandalf and the banter between Gimli and Legolas. I love how Tolkien successful imparted to us his love of trees and nature. I love how he shows Aragorn’s and Arwen’s love. I love how he made us appreciate the hidden beauty of the glittering caves through Gimli’s eyes. The majesty of Minas Tirith. The fearsome dread of the long trek to Morder.
I love the fact that Tolkien created a massive fairy tale in the Hobbit, made it extremely entertaining, and was able to connect that to the epic fantasy that was the Lord of the Rings and then connect all of it to his legends of the First Age.
I love how Middle Earth was made via song and how Aüle grew impatient and created the Dwarves. I love Yavanna’s Ents. I love that Gandalf was Olórin in the far west and that he was the wisest of the Maiar and feared to take on the mission that he might fail. I even love “simple” Radagast who did not fail so much as take a different path.
I love Shadowfax and Smaug. I love the fight between Gollum and Sméagol. I love it all.
I read the books the first time as a 13-year-old in 1973. I’ve loved them ever since. I often post in those threads, when there is something I can add that hasn’t already been covered in excruciating detail by Qadgop the Mercotan (who, I figure, probably rues the fact that E. E. “Doc” Smith is not anywhere near as popular on this Board…).
and I too read LOTR when I was in junior high back in the early 70s. I love reading the comments on it here, the other points of view. I always open LOTR threads. I often post in them, in a middling sort of way.
BTW, it was the “If LOTR had been written by someone else” thread that brought me over to the SDMB in the first place.
When I was ~7, my parents found I’d read stuff like Narnia, and so got every sort-of related book they could find. So I read the Hobbit, and enjoyed it.
Years later, found out Tolkien had written more. Imagine that. Read LotR.
Later still, used book store – wot’s this? Silmarillion!
Then found D&D, with dwarves and elves and hobb… er, halflings and such. Lead into worldbuilding as DM – where everyone cribbed from Tolkien. Eventually, into conlangs… and back to Tolkien.
But I’m not a serious scholar: I only have some of Chris Tolkien’s books. maybe most of 'em.
I read them for the first time during the summer after 6th grade as I moped around the house as only a 12-year-old with a broken arm can do. I had read The Hobbit previously but was completely taken by LOTR. Over the ensuing 20+ years I have read them at fairly regular intervals, maybe every three years or so. It is like a visit from a dear, old friend. At this point, the books have become much like a hobbit house - comfortable.
Although my knowledge of the arcana and minutiae of the Tolkien Universe is somewhat legendary to my less-sophisticated friends, it, admittedly, pales in comparison to the giants who tread among us here.
I have, however, amassed a nice little Tolkien collection over the years. While I used to be a bit more active, I collect pretty much anything associated with the good Professor that isn’t a movie tie-in. Nothing too rare (no 1st/1st editions or anything) but I do have a copy of English and Medieval Studies, presented to J. R. R. Tolkien on the occasion of his 70th birthday, edited by Norman Davis and C. L. Wrenn, 1962 which includes the poem “A Short Ode to a Philologist” by W.H. Auden.
Compared to normal people I’m a huge Tolkien fan. Compared to some of you freaks I’m a piker. Read the Hobbit and LOTR when I was about 12. I have read many books since but they are on the short list of books I have read more than once. It’s been years since I reread them so I guess I’m due. Never could read any of the other books. They read like boring history texts to me. Loved the movies.
Maeglin, I know someone who has written an HUGE fanfic about a “bad elf”. It’s wonderful writing, too, but since she is using Tolkien’s universe, it can’t be published except on a fan website. Too bad. I keep telling her to alter it, make it her own, and get it published, but so far, no luck. She doesn’t use the name Maeglin, but he was her jumping off point. So you aren’t always overlooked. And remember it’s sometimes a good thing to be overlooked.
I read LOTR in 1966 for the 1st time. I’ve read it 3 or 4 times a year every year since then and when I stop to do THAT arithmetic I think, “Gawd, woman, didn’t you have a life at all?” My youngest son, who was an internet geek from pretty early days of the WWW, hounded me into visiting the “official movie website” and I did, in late 1999, and one thing led to another and here we are.
I have read The Hobbit a few times. I think it’s OK but to be honest, if I had read it first, I would never have read LOTR. I’ve toiled through the Sil about a dozen times, but I can’t love it much. I don’t collect books about Tolkien or other books by him. I think LOTR is a masterpiece, and that nothing else he wrote was.
It’s a wonderful story, wonderfully told. After all this time and all these readings it still moves me deeply.
Now and again I feel obliged to say, “Thank you, PJ, for making the movies”. Not that I think they were good, but I’ve had such a great time over the years because of first joining that LOTR fansite. (The movies had their good bits, I admit. He certainly got “the look of the thing” right.)
I’ve read virtually all his stuff, and enjoyed it a lot. But I don’t consider him quite ‘top shelf’ anymore, due to “Number of the Beast” and a few subsequent works.
Like most of the others who’ve posted to this thread so far, I was drawn to the richness of Tolkein’s invented world. Milddle earth feels real, in a way that no other fantasy universe I’ve ever encountered does. (First reading the books in my early teens no doubt helped get me hooked as well. Most of the major Tolkien geeks I’ve met first encounterd LoTR as teenagers.)
