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minavoxOver the summer holidays I read The Fellowship of the Rings to the kids. I wasn't sure about the whole project: we read The Hobbit, sure, but LotR? For a 7year-old? But they demanded it, and so it started as a dare: See, kids, there is not a more boring story in the world then the beginning of FotR!
Only they just sat through everything concerning Hobbits and their incredibly boring migration patters, terms of relations and pipe weed (and because they are small and innocent, I couldn't even spice it up with jokes about the true nature of said weed).
And then... the story just took and I read the whole book. 535 pages. Aloud. Well, it's good practice for the speaking voice. And it did rain a lot this summer.
Some things:
* The eerie feeling of the Black Riders sniffing out the Hobbits - got me when I read it first (when I was 16 or something like that), got the kids now. There is just so much world here, they dove in readily.
* Tom Bombadil: surprisingly entertaining. The kids loved him. I had nearly forgotten him and his very special powers, the movies are good in erasing everything but the shortcuts established by the script.
* The kids haven't seen the movies yet, so they must be amongst the last people going into it unspoiled - or so I thought. But alas: they've studied the Lego catalogues, religiously, and so of course they were expecting ringwraiths. And a cave troll.
* Funnily enough they loved the heavy chunks of back story dished up at the Council of Elrond. "I love it when things are explained!"
* The thing they did not love: all the bloody songs. Celebrating some high-brow ideal of beauty that, alas, is gone and never to come back. Precious demanded skipping them after 100 pages, Crumpet did last till the last quarter... "Oh no, not another song!"
* Glorfindel - oh yes, wasn't there an Elf called that? To my great embarrassment the movie script had erased much of the memory of the book. Although: having at last one other talking woman besides Galadriel was a brilliant choice, I still think. I run out of discernable voices for reading all those elvish dudes...
* And did you know Tolkien wrote great humour? No, really, there was this one passage I had to read over and over and that had the kids in stitches, every time.
"I need no map," said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas, and was gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes. "There is the land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many works of metal and of stone, and into many songs and tales. They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathûr.
"Only once before have I seen them from afar in waking life, but I know them and their names, for under them lies Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, that is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue. Yonder stands Barazinbar, the Redhorn, cruel Caradhras; and beyond him are Silvertine and Cloudyhead: Celebdil the White, and Fanuidhol the Grey, that we call Zirakzigil and Bundushathûr.
"There the Misty Mountains divide, and between their arms lies the deep-shadowed valley which we cannot forget: Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale, which the Elves call Nanduhirion."
"It is for the Dimrill Dale that we are making," said Gandalf. "If we climb the pass that is called the Redhorn Gate, under the far side of Caradhras, we shall come down by the Dimrill Stair into the deep vale of the Dwarves. There lies the Mirrormere, and there the River Silverlode rises in its icy springs."
"Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram," said Gimli, "and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may see them soon."
And my lips tremble at trying to read this passage with a straight face. I dare you: read this aloud and try not to laugh over Azanulbizar at the latest. :)
Only they just sat through everything concerning Hobbits and their incredibly boring migration patters, terms of relations and pipe weed (and because they are small and innocent, I couldn't even spice it up with jokes about the true nature of said weed).
And then... the story just took and I read the whole book. 535 pages. Aloud. Well, it's good practice for the speaking voice. And it did rain a lot this summer.
Some things:
* The eerie feeling of the Black Riders sniffing out the Hobbits - got me when I read it first (when I was 16 or something like that), got the kids now. There is just so much world here, they dove in readily.
* Tom Bombadil: surprisingly entertaining. The kids loved him. I had nearly forgotten him and his very special powers, the movies are good in erasing everything but the shortcuts established by the script.
* The kids haven't seen the movies yet, so they must be amongst the last people going into it unspoiled - or so I thought. But alas: they've studied the Lego catalogues, religiously, and so of course they were expecting ringwraiths. And a cave troll.
* Funnily enough they loved the heavy chunks of back story dished up at the Council of Elrond. "I love it when things are explained!"
* The thing they did not love: all the bloody songs. Celebrating some high-brow ideal of beauty that, alas, is gone and never to come back. Precious demanded skipping them after 100 pages, Crumpet did last till the last quarter... "Oh no, not another song!"
* Glorfindel - oh yes, wasn't there an Elf called that? To my great embarrassment the movie script had erased much of the memory of the book. Although: having at last one other talking woman besides Galadriel was a brilliant choice, I still think. I run out of discernable voices for reading all those elvish dudes...
* And did you know Tolkien wrote great humour? No, really, there was this one passage I had to read over and over and that had the kids in stitches, every time.
"I need no map," said Gimli, who had come up with Legolas, and was gazing out before him with a strange light in his deep eyes. "There is the land where our fathers worked of old, and we have wrought the image of those mountains into many works of metal and of stone, and into many songs and tales. They stand tall in our dreams: Baraz, Zirak, Shathûr.
"Only once before have I seen them from afar in waking life, but I know them and their names, for under them lies Khazad-dûm, the Dwarrowdelf, that is now called the Black Pit, Moria in the Elvish tongue. Yonder stands Barazinbar, the Redhorn, cruel Caradhras; and beyond him are Silvertine and Cloudyhead: Celebdil the White, and Fanuidhol the Grey, that we call Zirakzigil and Bundushathûr.
"There the Misty Mountains divide, and between their arms lies the deep-shadowed valley which we cannot forget: Azanulbizar, the Dimrill Dale, which the Elves call Nanduhirion."
"It is for the Dimrill Dale that we are making," said Gandalf. "If we climb the pass that is called the Redhorn Gate, under the far side of Caradhras, we shall come down by the Dimrill Stair into the deep vale of the Dwarves. There lies the Mirrormere, and there the River Silverlode rises in its icy springs."
"Dark is the water of Kheled-zâram," said Gimli, "and cold are the springs of Kibil-nâla. My heart trembles at the thought that I may see them soon."
And my lips tremble at trying to read this passage with a straight face. I dare you: read this aloud and try not to laugh over Azanulbizar at the latest. :)
