#(bracegirdle makes it worse obviously)

[lurking-latinist]

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[cal3ris]

I saw The Fellowship again last weekend and promptly reached for the book seconds after finishing the movie, intending to just read a few chapters and skip through the rest but hoo boy am I IN IT now. I realized I only read the book in Dutch so I absolutely must remedy this grave injustice (tho 12yo me was happy enough to read the Dutch version I'm sure)

so far I've learned/remembered:

not only is there an entire introductory chapter chronicling all the revisions and editions that introduced new mistakes but there is an entire book about it (!!!) also at some point Tolkien was like, "haha okay I'll stop doing revisions now I promise" and then he 100% did not stop

"allegories are for fools, as evidenced by Narnia written by my dear friend and fool C.S. Lewis"

"Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer." tolkien my man what a sick burn

I was expecting to run into a wall of impenetrable prose but instead it's so much more light than I remember (or maybe I'm still getting to that, I have vaguely unpleasant memories of the Council of Elrond dragging on FOR EVER)

Bilbo's going-away presents with extremely on point notes are the best thing and also Bilbo is such a bastard and I love him

"For ADELARD TOOK, for his VERY OWN, from Bilbo; on an umbrella. Adelard had carried off many unlabelled ones.

For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large waste-paper basket. Dora was Drogo’s sister and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century.

For MILO BURROWS, hoping it will be useful, from B.B.; on a gold pen and ink-bottle. Milo never answered letters.

For ANGELICA’S use, from Uncle Bilbo; on a round convex mirror. She was a young Baggins, and too obviously considered her face shapely.

For the collection of HUGO BRACEGIRDLE, from a contributor; on an (empty) book-case. Hugo was a great borrower of books, and worse than usual at returning them.

For LOBELIA SACKVILLE-BAGGINS, as a PRESENT; on a case of silver spoons. Bilbo believed that she had acquired a good many of his spoons, while he was away on his former journey."

Frodo is actually middle-aged by the time the adventure starts, I had forgotten all about that haha

all the signs make it clear very early on that Frodo's never going to be able to throw the ring into Mount Doom and it's killing me

a lot of my favorite quotes from the movie are directly from the book and this makes me very happy for some reason

"There is another astonishing thing about Hobbits of old that must be mentioned, an astonishing habit: they imbibed or inhaled, through pipes of clay or wood, the smoke of the burning leaves of a herb, which they called pipe-weed or leaf, a variety probably of Nicotiana" PROBABLY ok sure, but I'm still reading 'weed' which definitely improves the story, sorry not sorry

"They are quite different from what I expected - so old and young, and so gay and sad, as it were" - Sam about elves (if you’re gay and sad you are an elf bc Sam said so)

"Just why Mr. Frodo was selling his beautiful hole was even more debatable than the price" I'm sorry his what now