# How did you find Tolkien?



## Ol'gaffer (Jan 20, 2003)

This must have been asked about a million times, but how did you get mixed into ME and all of Tolkiens works?

For me it happened through roleplaying and Dragonlance.


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## goofoofighter (Jan 20, 2003)

Actually, my parents recommended I read their books when I was like five or six, and kept putting it off and putting it off. Then one of my friends dragged me to see the movie, and then I started the series starting with the Hobbit. (Using my parents books, like they wanted me too)


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## Aragorn21 (Jan 20, 2003)

My brother told me bout LOTR and, you'll probably think I'm a mental dude but this is what I thought.

I thought that orcs looked like weasles and the house of Elrond was sorta like a cottage  . I also thought that Frodo's sword glowed green. hahaha 

OH and when Gandalf fought the Balrog hehe well.. the Balrog was a robot that had a fire-sword, and the bridge was rope and boards and that when Gandalf hit the bridge it broke and the hung on by a board. And then of course the balrog draged him down. 

LOL was I dumb or what?


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## Deleted member 3778 (Jan 20, 2003)

it was my good friend tuilin (also a member here..) who got me started...she didnt let me see the movie until i read the books

im glad she did tho..i cant imagine how my otherwise dead boring life would be without Tolkien...


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## Deleted member 3778 (Jan 20, 2003)

lol..i would like to know who voted for " bumped into him inthe park"


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## FoolOfATook (Jan 20, 2003)

My dad was (and is- I don't think that he will ever return my copy of _The Shadow Of The Past_ )a huge Tolkien fan, and he read me the Hobbit when I was in second or third grade. It wasn't until I got to college that I really got into Tokien though, but once I read LOTR, I immediately set out to read everything I could by or about JRRT.


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## Dragonbane (Jan 20, 2003)

My mom gave me her copy of the Hobbit, I liked it, I loved it, I read more of it.

Nothing to it really, oh and Dragonlance is really nice... Myes..... Ok I'm done now...


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## Khamul (Jan 20, 2003)

I just picked up one of the old sets lying around the house and started reading...


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## Isenho (Jan 20, 2003)

movie for me. yeah, lame.


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## LegolasLuver (Jan 21, 2003)

i saw the movie on tv and i watched part of it and then i watched the whole thing cause my brother had it on DVD and then i decided i wanted to get the books and yea thats how i got into it..


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## YayGollum (Jan 21, 2003)

My evil parents. I read The Hobbit and loved Gollum. My evil father told me the best parts of LOTR and The Sil. so I wasn't surprised about anything. He never told me that Gollum was the hero, but he did tell me how he saved the day and I figured it out. That's probably why I'm so adamant with my Gollum is the hero opinion. I've grown up thinking that before I ever got to read the books and come up with an informed view. Yay!


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## Talierin (Jan 21, 2003)

Long story, but let's just say I rescued this poor nice never-read boxed set a family friend had given us...... and the rest is history.


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## MacAddict (Jan 21, 2003)

Don't kill me for this but if it weren't for an image of the movie that i saw in may 2001 i never would have known about it until after i saw the movie. I started right by reading hobbit 1st.

~McAddict


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## Aerin (Jan 21, 2003)

My mother introduced me to the wonderful world of Middle Earth. I was about 7 or 8 years old, and really into fantasy reading at the time; she told me I should read the books, because she loved them when she was young. I started them, and got about halfway through Return of the King, and wasn't exactly interested, but when I picked them up again a year later, I haven't stopped since.


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## Tuilin (Mar 3, 2003)

> t was my good friend tuilin (also a member here..) who got me started...she didnt let me see the movie until i read the books




I used to call you and fuss about the books till you got so sick that you promised that you would read them...
Then I would call again the next day asking if you had started reading them.
  
My dad(!) got me into the books...


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## Elbereth (Mar 13, 2003)

I was always aware of Tolkien...and he had always been an author that I said I wanted to read 'someday'...but I never got around to reading the Lord of the Rings until December 2001. I was taking an extended vacation in Maine, visiting my family over the holidays. My brother had just received the LOTR book for Christmas...and still hadn't read it. We saw the movie...and then when we came home I asked him if I could read his book...he said yes and all is history.


