jedibuttercup

If you're not bored yet, more "Fellowship of the Ring" observations follow:

( Pages 107-264! )

*yawn* I think I'll stop there for the night, at the end of Book II, Chapter II. I intended to read all of Fellowship today, but I kept getting interrupted and distracted, and we'll only be tested on Book I tomorrow; I have until Wednesday evening to have the entire thing read. I'll just have to block out a great chunk of Tuesday evening for reading, as well.

( Speaking of distractions, at 10 I turned on the TV... )

Nngh. It's already nearly 10pm and I still haven't (1) managed to get around to doing the update over at my worldbuilding story archive that should have been done weeks ago, (2) written up my reactions to Stargate: Atlantis, or (3) done any of the reading for tomorrow night's class.

Hm. Which of those is going to get priority this evening, I wonder? Considering it's an eight-meeting summer evening class, I'd say the reading wins out tonight. Yesterday was the first class, and it was four hours of literary term this, mythology that. Not that it isn't interesting and all, but yadda, yadda, yadda. I do have a B.A. in Writing and Literature already, cum laude and all. But then I guess most people taking ENG 299C at a community college probably don't.

The subject matter is the reason I'm there. "The Lord of the Rings: Tolkein's Modern Mythology". What's not to love? I've read the books probably five or six times over the last eighteen years, the first being when I was eight years old. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings forever warped my ideas of what literature should be before I ever knew any of the fancy words to describe it. Rereading LotR yet again is not going to be a hardship. Especially since the quizzes are going to be open book. Actually shoehorning the hours into my schedule, though, is going to get a bit annoying.

The discussions are going to be the fun part. It would be better, of course, if we got to compare the books to the movie versions, both theatrical and extended release, but the class isn't long enough to allow for that, alas. The only bit of the movie aired in class will be the documentary that we've already watched that came off the first DVD set. I'd already seen it, of course, but it was still interesting. It covered much of Tolkien's life and influences, intercut with illustrative scenes from the films.

One thing caught me off guard, though. Smack in the middle of the documentary they get around to mentioning Tolkien's friendship with C.S. Lewis. But while they mention him in the context of that friendship several times, and as a professor once or twice (I believe), the introductory descriptive term that they used was "atheist", and they never got around to mentioning those beliefs any further. Excuse me? I'm pretty damn sure C.S. Lewis didn't remain an atheist all his life, given the fact that I've got his "Mere Christianity" sitting on my shelf right now, not to mention "The Chronicles of Narnia", and it seems kind of overly politically correct to completely ignore any and all later changes and leave it at the "atheist" remark. Especially since they do expressly mention that Tolkien was a devout Catholic. *rant off*

Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yeah. Must get back to my reading. *snicker* "Concerning Hobbits ..."