"...crying Elendil! Elendil! he crashed through the trees" by Himring

[hhimring]

B2MeM Challenge: Wildcard (Athelas)
Format: Non-Fiction
Genre: essay, autobiographical (c.600 words)
Rating: Gen
Warnings: None
Characters: Aragorn & me
Pairings: None
Summary: My first encounter with The Lord of the Rings

The first sentence that I read is: Aragorn sped up the hill.

Well, that is not entirely true.  For one thing, chronologically speaking, the first sentence that I read was: In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. My mother had had The Hobbit recommended to her as a British children’s classic and borrowed it from the library for me. I opened it expectantly—and did not get beyond the first page or two. It was not that I had any kind of problem with postulating the existence of hobbits; I was uncomfortable with the narrator’s arch tone and felt I was being patronized as a reader. I was a little too old for The Hobbit, I guess, or a little too young. I was a rather solemn creature, then, precocious and awkward and a bit prickly about my dignity. There was nobody around to promise me Elves and a dragon and Bard the Bowman, if I persisted. The book went back to the library, and I forgot all about Professor Tolkien.

When I read Aragorn sped up the hill, I had no idea at all that this was a book by the same author. Also, the sentence that I actually read was: Aragorn rannte den Berg hinauf—and that is not quite the same thing because, although it is an adequate German rendering of Aragorn sped up the hill,  the most literal translation back into English would be: Aragorn ran up the mountain.

I first read about Aragorn at my school’s holiday camp. If I remember things correctly, I wasn’t there with my classmates, but with the school drama group who were about to put on a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream. I was not one of the actors; I was there to help out with painting the flats and with the props. So the girl I borrowed the German translation of The Two Towers from was a relative stranger and a couple of years older than me. The lure of the book must have been really strong for me to venture to ask her for the loan.

So here is me: a shy, rather lonely teenager, sitting all alone on the lower bunk bed in a medium-sized dormitory, with a large bright green paperback volume in my lap. The cover depicts a huge eye, with the body of a snake coiling around it. It looks scary and a bit off-putting.

I open the book and read Aragorn sped up the hill. Who is Aragorn and why is he running? Who is this Frodo he is looking for? Aragorn is perplexed and seeks guidance—and so do I.

…to his horror, he could distinguish the harsh voices of Orcs. Oh no! What are Orcs, I wonder?  ‘The horn of Boromir! He is in need.’ Aragorn is racing to help—and I am rushing along with him, although I don’t know yet who Boromir is. Drawing his bright sword and crying Elendil! Elendil! he crashed through the trees.

Well, we all know who and what he found there. After that first taste, I had to read the whole thing—and I had to read it in English. That was not as easy to achieve then as it would be now. It was the first time I ordered a book at a bookshop—from abroad!—and I spent all my pocket money on it. I had no idea what I was doing and ended up with the one-volume “de luxe” edition, printed on thin paper. That was a long time ago. Those delicate pages show clear signs of heavy use now…

Comments

[clodia-metelli.livejournal.com]

I remember saving up my pocket money to buy books in the days when if it wasn't in print, you just had to keep on looking in every secondhand bookshop. On the one hand, it did mean every new secondhand bookshop was incredibly exciting. (I particularly remember how long I spent looking for various books in Weis & Hickman's Death Gate Cycle; I think my parents found the missing ones for me for a birthday present in the end.) On the other hand... well, there's a lot to be said for just being able to go online and there they are. I still fall in love every time I find a new good secondhand bookshop, but it's not the same now that I'm not desperately looking for missing bits of trilogies and series.

(I think this comment did originally have something to do with LOTR. But then I got carried away. Because bookshops.)

[hhimring]

Yes, I know! Bookshops! No longer quite as magic as they used to be, before the days of the internet, but there's still plenty of magic left!

[shirebound]

Thank you for sharing this with us. What a marvelous encounter with Middle-earth.

[hhimring]

Thank you for reading! That was only the first round, of course, so to speak--the beginning of a long story....