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## Rhiannon (Mar 13, 2003)

My dad has been a huge Tolkien freak since he was in high school, and he just passed it on; he read the books to us as soon as he could get us to sit still.


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## FREEDOM! (Mar 13, 2003)

It was one of best friends that showed me the wonderful world of tolkien, and this forum.


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## Arebeth (Nov 1, 2003)

I'm ashamed of it, but my father bought me the Fellowship when I was 9 and it took me four years to open it. The rest is History.


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## Beleg (Nov 1, 2003)

Well heard about the movie.
Allready heard about Hobbit from many HP websites.
Read Hobbit on a cousins wedding day and the ball got rolling from there.


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## Aulë (Nov 1, 2003)

Well September last year, my parents got me a copy of the FotR DVD to watch. Honestly, I had no clue who Tolkien was, and I hadn't really paid attention to the hoo-ha surrounding the FotR when it was in the cinemas.
A year on, and I have seen both movies, read The Hobbit, LotR, The Sil, UT, Osanwe Kenta, Roverandom, Smith of Wootton Major, Farmer Giles of Ham, The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, Leaf by Niggle, most of HoME2 and HoME12, and tit-bits of the other HoME books and Letters by JRR.
As you can see, I caught the Tolkien bug badly


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## e.Blackstar (Nov 1, 2003)

My mom read the trilogy to my whole family (sister, dad, and me) when I was about 7-8, I liked them, and then I read them on my own, and became rabid


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## Starbrow (Nov 2, 2003)

When I was 13 and in the 8th grade my English teacher assigned us a certain number of book reports to do. (I don't remember how many.) She said The Hobbit would be worth 2 book reports. Since I love reading and hate writing, I read The Hobbit. I wasn't too impressed the first time I read it, but then I had to read again for another English teacher in 9th grade, and I became hooked.


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## Thorondor (Nov 3, 2003)

My sis' godparents gave her The Hobbit for christmas when we were little kids. She never read it, and it sat on a bookshelf for years. So one day back in High School I picked it up and read it without knowing what it was. Now its 5 or more years later and I've read the Hobbit at least 6 times, same with the sil, LotR prolly a dozen times, and UT, the lost road and others at least once.


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## Persephone (Nov 3, 2003)

I was a trainee for a computer school and was teaching computer basics to a guy from Scotland and we got to talking about books, he recommended many books and he lent me some of his collection which included the trilogy along with the Hobbit. I loved the stories so much that since then (that was 92) I've been a fan.

P.S. in case any of you are wondering the other books he lent me were Red Dwarf, Gridlock, King Rat, and Asterix and Obelix comic books as well as Danger mouse. I loved Red Dwarf, and have always been an Asterix and Obelix fan so I enjoyed those too.


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## elf_queen (Nov 8, 2003)

Belive it or not, I got into the Lord of the Rings because I wanted to impress my fifth grade teacher. At the book fair that our school has every year, I bought The Fellowship of the Rings, and maybe the Hobbit, but I can't remember. They sat on my shelf for a few months

We had to do a book report every month, and once the catigory was fantasy books. Call me a teacher's pet, but I like impressing my teachers. I decided to actually start reading the series, so I did The Hobbit for my book report. Then my FOTR book sat on my shelf until around November. 

I started reading it because my friend saw the movie, and she kept telling me how great it was. I wanted to read the books before I saw the movie, so I started FOTR, and I was sort of hooked, but I thought that the beginning was kind of boring. So when I got to the chapter A Knife in the Dark, I just stopped for a few months. Eventually my friend's nagging won me over, so I kept on going. Also, my friend started reading it a lot later than I did, and she was a really slow reader, and she was about to pass me. So I bought a bigger copy of the book, so it would be easier to keep open (literally, my small one kept closing), and so it would be the same edition as my coppy of The Hobbit. I started reading it, and I was hooked. The rest is history.


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## 33Peregrin (Nov 11, 2003)

My dad who never takes me to see movies took me to see this one movie, because he had read The Hobbit years and years ago. Even I had read The Hobbit earlier that year. After the movie..... seriously, I was speechless. I reread The Hobbit that night (Christmas Eve) and I began reading LOTR the day after Christmas. I was thirteen. Now ROtk will be in theaters in about a month!


