Shanahan
John Swanson <nospam@nospam.com>declared:

John Swanson
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard@blueyonder.co.uk>wrote:

Shanahan
Fascinating discussion, gentlemen. It's helped me clarify some of the reasons why I got hooked on these newsgroups, and how they differ from the reasons I read/re-read the book. I rarely get involved in the discussions where the posters seek "to become historians and geographers of Middle Earth as if it had existed" (nice phrase, John). In fact, these discussions often make me impatient, and I skip them. So why the heck am I here, I ask myself...

John Swanson
I can see why you were taken aback, and when I see the fresh, keen interest in Tolkien flowing in the CotW-threads from intelligent people like you, Belba Grubb from Stock and lots of others, I almost feel ashamed of my (comparatively) blas? attitude.

Shanahan
...and this is why. To find a community of people who are passionately in love with this book, as I am. I have never found many people in RL with whom I can discuss Tolkien at any depth. I've read the book something more than 100 times, and there aren't very many people I meet on the street who can get into the details of it on a level that will satisfy me. But hey look, here they are! And they're intelligent! And they can write, some even without spelling errors! Immensely satisfying.

I think this is why I am impatient with the D&D-type power points discussions, and the was the Balrog subservient to Sauron or not discussions, etc. etc. etc. For me these discussions trivialize and distance me from Middle Earth. Is this at all what you meant by 'banalize'?

John Swanson
But certainly, there are no books that I have returned to as I have to LOTR. Normally I only read a book once or twice, with the exception of books that I read with my children.

Shanahan
When queried as to why the heck I would read a book over and over (usually by someone who is quietly inching away from me as they speak), they often say "You already know how it turns out!" Mindlessly teleological. I respond by asking them why they listen to certain pieces of music over and over. To me, it is the same thing. One does it, not to find out what happens, but because the work says something important, something that one needs to hear, in a way in which one wants to hear it. And in a work of sufficient complexity, say a great symphony or the Dune series, one can always find something new to "hear".