Eleventy-one: Re-reading The Lord of the Rings 50 years on -- part one

Right about now in 1971 I am beginning to read The Lord of the Rings for the very first time. I had not read The Hobbit or even heard of it before I plucked the old Ballantine Books The Fellowship of the Ring, the one with the oddly fascinating cover illustration by Barbara Remington, from the spinner rack outside Ruth's Stationery store on Main Avenue in Ocean Grove, NJ, a seaside town much like the Shire would have been, had the Shire been settled by Methodists. That is, there were no pubs, and the older folks would have viewed Gandalf with as much suspicion as they would a Papist Papal Nuncio in a VW Bus with a Peace sign on the back.* We children, barefoot and oh so tan, would have loved him just as madly as the Hobbit children do. Beyond the borders of the town there were white spaces, with labels like 'beyond this be Pagans'** (on the Asbury Park side) and 'beyond this be Papists' (on the Bradley Beach side).

I loved the book at once, and re-read it at once. I cannot tell you how many times I have read it all told, but it has to be over fifty times, not counting extensive study and browsing. I would be lying if I said that it was not the most important book in my life. I still have those old Ballantine mass markets, yellow and brittle with the years, one of them even gnawed by a mouse. If I tried to read them, they would disintegrate entirely. There is always a copy of The Lord of the Rings open on my desk, however, and on laptop and on my tablet.

As many have done, I learned Old English (and so much else) because of J. R. R. Tolkien, though I wouldn't advise anyone learning it as I did, working my way through a couple of grammars on my own and plunging straight into Beowulf. The first time through was like wrestling with Grendel and his mother at once. But the second time through was much easier, and the third. I am looking forward to the fourth. I like to think Tolkien would have approved. 

To be brief, I am beginning to read The Lord of the Rings again in celebration of what I shall call my 'eleventy-first' reading. I will try to recall how I felt that first time I went through it and write about it.  Although I have been planning to do this for some time, I have taken added inspiration from my current reading, Katherine Langrish's From Spare Oom to War Drobe: Travels in Narnia with my Nine Year-old Self, a book I recommend while on my feet applauding. It's not out in the States just yet, but I hope it soon will be. 

I hope to put up the first post soon.

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* Really, I have nothing against Methodists, and I love Ocean Grove from the bottom of my heart. I was married by a Methodist minister whom I looked upon as my surrogate grandfather. 'One of my best friends' is a Methodist minister. But as a Catholic kid in Ocean Grove in those days, I got a lot of teasing for being a Papist. Yes, they used that word. And not just teasing. I once broke up with a girl I had started dating because, not knowing I was Catholic, she began making disparaging remarks about Papists. After letting her go on for about 20 minutes, I said 'I am a Catholic'. A silence most profound followed, which was broken by 'Oh, I didn't mean you, Tom.' This actually didn't annoy me as much as the assumption that I must root for Notre Dame.

**Aside from being a general den of iniquity and Rock and Roll, Asbury Park had a bar called Mrs Jays which often had a row of motorcycles belonging to the Pagans motorcycle gang out front.