Hmmm. You know more than I do, Bob, which will never do :-)
Best I read it again, along with Catcher in the Rye, Gormenghast,
Darling Buds of May (and all of HE Bates' books and stories), Gulag
Archipelago and Quiet Flows the Don. I don't like many modern books,
so perhaps it's time to know a bit more about the literature of my
school days.
Chris
On 17 Jul 2009, at 11:32, Bob Whitmire wrote:
> When I first read LOTR many, many years ago (I was stationed in what
> is now Eritrea, and in sight of the Mountains of Mordor), I didn't
> much like the first book, and of that first book, Tom and Goldberry
> were my least favorite. I wanted to get on to the epic battles. But as
> I aged, something changed. I suppose I've read LOTR at least 10 times,
> maybe even more, and I find in my more, ah, mature years, the first
> book is by far my favorite, and has been read again a time or two
> without bothering to go on to the other two.
>
> Understood is why Tom and Goldberry were left out of the movies, but
> less understood is why Peter Jackson decided to leave out The Scouring
> of the Shire. To me, that final bit--and the petite battle--before the
> finale at the Grey Havens, puts the whole story in a context that
> would be (and is, moviewise) missing without it. The Shire has been
> changed by events, and Merry, Pippin and Sam have been changed, and
> while life returns to something approaching normalcy, it does so in
> the knowledge of what happened and more importantly, what might have
> happened--never mind the overarching denial of most Hobbits. In a sort
> of metaphorical/allegorical way, it reflects what happened throughout
> rural Britain in the aftermath of The Great War--except that changes
> were far more dramatic in the "real" Britain because so many, many men
> were no longer there.
--
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