middle-earth maniac

while browsing through the shelves of kinokuniya last month for some read-worthy material, i picked up The Battle for Middle-earth, a literary commentary which aims to prove that LOTR is a theological narrative.

in the book, the author paints JRR Tolkien as a deeply religious writer and draws many parallelisms between LOTR and the Bible.

the observations were most interesting. plus it made a fair bit of sense. (i'm not a christian though my 10 years in catholic school exposed me to the old and new testaments in the Bible.)

it was the sort of analytical stuff that i had to plough through over a decade ago when i was an english literature undergraduate. back then, of course, the stress was to complete the readings in a short span of time.

not surprisingly, it's reignited my interest in the original novel. i'm ashamed to admit that while i'd picked up The Hobbit when i was 13, i found it quite a frightful bore then. peter jackson's magical print-to-screen treatment of LOTR hooked me completely. i vividly recall rushing to buy the books just before (or is it after?) The Two Towers hit the cinemas in december 2002.

ahhhhh...

all this nostalgia has prompted me to reach for the yellowed copy of the first LOTR volume The Fellowship of the Rings, which i'm re-reading now at leisure - lingering on every word, phrase and description, savouring the text in its entirety.

i don't think i'll EVER grow bored of LOTR, be it the novels, films, toys or memorabilia.