# How old were you when you first read LOTR?



## Noldor_returned (Jan 23, 2006)

Basically, the title speaks for itself. At what age did you read LOTR for the first time. If anybody says they haven't read it, they shall suffer my eternal wrath! Mwahahahahahaha!


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## HLGStrider (Jan 23, 2006)

Years blur together so I _think_ I was thirteen. It may have been a year or two younger. I know for certain I already had my glasses which puts it past 11 and I already had a crush on the boy who would grow up to be my Marine, so that puts it past 12, but I think it was before I cut my hair in a bob so I could play Peter Quince in a Midsummer Night's Dream excerpt, which would be when I had just turn thirteen so maybe it was 12. . .Waxes nostalgic and quickly wanes. . .

Anyways, yeah, around there. I actually delayed reading for a year or two. At 11 I already had friends who liked/loved Lord of the Rings telling me that if I liked Narnia I'd love Tolkien, and I stubbornly put it off because when I was little the Hobbit Cartoon scared me to death! brrr. . .

I think there are a few other polls out there like this. If I run into them, do you mind me merging them?


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## Noldor_returned (Jan 23, 2006)

Go for it, so long as the title stays and this poll stays.


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## Rhiannon (Jan 23, 2006)

I honestly don't know how to answer. I was as young as five when it was first read _to_ me, possibly as young as three or four (meaning my older brother was five or six and that it was technically being read to him, but reading is a family affair). It's been read out loud to the family most years since, so there's never been a time when I didn't know the story and the characters, but I think I never actually read it to myself until I was twelve (I didn't need to, you see).


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## Ermundo (Jan 24, 2006)

I do see indeed.

I read the LOTR when I was about 12. Yea, those were the good old' days


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## Annaheru (Jan 24, 2006)

I turned into a reading demon in second grade, read everything I could get my hands on, and subsequently became bored with everything kids my age were _supposed_ to read and enjoy. So my mom introduced me to _The Hobbit_ (from my perspective it's always been a light hearted, escapist, adult read rather well suited to a child who's jumping into adult level books at age 8), and before a year had passed I'd whisked through her Silver Jubilee Ed. boxset (which I still have, in a very, very battered state of love and tape preservation). I got into Sil before middle-school . . . 

I think maybe my disdain for new (i.e. post-movie) fans stems from those childhood experiences of being laughed at for those books- and the hidden satisfaction of being more cultured and refined than my peers, while my youngest brother is 'cool' for his interest (which most definitely did _not_ spring from the books). So, yes, I'm something of an elitist, but if you're new to the books I won't hold that against you- so long as the first thing you picture of when someone says "LoTR" is a book rather than a movie


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## Wolfshead (Jan 25, 2006)

When I was 8 my house suffered a burst pipe while we were away for Christmas, so once the house became habitable again we moved back in, and because the tv was busted my mum decided to read The Hobbit to us (me and my 5 year old sister) to pass the evenings. I got bored towards the end so I went and found other things to do, but because neither of them would tell me how it finished I had to read it myself. I was 9 that month, so I must have been 8 or 9 when I first read the Hobbit. But as for LoTR, I started reading it (either at 9 or 10), but got bored when they were in Lorien. I left it then till I was probably 12 or 13 when some of my friends got into it, so I decided to see what all the fuss was about 

So I went with 10-14.


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## Hobbit-GalRosie (Mar 23, 2007)

I selected 15-20. I will be no more specific because doing so could help people to guess my age, the which I refuse to reveal on-line.

I don't think there's anything reasonable about reading the book before 15. I know I was nothing like mature enough, in spite of tending to be the quiet, relatively mature one in my class at school and all. But then that's me, and I've discovered I'm weird, and I've known for my whole life that I'm stupid (alas, late bloomer doesn't even begin to cover it), so I guess that's reasonable for _everyone else_, oh joy. And here I thought I knew what age would be right, and I guess I'm all misguided like usual. Based on all this it's gonna be hard to say when I should suggest it if I ever have kids and they don't pick it up before I might. *sighs* But kids are a seriously unlikely possiblity for me, for many, many reasons, one being that I'm utterly disinterested in romance. It's a good thing. Stupid people shouldn't reproduce. Not that they should be forcibly steralized *shudders* but they should know better in that one area...


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## Barliman Butterbur (Mar 23, 2007)

Noldor_returned said:


> Basically, the title speaks for itself. At what age did you read LOTR for the first time. If anybody says they haven't read it, they shall suffer my eternal wrath! Mwahahahahahaha!



I think I first read it somewhere around 1964 (which put me at around age 28). I had just gotten into grad school at Cal State LA, and Tolkien madness was spreading like wildfire on all the college campuses. I was in the student store one day and saw it in paperback on a revolving book rack. I started with The Hobbit, and then, after many false starts, I got into LOTR. So I've been at it for about 42 years on and off.

Barley


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## Halasían (Aug 22, 2019)

I was 17 when I started reading The Hobbit, and 18 when I finished the Lord if the Rings.
I wonder if Barliman is still with us. He would be 82-83 now.....


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## Olorgando (Aug 22, 2019)

Duplicate thread, it seems. 27 at first reading of the German translation of LoTR, just under 30 for the original, Hobbit and all the rest over the decades since then (Fall of Gondolin last year at 62).


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## Squint-eyed Southerner (Aug 23, 2019)

Halasían said:


> I was 17 when I started reading The Hobbit, and 18 when I finished the Lord if the Rings.
> I wonder if Barliman is still with us. He would be 82-83 now.....


Profile page says 82, so you got that right. Been a while since he's been here.

There's a new Barliman, though.


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## ArwenStar (Sep 14, 2019)

I actually was going against my family tradition with LoTR because I watched the movie before reading the book. I immediately claimed LoTR as my fav book (even before reading) and got my hands on the first copy I could find. This was at age 11.


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