Hooked on Tolkien

I wonder if anybody is also like me. Somehow I am now hooked on JRR Tolkien, in particular about the hobbits and the Ring trilogy. I know this is not a particularly new thing to most (.... or to all?), but there is something in his style of writing that I find attractive. He made it look so believable, as if there really is a Middle Earth, with hobbits and elves and wizards and all else.

Well.. I haven't heard of JRR Tolkien until the first film came out. But when it did, I watched all three and enjoyed it very much. Until now I have watched them over and over again and still enjoyed each one as if I'm watching for the first time. If there ever is a poll for the movie classics from the 21st Century, it will be for these.

Then I thought, why not read the books. If a 3-hr movie can evoke so much feeling, the book must have more. So I read the book, except that I read it out of sequence. You see, I already have the 2nd and 3rd books, The Two Towers and The Return of the King, in my house ( my daughter had brought it back from my sister's house but didn't get round to reading it). So I started with them first, and I realised that I just couldn't put it down. On a few nights I was reading it till way past midnight, even when I already know how it is going to end. And I couldn't wait to continue with The Return of the King, which again cost me some more late nights.

Reading these books out of sequence made me curious about the beginning, about how it all started, so I went round looking for the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring. Lucky for me I got it cheap at a shop selling used books.

So I read that first book, but it didn't stop there. After finishing it, I straightaway continued with the second book and the third, even though I have read it earlier. Altogether I must have read them three times in a row. In between, I would watch the movies and started to pick out the differences between the books and the movies.

Still that did not quench my appetite and made me want to know more about the beginning of the elves, hobbits, dwarves and men. So I went out looking for The Hobbit and The Silmarillion. This time I wasn't so lucky at the used book store, they don't have any in stock. But I managed to find them elsewhere, and the cycle started again.

After reading The Silmarillion and The Hobbit, I continued straight into the Ring trilogy and have just finished it for the fourth time.

Well... what do you think about that? Crazy huh?