December brings with it a desire to read Tolkien. For years now, a holiday season ritual of mine has been to return to The Hobbit and The Lord of Rings.
I think this began in December of 2001 when Peter Jackson's films began to come out. I was a freshman at Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio at the time, but I was home for break. Everyone was still reeling from the September 11th horror. I remember I saw the first Peter Jackson adaptation with my father, uncle, and brothers. The sequence of Gandalf the Grey seemed to key into so much of my anxiety at the time, centered not just on 9/11 but on my still fresh new experiences as a college freshmen. This image of a solitary grey pilgrim standing before a smoking demon gave simplistic allegorical shape to what I was feeling like at the time.
After watching the movie--which blew me away--I started reading through the books, book I hadn't read since early high school. I don't think I finished reading The Lord of the Rings, stalling somewhere at the point after the Battle of Helm's Deep and the beginning of the domestication of Gollum. But of course I made my way through The Hobbit. It's such a quick read! An elegant little book!
The following year, when Peter Jackson's version of The Two Towers came out, I felt compelled to try the cycle again. This time I finished in full both the LOTR and The Hobbit. I saw the second movie. I was thrilled by the battle of Helm's Deep. And I guess I didn't realize it at the time, but I had established a kind of tradition. The following December, as the release of Jackson's Return of the King approached, I re-read LOTR and The Hobbit. Since then, I've read this books every December.
It is very satisfying, going on this journey over and over. I don't know why. People who have "high" literary tastes will probably raise an eyebrow at this need to read and re-read, at this this spiral that might appear to be a pathological compulsion to repeat and experience something over and over. How many times does the One Ring need to destroyed until we've vanquished the Dark Lord?
In any case, the work of J.R.R. Tolkien has become associated in my mind with December, with the end of a long year. When Frodo and Sam and Gollum finally reach the crack of doom, my year is over, and it's ready to return to the Shire and start the whole thing over again.
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