So, Pratchett had been a great admirer of Tolkien's work long before he had written him the fan letter quoted in my previous post. It's been my experience that everyone who falls for Tolkien remembers v. clearly just how he or she first came to read Tolkien-- an origin story, if you will* Here is his.
*Marquette's Special Collection in fact has an ongoing program in which they ask visitors who are interested to briefly describe how they came to discover Tolkien and what most draws them to his work.
Pratchett Discovers Tolkien
. . . late in 1961, when Terry was thirteen, one of the Beaconsfield librarians pushed across the table . . . three volumes, and said something to the effect of 'I think this might be of interest to you.'
'That damn book was a half-brick in the path of the bicycle of my life,' Terry said later of The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien's great work wasn't exactly hot off the press at this point: those three volumes had been published across a year, from 1954 to 1955, and completed even earlier, in 1949. Other kids at school had already been there and the book had already been a topic of conversation. So, no particular urgency, then. Terry set it aside for a couple of weeks -- until New Year's Eve, in fact, when he had the task of babysitting for some friends of his parents. And then, alone in the sitting room of someone else's house, he opened up volume one.
The presence of a map in the endpapers instantly struck the young Terry as a good sign. A map at the front of a book was often an indication of quality in the product, wasn't it? It promised you were going places. He wasn't to be disappointed. Years later he could still recall the sixties sofa he was sitting on, the bareness of a slightly chilly front room (the heating eventually went off -- a notorious babysitting hazard), and the sense, as he read, that 'at the edges of the carpet, the forest began. I remember the light as green, coming through the trees. I have never since then so truly had the experience of being inside a story.'
He read through the evening. Midnight arrived, followed by 1962, but Terry was still reading. Then, when the parents returned from their party, he went home and continued to read in bed until 3.00 a.m. He woke up on New Year's Day with the book on his chest, refound his place and carried on reading. And later that night, somewhere between, by Terry's calculations, 23 and 25 hours after starting, he had finished all three volumes. And when he reached the end of volume three, he turned back to the beginning of volume one and started again.
--John R.
Beautiful... nothing else to say really. Thanks for sharing that.
ReplyDeleteI don't have a clear memory of discovering Tolkien. I believe I first encountered his work through the Rankin/Bass "Return of the King" in 1980 but it didn't make a huge impression on my mind and I didn't realize it was what it was. I also got the Rankin/Bass "the Hobbit" somehow confused with the song "One Tin Soldier." So I was vaguely aware of Tolkien and had a muddled sense in the spring of 1980 about his work.
ReplyDeleteI was just starting to discover fantasy fiction, specifically Lloyd Alexander's _The High King_, which I purchased at a school book fair and loved. Prior to that my read was military history works on the World Wars and the Romans, and the classic adventure tales - Tarzan, Three Musketeers, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Robin Hood, and King Arthur.
But in the fall of 1980 I started middle school - 7th grade. And The new school library had The Lord of the Rings. I devoured it, much as Pratchett describes, in one sitting, ignoring school work, chores and everything else.I read it again and again so many times that I don't have a clear memory of when i actually read it for the first time because I read it so many times that first year. I know I read LOTR before I read The Hobbit, and that I also soon discovered and read the Silmarillion as well. For many years I was the only one of my friends to have finished that one.
For decades I reread LOTR at least once a year, but in te last few years I have let that slip a bit. I DO still read several Tolkien works a year, just not always LOTR.
I have been chasing that elusive secondary world feeling ever sense. I've only managed to recapture it a few times since. Most recently, the early volumes of Joseph Delaney's Spook's Apprentice series, and the Harry Potter series.
I don't have a clear memory of discovering Tolkien. I believe I first encountered his work through the Rankin/Bass "Return of the King" in 1980 but it didn't make a huge impression on my mind and I didn't realize it was what it was. I also got the Rankin/Bass "the Hobbit" somehow confused with the song "One Tin Soldier." So I was vaguely aware of Tolkien and had a muddled sense in the spring of 1980 about his work.
ReplyDeleteI was just starting to discover fantasy fiction, specifically Lloyd Alexander's _The High King_, which I purchased at a school book fair and loved. Prior to that my read was military history works on the World Wars and the Romans, and the classic adventure tales - Tarzan, Three Musketeers, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, Robin Hood, and King Arthur.
But in the fall of 1980 I started middle school - 7th grade. And The new school library had The Lord of the Rings. I devoured it, much as Pratchett describes, in one sitting, ignoring school work, chores and everything else.I read it again and again so many times that I don't have a clear memory of when i actually read it for the first time because I read it so many times that first year. I know I read LOTR before I read The Hobbit, and that I also soon discovered and read the Silmarillion as well. For many years I was the only one of my friends to have finished that one.
For decades I reread LOTR at least once a year, but in te last few years I have let that slip a bit. I DO still read several Tolkien works a year, just not always LOTR.
I have been chasing that elusive secondary world feeling ever sense. I've only managed to recapture it a few times since. Most recently, the early volumes of Joseph Delaney's Spook's Apprentice series, and the Harry Potter series.
Dear Paul W
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like yours was an atypical path, but we all got there in time, which is what matters.
Delaney's series is for me one of those cases where I literally bought the book for its cover, only to be surprised how good the series was.
Have to say I haven't heard "One Tin Soldier" in a long time --not subtle, but then those were not subtle times.
--John R.
It was years before I finally disentangled the Hobbit and that song from each other in my mind. I had only heard the song on the radio, so the lyrics weren't super clear to me, and i think the folksy nature of the song combined with the folk music style of the Hobbit's music were what got me.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was years before I pierced together the Rankin/Bass show was my first Tolkien experience. This was all pre-VCR and if you missed a show you could watch it again.
Which of the Delaney's covers did you see, the British or the American version? It was the same with me, I never would have given it a look but the cover was arresting. Sadly the later books in the series did match up to the superb early volumes. And he recently passed away.
I hate that his work and Susan Cooper's Dark is Rising both got such horrible movie adaptions. I chalk that up to the malign influence of the LOTR movies' popularity. :(