Lord of the Rings

I read the story many years ago (Silmarillion - Bilbo the hobbit and Lords of the Rings), and I just loved it. For me it was one if not the greatest stories of all time for that kind of stories.

But, right now I am reading The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (15 huge books or 29 pocket book) and it is truly amazing.

So if you have really appreciated The Lord of the Rings, give it a try.
I read the Wheel of the time many years ago, but not all the books, I think I stopped at the 10 or so. Yesterday I was thinking to start again this series, but it is soooo long. It was a very young man that introduced me to the Jordan saga. And also I was thinking to reread for the third time the Lord of the Ring, that is a magnificent book and so well written! I refused to see the movie because I want to create the characters and the sites by myself. I remember the first time I read the saga, I was curious by what the hobbits eat. The humor also. And the stories in the story. I was impressed also when they went to the forest and the trees were bad and mad trees and when they were lost. Since then, when I look at a tree, I try to forget they can be mischievous. :lol:

It is a fantastic story, both the Tolkien and also the Jordan. What an extraordinary imagination had these writers! And these stories are now part of ourselves.

Michael, you telling us how you discovered the Lord of the Ring and the power of it in your life is in itself a magnificent story.
 
I read the Wheel of the time many years ago, but not all the books, I think I stopped at the 10 or so. Yesterday I was thinking to start again this series, but it is soooo long.

Go for it @loreta. You will enjoy it and since it is a longggggggg story, you will be able to travel with them for many months.



And these stories are now part of ourselves.

For those who can understand French, an analysis of the symbolism of Tolkien's trilogy.

 
I think the LotR is The movie to watch every year, and it looks fresh every time even if one can mime all the dialogues "what about the second breakfast?". However, the movie suffers from a serious flaw: it's too short. Even after ten hours one still wants to know more. It is unfortunate that Gimli and Legolas are not developed better, for they become caricatures of themselves towards the end (it starts with the famous surfing shield scene) but even these imperfections do not ruin the quality of the film from finish to end.
 
Go for it @loreta. You will enjoy it and since it is a longggggggg story, you will be able to travel with them for many months.





For those who can understand French, an analysis of the symbolism of Tolkien's trilogy.

Just for fun (and I do not want to make noise) this is the cover of the first book of the Wheel of Time. It is a superbe cover, that gives a taste to taste the book.
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That said, we can return to the LOR.
 
Well, just quickly back on Wheel of Time for a moment, I found and bought some nice old copies of the whole series in paperback. Looking forward to finally reading them! Love that old cover art..

Ok, back to LotR! (I also just ordered that, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, since I no longer had my old copies... ah secondhand books are good... :))
 
A started again to read LOR. Marvelous. So many good friends inside this book, and what an adventure! I was looking for a map of the Middle Earth to follow the little ones. And then at Youtube this video appeared:


In The Real Middle Earth, Sir Ian Holm (Fellowship of the Ring, Alien, Chariots of Fire) narrates a fascinating exploration into a world that, although imaginary, seems so real we pore over its maps and contemplate the journeys made from one place to the other. The film takes us In Tolkien’s footsteps and investigates the landscapes and buildings, places and names that helped shape Middle-earth.
 
Cool Loreta :) I haven't watched the video.. but do really like the tradition of putting maps in the start of fantasy books.. Getting off-topic a bit but my favourite children's books, the Swallows & Amazons series by Arthur Ransome, from the 1930s, had lots of maps and illustrations and secret codes drawn in.. These books were complete magic to me as a child.. They're not fantasy, they're very realistic books about kids who sail small boats and go camping, and have excellent imaginations.. Though there are some of the books that are fictions-within-the-fiction, stories the children are telling each other about more wild adventures like being kidnapped by Chinese pirates.. Anyway those books had me always drawing maps when I was little. I kept them in a metal lockbox like the kids in the books kept their important documents in in their boat.

Well, just quickly back on Wheel of Time for a moment, I found and bought some nice old copies of the whole series in paperback. Looking forward to finally reading them! Love that old cover art.
I've been reading Wheel of Time, and loving every minute of it. Just got up to the last book! I like the romance elements with some of the characters getting to know themselves and each other, especially Perrin and Faile... and the bits about Mat are hilarious.. Those books are like, Lack Of Communication: The Epic Fantasy. Soooo many misunderstandings and disasters just because nobody told anyone else what they were thinking!
 
I've been reading Wheel of Time, and loving every minute of it. Just got up to the last book! I like the romance elements with some of the characters getting to know themselves and each other, especially Perrin and Faile... and the bits about Mat are hilarious.. Those books are like, Lack Of Communication: The Epic Fantasy. Soooo many misunderstandings and disasters just because nobody told anyone else what they were thinking!
I'm reading these books, I'm on the third. I discovered it thanks to you in this forum.