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## 33Peregrin (Nov 11, 2003)

My dad who never takes me to see movies took me to see this one movie, because he had read The Hobbit years and years ago. Even I had read The Hobbit earlier that year. After the movie..... seriously, I was speechless. I reread The Hobbit that night (Christmas Eve) and I began reading LOTR the day after Christmas. I was thirteen. Now ROtk will be in theaters in about a month!


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## Elfarmari (Nov 13, 2003)

I found The Hobbit on my sisters book shelf a little over two years ago, loved it, and found out that there were other books written about the same world. In the first six months, I read the Hobbit, LotR, the silmarillion, unfinished tales, and a few HoME books. . . (I'm insane)


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## Amarië (Nov 14, 2003)

My Dad bought me a copy of the Hobbit when i was nine and told me how great it was so i read it and loved it! He then bought me the LOTR box set the following year and i've been hooked ever since! i'm now 18 and reading the Sil for the second time!
~A~


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## Sephiroth (Nov 20, 2003)

I had to read something for school, so being a fan of Fantasys- my brother put me on to the Lord of the Rings(this was in 1995)

i've been a huge fan ever since

of course i always knew of the Lord of the Rings but i never *knew* the Lord of the Rings.


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## arisen pheonix (Nov 25, 2003)

i have love for tolkien in my blood me mum noticed i took after me da in many ways, me da loved tolkiens work very much, gave me a set of the books and now i cant understand how i ever got by with out them


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## My_Precious (Nov 25, 2003)

I had a book of fairy tales and stories for children, and I loved "Hobbit", and bumped into the note that said that the "Hobbit" was a beginning to the "Lord of the Rings". So the next time I was at my local library I got the books... Read them in three days, the rest is history...


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## MrFrodo (Nov 29, 2003)

Watch the fellowship in the cinema a few years ago......then read teh books straight away...the hobbit was well!!!............I nearly killed my parnets for not reading the books to me when i was younger.....so im trying to catch up on missed reading time!!!


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## Lúthien Séregon (Nov 29, 2003)

I first became aware of the Hobbit as a story when I was 6 years old. A couple of friends and I went on a camp for a few days, and their mum came with us. At night, she read parts of the Hobbit. To me, it was like a story that was there in the back of my mind, but I didn’t know who the author was, so I never thought about reading it again. 

When I was 7, my mum went and bought me the Hobbit, because she thought I would like it, and I recognised it as the story read to me a year ago and instantly fell in love with it. A few months later I got the Lord of the Rings, and read that within about 6 months or so. So yeah, that’s basically how I became in love with Tolkien’s books, at the age of 6-8.


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## Finglas (Dec 10, 2003)

i read the hobbit because i heard lotr was coming out. i had just finished reading it when i saw the fellowship of the ring, and i liked it so much that i started to read the book, and got hooked from there.


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## Samwise_hero (Jan 7, 2004)

In yr 7 the teacher was reading the hobbit and then when my grandfather died i inherited his Lotr book. i love it so much! thats how it came to be. ^.^


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## Niirewen (Jan 7, 2004)

I bought the Hobbit, read it, loved it, and then read Lord of the Rings, and loved it even more!


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## Barliman Butterbur (Jan 7, 2004)

Ol'gaffer said:


> This must have been asked about a million times, but how did you get mixed into ME and all of Tolkiens works?



Damned if I know! It was back in the 60s, that's all I really remember. I suppose I got wind of it in college because everyone was talking about it. As I've said in prior posts, my kids and I were real Ringers when they were little, and got involved with Hobbit parties, etc., etc. Then it lay fallow for quite a few years. I'd pick up LOTR or TH every now and then. Then I got wind of a fat little guy in New Zealand who was actually going to put Tolkien onscreen! I started investigating and got excited. I'm glad I did!

Lotho


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## golradir (Jan 21, 2004)

*what up all*

hey everybody i first read the lord of the rings for english class my junior year in high school. got hobbit for christmas that year and read it. got the silmarillion as a gift later that year and read it. tolkien was a freakin genious.


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## Ireth Telrúnya (Jan 21, 2004)

Ol'gaffer said:


> This must have been asked about a million times, but how did you get mixed into ME and all of Tolkiens works?
> 
> For me it happened through roleplaying and Dragonlance.



