I just read you essay myself. That was one of the best pieces of writing that I personally read this year, to the point I found myself nodding my head in agreement the whole time, and even becoming strangely emotional when I read it. Finally I was able to articulate my mild dislike and indifference to the movies. It made the books shine in my mind with an even stronger light than before.
While the last time I read the whole trilogy was around 1988, while still at school, it (and the Silmarillion) are sort of etched into my memory. I've been putting off re-reading it for ages, but maybe it's time to do that. I will be sure to re-read your essay too.
Thank you again.
Thanks for the kudos! I'm glad you liked the essay.
I have lost count of the number of times I have re-read Tolkien's works. I first read The Hobbit in 7th grade, and went right on to LotR. It was some time before I was able to get my hands on a copy of The Silmarillion (the hard cover edition--I still have it), but I remember reading it almost straight through once I got it, because I was so keen to see what was in it after reading the appendices to LotR.
I haven't read the whole essay yet, but I'm really glad I caught your comment here. Thank you for writing this back then and for sharing it now!
> Thank you for writing this back then and for sharing it now!
Thank you for the feedback!
Your site doesn't seem to be loading. I also had a security warning when visiting it. I'm on Chrome, MacOS.
It might be objecting because my site is HTTP, not HTTPS; I don't have HTTPS set up. I probably should go ahead and get a certificate from Lets Encrypt since browsers are getting fussier about non-HTTPS sites.
I think that's a fair comment. I would go even further--in fact I did, some time ago:
http://blog.peterdonis.com/opinions/tolkiens-ring.html