Middle-earth Journeys

I, too, have enjoyed rereading LOTR over and over again. I'm glad you're finding this fulfilling! Readers have enjoyed finding the 'anomolies', as you have. Another one of them is Lobelia S-B's umbrella! I'm not sure if Tolkien ever said that he was trying to recreate medieval England. He is more vague than that, as perhaps fits mythology (rather than history): all we know is that this is the England of the past. No doubt that, to Tolkien, this includes the past of his boyhood.

No doubt, also, that it all takes on a rather dreamy quality. But it is not all a peaceful world, as the hobbits find out (and as Tolkien found out when he grew up). And Tolkien hints that, even after the Ring is destroyed, there are still wars and struggles for power. The destruction of the Ring does take Sauron out of the picture for a while, but he is destroyed only in this corporeal form, not forever. So I guess I disagree with you that there is no religion here. Sauron is the servant of the Satan of this mythology, and the spiritual servants of the One God are always active and even prayed to. In case there is any doubt about this, Tolkien says in one of his letters that LOTR is a "fundamentally Catholic" work.

As much as I love parts of Middle-earth, I'm actually probably safer here! Even Lothlorien was repeatedly attacked and had to be defended, the Shire had to be defended by the Dunedain, even though the hobbits didn't know it, and if Gollum hadn't slipped and fallen into the Fire, who knows what horrors would have followed?

Michka, I have also been re-reading LOTR over the past several months. I have it on my Kindle, so I have been slowly making my way through it in dribs and drabs while waiting for children at music lessons, doctor/dentist appts, etc. It isn't quite as satisfying as being able to just sit down and read it in great huge gulps, but I have loved my 30-minute "vacations" in Middle-earth. I just finished ROTK two weeks ago.

I was struck once again by the poignancy of the ending, "Well, I'm back." For the reader who geniunely loves Middle-earth, it is a particularly bittersweet moment, because Sam is back -- and we are leaving! We have finished the book! It's over! Those three little words have so much packed into them. Sam is back from seeing Frodo on his final journey. Sam is back because the Quest is now truly over. He can take up his life independent of Frodo and all that it meant to be Mr. Frodo's closest companion. He can truly "be" with Rosie and his children, no longer torn between the future he always hoped for and the Master he loved and served so devotedly. Sam is "back," but we are "back" too, because the story has ended, and we must leave Middle-earth and return to the "Real World."

Sigh . . . sometimes I really don't want to go "back" . . .

oh!Lindariel, comme je vous comprends! c'est un crève-coeur de terminer cette histoire, on souhaite la prolonger , qu'elle n'ait pas de fin, comme ces interminables feuilletons américains qui envahissent nos petits écrans, mais c'est justement ce qui fait le charme d'une belle histoire: une fin qui n'en est pas tout à fait une( comme les aime Viggo) qui fait réfléchir à l'après. J'espère que Bilbo ne nous décevra paset sera comme un relais avec notre chef-d'oeuvre favori

Happiest of happy birthdays to dearest Bilbo and Frodo! May it "snow food and rain drink."

Thanks for the lovely reminder, Lindariel! I was away on a little adventure of my own and, although I did manage to think of Bilbo and Frodo on their special day, I wasn't able to do much about it. Perhaps more on my adventure later!

Just another calendar item to ponder: today marks the end of the Third Age, when the Keepers of the Rings set sail into the West. Here in the Midwest of the US, there is more gold than green in the trees and it is about time to let the garden go on its inevitable decline. Autumn is surely Tolkien time.

L'automne est pour moi la plus belle et intense saison, celle qui précède le déclin et fait feu de toutes ses couleurs, ses teintes riches et magnifiques comme pour montrer qu'il est grand temps de profiter de la vie avant qu'elle s'efface, et ensuite, heureusement ,il y a le printemps pour nous réveiller et reprendre goût , énergie, avec une nouvelle année , une chance de repartir à l'aventure, merveilleuse , et l'espoir d'une nouveauté à découvrir, superbe calendrier de 365 jours toujours renouvelé!!!

I don't know how people live in places where there are no seasons.

I agree with you Merry! I think it would be quite disconcerting to live in an area that doesn't experience the change of seasons as we do in the more temperate climes. I would really miss autumn and the changing of the leaves!

Happy birthday Peter Jackson!

Oh, I had forgotten that this was his birthday! Perfect, really, isn't it?

Alors je m'associe aux voeux d'anniversaire de P.J; quel âge ? Ce grand enfant !!!

I may have mentioned that we had a blizzard here in Iowa last week; snow is not unusual here, but this kind of storm is, complete with thunder, lightening, and strong winds. Many trees were lost here, probably aided by the fact that we had a severe drought this summer. I tried to keep my trees watered (which we usually do not need to do), but nonetheless, I watched as an old oak in my front yard split into thirds. It was very sad, not to mention expensive, as a team of men with chain saws and a chipper-shredder cleared away the damage.

As I travelled for Yule, I saw more of the damage, including a field of about twenty trees, undoubtedly meant as a windbreak for the farmhouse nearby, all of which were pulled out by their roots by the wind and the weight of the snow. I thought of Saruman and Treebeard at Isengard, with Treebeard voicing Tolkien's own grief at the destruction of trees. Our damage was natural, so different, of course, than the killing of trees to feed one's lust for power, but Tolkien once wrote that he felt the loss of trees as keenly as the death of animals. I also love flora more than fauna, so this has been a bit sad to see.

Je comprends la tristesse provoquée par la perte d'un arbre, alors que dire d'une tempête qui en détruit beaucoup, c'est un spectacle désolant que j'ai vu il y a une bonne dizaine d'années, à Versailles, dans la Somme, le Pas-de-Calais, le Nord, la Belgique: un désastre , une image spectaculaire de catastrophe. Et à ce jour dans ma région nous sommes dans l'eau, des situations d'inondation, de ruine pour certains, de chagrin en tous cas. Espérons que ça se calme en ce début de nouvelle année; je compatis,Merry, et vous réitère mes voeux ainsi qu'une séance de cinéma consolante et profitable autant qu'agréable à regarder

je viens de voir et d'admirer les croquis représentant les contes de Tolkien , exécutés par un artiste asiatique, génial, d'une beauté extraordinaire, me faisant penser aux enluminures du moyen-âge faites par les moines pour illuster les textes religieux, c'est un travail talentueux et je me suis laissée entraîner à les imprimer pour les conserver dans mes livres, trop beau!!!cet artiste est si prodigieux qu'il mérite d'être promu et connu dans toute la planète, à l'égal de Alan Lee pour ses images magiques, ajoutant les extraits d'histoires en plus