Hi, I just noticed you are a Finn too...
I have to say that I started reading "The Hobbit" by a recommendation of my cousin. And it was years ago but I didn't finish the novel since I liked more scifi stuff back then and couldn't imagine what kind of creatures hobbits are. And when along came some dwarfs I thought that this is just like some children's book and thought it's not worth reading.
This was sometime either in the ending of eighties of beginning of the nineties...
It was only this year after having seen the Two Towers that I literally went crazy and finally read all the books from The Hobbit to the Return of The King in just one month....and they are quite thick ones, all of them....

(sanoitko jossain, et sulle maksettiin RotK:n katsomisesta???)


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## Starflower (Jan 21, 2004)

hey another Finn!! Are you guys running a secret advertising campaign or something ?  
I don't know if I have already posted in this thread, but what the heck, I'll just post again then shall I. 
I first found Tolkien when I got the Hobbit as a Christmas present at the tender age of about 9, then a couple of years later an aunt visited England and brought the LoTR as a present back ( allegedly to help with my english studies ) and I have not read the books in Finnish ever since... and of course now that I would want to re-read them in Finnish I can;t cause I live in London. Oh well, english is not so bad 

(hienoa etta on lisaa suomalaisia! )


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## Ireth Telrúnya (Jan 21, 2004)

Starflower said:


> hey another Finn!! Are you guys running a secret advertising campaign or something ?
> I don't know if I have already posted in this thread, but what the heck, I'll just post again then shall I.
> I first found Tolkien when I got the Hobbit as a Christmas present at the tender age of about 9, then a couple of years later an aunt visited England and brought the LoTR as a present back ( allegedly to help with my english studies ) and I have not read the books in Finnish ever since... and of course now that I would want to re-read them in Finnish I can;t cause I live in London. Oh well, english is not so bad
> 
> (hienoa etta on lisaa suomalaisia! )



Well, hello there! It seems here's a whole bunch of Finns now!
You don't find any Tolkien books in Finnish in London? Surely there must be a copy or two in some bigger libraries or a bookstore, London is a huge city...not that I have never been there..
Anyway, I agree, English is many ways better than Finnish since there is so much more written material in it. It carries a huge load of history, unlike our little minority language and people.

And, today I finally found out which Tolkien's language is based on our language and it's Quenya, an elvish language. Do you know more about that?
I'm just a beginner in Tolkien knowledge...


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## Starflower (Jan 21, 2004)

yes indeed Quenya grammar and prononciation is based on Finnish. Tolkien as you probably know was a professor of Anglo-Saxon studies, and in that capacity he examined many myths around the world and found Kalevala. At the time there existed one -very very horrible- translation of it in English and after reading it Tolkien became convinced that the legends would be better read in their original language, so he studied enough Finnish to read parts of Kalevala. Then when he invented the languages he modeled Quenya partly in Finnish because he liked the way it sounded and he like the rhythm of the speech. 

sadly, I have been unable to find anything in finnish here so far, it's not that big a thing really, I do visit Finland every now and then, it's just a question of how many books I can smuggle into the plane at any one time


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## Corvis (Dec 8, 2005)

I can't believe I've never seen this thread before! Oh well, better late than never. I found Tolkien through my father. I remember it was when we saw a trailer for FOTR before it came out in theaters. He got excited and I asked him what LOTR was. When we got home he gave me his copy and introduced me to the wonderful world of Tolkien.


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## Hammersmith (Dec 8, 2005)

Embarassingly enough I heard about The Hobbit from my parents when I was in primary school. For some reason I got it mixed up with Worzel Gummidge and associated hobbits with scarecrows. That lost me interest. Then one day I was bored and I found (stole from my sister) a copy of the self-same Hobbit. I was hooked and read it over and over again for many years. I'm mortified to say that I didn't know Lord of the Rings existed until I heard about the films being made; my reaction was, "What? The Hobbit's only the _first _one??"

I read through them in nothing flat, staying up all night far too many times in a single week than was good for me. They have been firm favourites ever since, but I obviously have a much fonder history with The Hobbit.