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

AHHH! Someone else who read Two Towers first! (Well, I had read The Hobbit when I was much younger, and been a bit off-put by the 'if you want to read more about hobbits' bit at the very end - the books sounded scary to a six-year-old and so they would have been). By the time I got to reading LOTR for the first time, I couldn't find a copy of Fellowship in my school library, so I just checked out TT instead.

I skimmed over the summary of the previous book, just getting enough so that I had some idea of what was going on. And so the first bit I read properly was, like you, "Aragorn sped up the hill. Hobbits go light...." and to this day I remember the character of Aragorn exploding into my consciousness like a flash of light. He has been and always will be my favourite LOTR character, now with the voice of Robert Stephens (from the BBC version of LOTR - I thought he captured Aragorn's grim humour combined with tenderness exceedingly well) and an appearance influenced by (though not exactly matching) Viggo Mortensen.

[hhimring]

I did not even have a summary, because this was part of a three-volume set that was never sold separately--there were only the hints in the other students' conversation that had made me ask to borrow the book in the first place. But, yes, Aragorn does explode like a flash of light, doesn't he? And I like Viggo Mortensen, but I still remember well what I thought Aragorn looked like originally.

[engarian.livejournal.com]

Another person who did not fall in love with The Hobbit. My parents, bless their hearts, were bibliophiles and strongly encouraged me to spend my pocket money on books (often supplemented by their own, deeper pockets). I bought The Hobbit at a bookfair in late 1963 or early 1964 and picked up the paperback Ballentine editions of LOTR in the late 1960's when they were published. Although I hated The Hobbit as being horribly boring, I loved LOTR once Frodo actually got under way. I've never looked back since...

- Erulisse (one L)

[hhimring]

Oh, I did learn to love the Hobbit later--after I had read the Lord of the Rings. But by then, of course, I was reading The Hobbit from an entirely different point of view!

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I'd never considered what impression reading TTT first might leave a person with. Fascinating, thanks!

[hhimring]

I thought that was why it might be interesting to write down. I'm not sure that now--after the movies and in the internet age--anybody would find themselves plunged straight into Middle-earth so little knowing what to expect. Everybody knows what orcs are, now, don't they? Well, maybe I am wrong and in fact not everybody does.

[dreamflower]

Wow! Talk about being plunged into the middle of the action! I can't imagine what I would have thought if I had read TTT first!

But I can certainly see why it would make you love Aragorn so much, for he comes into his own in that book!

[hhimring]

Yes, it did make me love Aragorn--for I began by sharing his doubts and fears. It also affected my attitude to Boromir, I think. I read about his death in defence of Merry and Pippin before I read about his trying to take the Ring.

[baranduin.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, I love your story!

[hhimring]

Thank you! I was very touched by your story about the fox and how you shared LOTR with your brother in such a difficult time. I've always liked that fox, too.

[keiliss.livejournal.com]

That is such a cool way to begin - dropped right into the deep end where the action was happening and the characters and their backgrounds were already fully formed.

I can't remember why I got Lord of the Rings, but I remember the first time I held the book. It was the three in one and therefore BIG, a hardcover edition (I think the cover picture was that one of Gildor and the hobbits under the trees) and the pages were thin. It wasn't like the usual reading for young teens. I skimmed through all the stuff before the story, settled into the first chapter and kept going till it was done - spare moments, bedtime, waiting for things, in place of doing homework... I can't tell you what or who I loved most either, except the elves spoke to me from the moment I met Gildor and that when it was done, I wanted more. That might explain me and fan fiction *g*.

[hhimring]

Yes. Imagine my chagrin when I had to return The Two Towers to its owner before I had managed to read it all the way through! Because I didn't know her well enough to beg to be allowed to return it later, you see.
Yes, meeting Gildor is a very special moment, isn't it? Oshun has written well about that in her bio of him.

[zdenka]

Thanks for this essay. That is certainly entering in medias res! it is fascinating to me to read the different ways in which people were first drawn in.

[hhimring]

Thank you! Yes, it is fascinating, isn't it? So many different paths lead to Middle-Earth.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this.

[hhimring]

Thank you for reading!