Lord of the Rings is such a vast and epic topic, where to even begin? And what can I write about it that hasn’t been written about it yet? I’d just like to share my own personal experience with this work of art, as I do so often here in this blog.

I first became fully aware of the Lord of the Rings around 2000 or 2001, as the marketing for the first movie was starting to gain momentum. I was but a naïve teenager back then and I had very little contact with these books aside from having seen them on my brother’s bookshelf (which I loved to rummage about as a kid). I watched the first movie in the cinema with my mother, but then in 2002 I was truly drawn in because my then-best-friend was a huge fan and got me hooked. Together, we collected Kinder Surprise Eggs figures and Sticker Album stickers. And obviously, we went to see the movies at the cinema together – the third movie we saw in an all-day double feature, which was quite a test of endurance. I believe they were in German though, as that was a few years before I just categorically stopped watching dubbed movies.

2002 or 2003 must also have been the year when I first read the Lord of the Rings books. I’m not 100% sure, but I think I read the German copies of my brother back then. And back then, I did not find those books particularly good or exciting. On the contrary, my teenager self back then found them rather tedious and boring at times. I also found the language that the books used very quaint and off-putting, which tended to distract me during the reading process. This however, might have been greatly amplified by the fact that I read a translated version which probably doesn’t do the original justice. I always thought the books were okayish, but that’s about it.

Then, for over 20 years, I strayed out of thought and time, and I wandered far on roads. I trained to be a media designer and web developer. I studied English literature and linguistics. I travelled to many, many places all around the world. I visited Middle Earth itself, aka New Zealand. I got a PhD. I lived and learned.

And I watched the trilogy at least 12 times in those 20+ years. Those movies remain absolute masterpieces of modern cinema. The passion that went into making those movies is visible in every minute detail. It’s absolutely gorgeous to look at. Every character is spot-on. It’s 100% genuine, and it does not suffer from the present day money-mongering that ruins so many productions today1.

After our last annual rewatch during Christmas break, my partner2 kept asking me questions about the events in the series and the lore. Having recently rediscovered reading as a hobby, I then spontaneously decided to re-read the books3.

I was immediately blown away by how amazing these books are. I don’t think there’s much I can say that you probably don’t know already. These books are a masterpiece. The writing is absolutely superb. The worldbuilding is the best there ever was in fantasy. The characters all serve a purpose. What I found tedious as a teenager, I now found super interesting and enlightening.

Reading these books is truly like diving into a fully fledged world, and I think what really makes them feel so alive is that Tolkien created an entire universe with a very thorough mythology for them, as well as its own languages and writing systems, all of which are now iconic. Everything that came after this masterpiece is derivative of it, and I don’t think anything ever had such a gigantic impact on an entire genre.

What I realized in re-reading Lord of the Rings after 20+ years, is that sometimes you just need to live your life for a couple of decades and grow and learn as person before you can truly appreciate something. As a teenager, having grown up fairly isolated in a backwards village, I clearly had other priorities and interests. I was not mature or educated enough to really understand them (though to some degree, as I said, this might also have been because I read them in German).

If you, like me, tried reading these books in the past but gave up, or if you keep hearing that they’re tedious and boring, then I can recommend to not listen to the nay-sayers and/or maybe wait a decade or two and try again. Your experience will very likely be vastly different, which is true of every book you re-read. And this one is definitely the best of the best.