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## Ingwë (Dec 15, 2005)

Corvis said:


> I can't believe I've never seen this thread before!


Neither can I  I've talked about that so many times with my friends or in other forums but I've never made a post about that here 

It was three years ago. I was with my friend. He told me he is a member of Bulgaria Tolkien Forum. I asked him 'What is BUlgarian Tolkien Forum? What is Tolkien?'' He answered: ''Who is Tolkien, not what. He's author of LotR? Have you read the books? They're great. BGTf is place, where we talk about the Works of Tolkien'' 
I read found the books in a local library, later I bought ''THe Hobbit'' and ''THe Sil''. I liked the works of Tolkien. Throught the years I read other works by him.
I joined BGTf after a while; later I found TTF and now I'm active user here


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## Kristaline (Dec 16, 2005)

Back in the late 70's my 5th grade teacher, Cynthia Murphy, read the Hobbit in class. We started on the FotR, but didn't finish. I was hooked and eventually found the FotR somewhere, but I couldn't find the other books for several years. If the movies have done nothing else, they have made it so that I can walk into any bookstore and buy a new copy of the books so that mine can be retired.

I have loved the writting of J.R.R. Tolkien for most of my life and can't imagine what I would do if I couldn't linger in the lands of Middle Earth.


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## Noldor_returned (Dec 17, 2005)

I first met Tolkien when I went to heaven for a holiday...just kidding!
My sister read the Hobbit and she liked it, and suggested I read it. That was about 7 years ago. Then, she discovered LOTR and suggested I read that. However she didn't like it, I did and there you go. That would have been about 5 years ago when I first read it, now I've read it about 10 times. As for Sil and UT, I got them for my birthday 2 years ago, and have read them both 3 times. Then there is Tales From the Perilous Realm, which I only just finished reading a couple of months ago. As faar as HOME is concerned, I'm still waiting to get a copy.


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## Majimaune (Dec 18, 2005)

well im a bit like nr cause my sister recomended the obbit to me and that got me on to lotr then so on but that was before the movies i just didnt hear about this site for ages

Majimaune Leganimdok


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## Mike (Feb 14, 2006)

How did I find Tolkien?

I saw him smiling at me from the back of an old paperback in the Public Library. I have to say, I passed by these books many times before in those days (I was eleven years old, as I recollect) and was intrigued by the John Howe covers...however, I never picked them up because they were "fantasy" and, in my mind, equated with trash.

One day my curiousity got the better of me. Needless to say, I got hooked.

The first time i read the books, I read them in reverse order-I borrowed the third one first, because i thought it was part of a larger series of say, five books) and this one had appendices. Only later did I realize my error, but, alas, The Fellowship of the Ring was checked out, and I therefore read The Two Towers. Eventually, I completed the novel.

Something tells me, that in those days, I might not have been such a Tolkien fan if I had read the books in the correct order--as I would have viewed the opening chapter of The Lord of the Rings as childish. Luck got the better of me, and I am mighty pleased by it.

I bought my boxed set of the novels a year later...from a friend who I had earlier convinced to read the books, had got bored of them, and needed money for a date. A fifty dollar value was therefore purchased for nine. These are the books which still sit on my bookshelf today. (They're right there, beside my computer, and I'm looking upon them at this very moment).

Afterwards, I scoured the town in search of Tolkien's books. 

And, also (and i think obviously), my attitude towards fantasy has changed during the years. I am much more open-minded than before, and the Conan novels, The Chronicles of Prydain, A Wizard of Earthsea have all come under my grasp and become favourites.

I owe a lot to Tolkien in other areas as well: it was his novels that started me on writing short stories. And I am mighty thankful to him for that as well.

There you have it: How I found Tolkien, and, as a bonus, how he has influenced me, all in one (not too lengthy, I hope) post.


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## baragund (Feb 14, 2006)

My sister, who is 9 years older than me, loaned me her copy of The Hobbit when I was 12 or so. This was around 1974-75 and she was participating in the tail end of the hippy generation. She was into M-e at the time and had, along with a copy of LOTR, a huge, beautifully drawn map of M-e hung on the wall of her room (I'm so bummed out that that map got lost or thrown out over the years... ) and a button that read "Come to Middle-earth".