I am very surprised that I did not know anything about this work. I feel something similar to "recognition". A feeling that there is something there, just like I felt with the Lord of the Rings, with the Matrix movies and with the first Immortals movie.

The wheel of time continues to turn while the threads of the fabric are linked defining life.

And... I think there are several people on this forum, causing the threads of the fabric to intertwine in an unusual way around them.

One more gift that the forum has given me.
 
The word for "cycle" and "zodiac" in Latin is ċircul, which is derived from kírkos, or "ring" in Ancient Greek. The Latin word for "circular path" or "hoop" or "closed system" is circulus. Right there, we have three related terms that refer to an endless, cyclical transit, or maybe a bound transit. Makes me think about that phrase, "there and back again." Makes me think about Frodo's journey to Mt. Doom. The Old Norse word for "ring" is hringr, and the word for "encircle" is hringja. To hold, to control. If it's your duty to hold something, you are bound to it, in a sense.

Frodo's mission to take the ring to Mt. Doom is a kind of metaphor that we have need for at almost every moment of our lives because we are always susceptible to anger, guilt, doubt, paranoia and all the rest of our less desired feelings. For as blessed as we are, we are truly troubled creatures. Whenever we hold on to our anger (take Gimli for example) or our doubt (Frodo, Aragorn), it creates a ring. The ring offers power and strength. Anger motivates. From doubt and paranoia comes clever and long-lasting protective strategies, but through them we become outsiders.

This goes all the way back to the first paragraphs of the Silmarillion. While the Valar practice collectivism and harmony with Ilúvatar, Melkor explores the darkness on his own. When he reunites with the Valar, he finds that he rejects their unity and finds strength and power in his rejection. It's simply a reality of socialization that we cannot all approach each other in the same ways. In some cases, the disunity will be sufficient to generate something like a narcissistic personality.

This is the central issue Tolkien addressed as a writer, in my opinion. What are we to do with the narcissists in our midst? And his answer is inconclusive. He leaves us with this metaphor: The ring of power. Any being on Middle Earth can hold on to it, but none will possess it. Your only options are to give in and hold it until it eats you from the inside or take it to the fires from which it was forged.

Facing our darker, more violent impulses is hard enough. We must stare deeply enough into that violence to know it and still commit to change. Frodo has the strength to do this once over the course of three books, but we all must do this every day, every free moment, in order to clear the space for those around us and prepare ourselves likewise for times when we're alone and times when we're together. Every frustration, every fearful thought, is a ring of power. To reconcile the mountain and the shire, we have to walk the whole of Middle Earth and unite our most hopeful, innocent selves with our most sensitive, introspective selves in order to prevent self-destruction, self-harm. Lord of the Rings is a thesis that shows us how our failure to walk our feelings all the way to the mountain is where grief and woe at a global scale originates.
 
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I think a lot about Bilbo's guilt. In the books, he volunteers to take the ring to Mt. Doom. When it ends up being Frodo, he hands over his adventuring gear as if he were passing along an heroic task to a younger generation. But this behaviour from Bilbo is actually carefully concealed guilt.

There's that amazing scene where Frodo doubts himself in font of Bilbo. "I'm not like you," is what he says. He means he doesn't see himself as a hero. But Bilbo sees himself as a victim of addiction, not a hero. Deep down, he believes he's passing a curse on to Frodo, not the mantle of a hero. It isn't the removal of the ring that allows Bilbo to finally pass into the final stage of his life - it's the moment when he's honest to Frodo about how he feels. That is the beginning of Bilbo's healing journey. Beautiful!
 
I feel almost sad putting this here but as its an apt and precise take down of this bloated, pretentious, agenda ridden piece of tat by Amazon, (with their clear intent to overwhelm the deep affection held by millions for Tolkien's anciently rooted sense of humanity with the vacuous ideologies of woke identity and feminist optics backed by nothing but hyperinflated spending and a lap dog media), here goes; the first 40 seconds alone is priceless:


 
Not planning on watching the TV series of course, but I imagine that its "quality" will be their own punishment. When you lack creativity, you cannot create. Everything nowadays is a re-imagining, a sequel, a prequel, etc., as if nobody knows how to tell a story anymore, which humans have excelled in for eons. Tolkien's story is still beloved after all this time, and Jackson's cinematic version two decades in. Who will still remember this TV series in a couple of years or so? Maybe some masochists.
 
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