Monday, September 2, 2013

September meme.

The Fellowship of the Ring
The Fellowship of the Ring. {source}
Every month, The Classics Club hosts a meme, asking a question which members or readers may answer on their blog at any time during the month. I found this month's question "answerable" so I decided to join.

Rereading a favourite classic at different
stages of your life gives you different insights
with each reading. Is there one classic you've
read several times that also tells a story
about you?
                                                 - - Brona from "Brona's Books"

There is one classic that I've specifically focused on reading through several times. It doesn't exactly tell a story about me, but it was more than the likely my foundation for reading more extensively. It was the first really big, really hard book that I got through (after Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, which was still too hard for me at the time for me to enjoy it much), and I loved--and continue to love--it. (You all know which book it is, by the way.) Tolkien became an inspiration, reading The Lord of the Rings became a yearly tradition: but I confess that it's the characters that stick out at me almost more than the highly-glorified plot. Samwise Gamgee, Faramir, Aragorn, Gollum. . .and many other memorable people.

Thanks to Brona for her good question!

12 comments:

  1. I didn't read LOTR, but I read the Hobbit, and I really liked it, once I got into it. :)

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    1. Telling me you haven't read The Lord of the Rings is like telling The Hunger Games fans you haven't read The Hunger Games (which I haven't! :p)!You should definitely read it! And it seems like most classics take longer to get into than their contemporary counterparts.

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  2. Thanks for answering my question - I'm very excited to see everyone embracing it :-)

    LOTR is such an amazing epic. I can see why it would inspire you - the courage & determination of the hobbits, their sense of adventure and humour and their undying loyalty is something to aspire to.

    As an aside, when researching my hubby's family tree we discovered that JRR Tolkien is a distant cousin - third cousins twice removed or something like that!

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    1. Wow! How very interesting! It must feel quite cool to be related to Tolkien ;)

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  3. Excellent - I chose the very same book. I love Tolkien so it's a treat to find another fan (not difficult really!).
    I only recently reread this and I was really impressed how it stood the test of time.
    I think my earliest difficult reads were Dickens - I made myself read Great Expectations and ended up really enjoying it - I actually reread that again recently and enjoyed it still.
    Lynn :D

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    1. No, not very difficult, but so fun!

      I love Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol--the only other book I read by him, The Pickwick Papers, was great in a literary sense but just too boring for me to consider a favorite. (Time has made my heart grow fonder--but after 64 days of trying to get through it, I was SO relieved to be finished!) I like intricate plots a lot, so when a novel doesn't have that. . .I kind of lose interest ;) :P

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    2. Great Expectations and A Christmas Carol are my only reads by Dickens too and I loved both so I suppose it's kind of strange that I never tackled the rest. He can be a bit verbose so maybe that put me off. I've put David Copperfield on my list for the Classics so I'll see how that goes!
      Lynn :D

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    3. He definitely can talk a lot! David Copperfield is on my regular reading list, but not on my Classics Club list. My English teacher says that I (she was talking to the class in general at this moment) would just fall in love with the story. She also said it was autobiographical. If it's in the same league as Great Expectations, I'm sure I'll enjoy it immensely.

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  4. Wow. I've never seen the fellowship Manga style. They actually look pretty good. :)

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    1. Oh, is that a special style? I had no idea! :) Haha. . . .

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  5. Yours is the second Lord of the Rings answer to this question I've come across. Good choice! As I mentioned on another blog, it's been a long while since I re-read The Lord of the Rings, and am hoping to do so someday soon. There is so much to glean from it, right?

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Go 'head, leave a comment! I gladly respond to every one :)