Anyway, I got sucked into Tolkien's world after the first couple of paragraphs or so of The Hobbit and hadn't left since then, even though my interest would wax and wane over the years.


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## Fechin (Dec 16, 2006)

The movies got me excited about the books and read each book before I saw the movie


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## Gift of Names (May 4, 2007)

I was twelve years old when my aunt found me writing on the computer about fictional worlds and people that I was making up, mostly for fun, but partially to pass the time. She mentioned _The Lord of the Rings_ and it sounded interesting to me. Then, at Christmas when I was in the ninth grade (I was thirteen, then), I received a copy from her.

The copy I had bore runes at the top and bottom, and before I set to reading the book I had stumbled across the language notes in the Appendices, so I set to translating the cover of the book first. My English teacher at the time bore witness to this and I think he approved. I was very satisfied when I finally was able to read: "_The Lord of the Rings is translated from the Red Book_."


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## Majimaune (May 4, 2007)

I never knew it said that.


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## Aisteru (May 4, 2007)

It was my dad who first got me hooked on Tolkien's works when he read me The Hobbit when i was quite little. I think it was his gollum impression that stuck with me the most. To this day I still think that his is the more accurate representation of the noise Gollum makes from his name (as opposed to the movies)


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## Ithrynluin (May 5, 2007)

I discovered The Lord of the Rings when I was 6, maybe 7, don't remember anymore. It was not a book, though, but a film. Yes, Bakshi's much despised 1978 rendition, which I loved then and love still. Though I do blame it for one thing, namely for a long time I pronounced Celeborn as Seleborn instead of Keleborn, and Sauron as Soron , that is, until I read the book itself and the appendices many years later.


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## Eledhwen (May 5, 2007)

My mother bought me the original paperback of The Lord of the Rings, but I was a teenager and didn't read it on the grounds that my mother thought it was worthy . I eventually read The Hobbit - borrowing my daughter's 50th Anniversary edition.

Aisteru, if you want Gollum's voice from the horse's mouth, so to speak, I'd recommend the Tolkien Audio CDs read by JRRT and CT.

Have you noticed, Ithy, how many of Jackson's LotR scenes look remarkably similar to Bakshi's? Eg: the black rider chase, and the Hobbits hiding under a large tree root. This would be less surprising if these scenes matched the book description, but they don't.


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## Barliman Butterbur (May 5, 2007)

I was in grad school back in the early 70s, and JRR had become all the rage on campus. They had it in paperback in the student store, so I bought a copy of _The Hobbit,_ and later LOTR. That's when it all started for me, and I've been at it on and off in various degrees of intensity ever since.

Barley


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## Starflower (Sep 6, 2007)

I was given the Hobbit for a birthday/Christmas (can't remember any more which) present when I was about 9. Actually took me many years to make the connection between LoTR and the Hobbit, i was probably in my early teens, 13 or 14 when I read the book for the first time. All the women (hmm.. now to think of it, it is *only* the women) in my family are pretty obsessed with LoTR, from my godmother down to my 15-year old niece. And so it continues...


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## Halasían (Sep 21, 2007)

It was the summer of 1975 and I was walking with my neighbor around the neighborhood when we stopped to smoke a d00b. In the ensuing conversation he told me about this book he was reading called _The Hobbit_. I asked whats a Hobbit, and what was the book about, and he summarized it by saying Hobbits are short folk with hairy feet that like to smoke pipeweed and eat good food, and the story was about one who went on an adventure. 

So I had him loan me his book after he was done, and I read and loved it. Same with Fellowship and Two Towers, but I gobbled it all up, and he hit a snag and didn't get far into Return, so I checked it out from the library and finished the tale. I then got into the world by combing the appendices up until the day it was due. 

By the time I finished the trilogy I was into my senior year of high school, and I met a girl who was equally into Middle Earth, and we would sit by the flagpole at lunch and practice our Tengwar, writing messages to each other. We even cut a class when the construction crew poured new cement curbs in th ebus loading zone, and we imprinted 'Friends' into the side of it. It remained there up to 2005 when they again refurbished the school and tore out the curb.

