They say to fall in love is to have your life irrevocably changed. Your perspective on the world is never quite the same anymore, and you will never forget that which you first loved.

J.R.R. Tolkien's wonderful magnum opus was my first literary love. It was also my original entry into 'adult' fiction, by far the longest work I had ever read, and a springboard leading me to the furthest reaches of modern literature - or at least further than the books of Enid Blyton that I had previously been reading. In terms of the overall experience of reading a book (and the after-effects), The Lord of the Rings remains the most rewarding for me.

Hmm... this is becoming a tad serious. This is completely the wrong tac to take with something so well-loved by myself as The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings
We must all know about what a wonderful creation Middle-Earth is, with its wealth of history, its own languages, and its immortal (as well as mortal) inhabitants so far removed from anything we know on this Earth. But all this wouldn't be half as fantastic if written by someone less skilled (for example, yours truly). His creation of the Elvish and Dwarven languages are huge feats in themselves, but his use of English to convey the story across to us is the thing that elevates this book above all others. He doesn't just use English as some crude tool to get his world onto the page and into our heads as fast as possible: his words are a part of his world, they are bound up with it, just as if an artist painting a field of daffodils were to use actual daffodils for the paint (if such a technique is possible).

But I owe more to J.R.R. Tolkien than just for the enjoyment of his book. Reading The Lord of the Rings did really open my eyes to the world and invite me to see it differently. I discovered linguistics through it, Finland and the Finnish language (although I never got beyond 'Hei' and am still yet to visit the country), and I discovered naturalism. I went from a little kid who toddled abound the place, not having a second thought for most of my surroundings, to a young man who had begun to look at trees as fellow living things, and to think about the possibilities of Socialism, and linguistics, and living in another world. I was already a dreamer, but The Lord of the Rings opened my horizons. I need to recapture that state; to elevate my mind; to dream; to live.

Word of the Week

Fantasy

fantasy n. & v. —n. 1 the faculty of inventing images, esp. extravagant or visionary ones. 2 a fanciful mental image; a day-dream. 3 a whimsical speculation. 4 a fantastic invention or composition; a fantasia. —v.tr. imagine in a visionary manner.

Definition courtesy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary

A toast: To dreaming and living!