Taking a 30,000 Foot Look At It

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Ned’s choice of topic: rereading Tolkien. Tolkien was certainly aware of the power and pleasure of rereading familiar texts, and in a famous passage Frodo and Sam speculate about later hobbits might read and reread their own story from a future book. Talking about our own experience as rereaders – all of us having done so multiple times soon after we first read Tolkien, and then on a more measured but still regular basis in later years – also led us to invite our listeners to contribute their own experiences as well, making this perhaps our first at least partially collaborative episode yet (and we thank everyone once again for their thoughts, they were really great to read!). Does the fact there’s always a ‘you could/should be reading newer or unfamiliar work’ impulse kicking around have an impact on rereads, or does that prove to be less of a factor than might be guessed? How does one’s own personal experiences over time change or transform what we see in the text, or lead us to reconsider things we hadn’t felt directly before? What particular moments in our lives can prompt a reread or make us talk or think more directly about how a reread of Tolkien in particular can be just what was needed at that moment? What further perspectives did our listeners bring to this question, ranging from the sense that not everything will ever be fully understood to the experience of being a parent? And how great were Jared’s illustrations for his just-concluded reread via his Patreon? (Pretty great, of course!)