Hungry for anything new of Middle Earth, I was in a book line party when Silmarilion was released, and I even anticipated the premiere of Bakshi's movie. But in the 80's life and kids took me away from it for a tme until I found Unfinished Tales on a grocery store checkstand rack! I got into Dungeons & Dragons with a Middle Earth theme for a time, and by this time read the trilogy a few more times. The 90's drew me into family life again before being re-awakened with talk of the upcoming movies in '99.

After initially being into the movies, that peaked on Trilogy Tuesday in December 2003. Unfortunately since then my interest in Tolkien seemed to wane some.


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## Firawyn (Oct 29, 2007)

Mea Mater recommended it. I was overly engrossed in the Chronicles of Narnia at the time so I flat out refused. (I was irked because Tolkien didn't spell certain things the same was Lewis did...and at 12 that seems seriously important!) 


Then *cringe* I saw a preview for Fellowship, and picked up the Hobbit. Then saw Fellowship, and then read Fellowship, Two Towers, and Return of the King in sequence. 

Then I got obsessed. OOPS!

Fir-


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## Lantarion (Nov 1, 2007)

I'd never read much literature at the time, at age 13 or so, and a friend of mine whom I admired was reading the LotR; so I started reading because of that, mostly. but then I got hooked. I didn't read anything else for three or four years, until I went to high school & discovered that there was more to literature than oxford professors building on the foundations of old/middle english tradition & mythology. not to put down JRRT's life's work -- he was a good storyteller & a great linguist. I'm just glad I discovered other writers as well, modern classics &c., or my view of literature & of the world would be narrow indeed.

I did always enjoy the Silmarillion more than LotR, and the historical linguistics Tolkien was such a genius at even moreso. what I am grateful for is that the first form of literature I was introduced to was of such a classical vein; understanding archaic turns of phrase like "thou/thy", "lo!", "behold", "alas" &c. at such a young age has given me a broader perspective on language in general.


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## Bucky (Dec 21, 2007)

I saw The Hobbit cartoon/movie the Sunday it came on NBC in 1977.

Never heard of JRR Tolkien before that night.

Before a year was up, I'd read The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings & the newly published Silmarillion......

Twice. 

Each.


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## Eledhwen (Dec 22, 2007)

Bucky said:


> I saw The Hobbit cartoon/movie the Sunday it came on NBC in 1977.


You even remember the day of the week - from 30 years ago! Considering the difference in story quality between the cartoon and the book, that's quite impressive.

We come down quite hard on the attempts to interpret Tolkien's books; but you're not the first person I've come across who found Middle-earth through the animated versions. Maybe it's because they offer such a poor glimpse that people are then driven to read the books. I think I'll have to run a poll in the Hall of Fire to find out (on second thoughts...)


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## Eledhwen (Dec 22, 2007)

Firawyn said:


> (I was irked because Tolkien didn't spell certain things the same was Lewis did...and at 12 that seems seriously important!)


I have to smile at this - knowing that Lewis, probably inadvertently, copied much of Tolkien's nomenclature in the Narnia series (the very word Narn - 'tale' in Elvish - was nicked). It's fun to read through the Narnia books and spot the Tolkienisms. It's well for Lewis that Tolkien didn't take umbrage.


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## Arbrandir (Mar 26, 2008)

Eledhwen said:


> Maybe it's because they offer such a poor glimpse that people are then driven to read the books. I think I'll have to run a poll in the Hall of Fire to find out (on second thoughts...)



Actually, quite to the contrary .. I also discovered Tolkien through Bakshi's vision, which at the point of viewing I found quite *overwhelming* and *splendid* (little did I know ... ;-). But then again, I was only 12 or so.

Reading the "Lord" for the first time half a year after that cinematic experience was, of course, a WHOLE different matter. Been addicted ever since. Still, I'd never deny or ridicule the influence Ralph Bakshi's ambitious if somewhat "shortfallen" cinematic adventure had on me as well as on countless other viewers + Tolkien newbies.


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## Eledhwen (Mar 27, 2008)

Arbrandir said:


> I also discovered Tolkien through Bakshi's vision.


My favourite essayist on LotR, Greg Wright, felt similarly about Bakshi's version at about the same age. Read the essay here.

I couldn't help noticing that Peter Jackson used camera angles and scene setups, in flight to the fords, that were suspiciously similar to the cartoon version.


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