XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: Troels@ThisIsFake.invalid   
      
   On 2012-08-02 18:18, Steuard Jensen wrote:   
   >   
   > Yes, you really can. I first read it before second grade (I don't know   
   > if I was seven or eight years old at the time).   
      
   I can't really recall when I first read /LotR/ -- I believe I was a bit   
   older (in my teens) because I (by some deplorable accident of my   
   upbringing) didn't encounter it before then.   
      
   I did, however, read books of equal length and complexity long before my   
   tenth (I was seven or eight when I read an unabridged version of Verne's   
   /Mysterious Island/ during two days of illness).   
      
   > I'm quite certain that I missed out on a *lot* my first time or   
   > two, but it was immediately my favorite book by far.   
      
   Part of the whole point is that there are things in /LotR/ that most   
   25-years-olds are likely to miss -- the book is layered and complex, so   
   the fact that one can read it and like it is not the same as saying that   
   one can fully comprehend it.  I know I got my first personal copy for my   
   eighteenth, and at that point there was still much that I not only   
   'just' didn't get, but which I was still too immature to be able to get.   
      
   The things that made it my favourite book in my teens are wholly   
   different from the things that make it my favourite book now (when my   
   oldest child is out of his teens).   
      
   If /LotR/ had been only what initially attracted me to it thirty-odd   
   years ago, it would not have been my favourite book today, and as I   
   perceive Christopher Tolkien's comments, he feels that the Jackson films   
   reduce the story to contain  just that which attracts the adolescents   
   and leave out all that which keeps it a relevant favourite book for adults.   
      
   > (I'll admit that I was a pretty smart kid, though.)   
      
   I'd imagine :-)   I should probably be making the same admission myself   
   (though the years have taught me not to confuse smart with mature -- as   
   a kid I was the former, not the latter).   
      
   --   
   Troels Forchhammer   
   Valid e-mail is    
   Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.   
      
        People are self-centered   
        to a nauseous degree.   
        They will keep on about themselves   
        while I'm explaining me.   
     - Piet Hein, /The Egocentrics/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)