lord of the rings

Comic updated today

Jeff and I went for dim sum at King's Garden Chinese Cuisine with Jen, Bryan and Christine yesterday. Yummmm. Christine and I are going to be collaborating on a personal project, by the way...more details soon. ;-)


After stuffing ourselves on shrimp dumplings and steamed pork buns, Jeff and I went to see Bridget Jones's Diary at the Paramount. Allison and a few other friends had recommended this movie. LOVED it. Especially liked Renée Zellweger. Does anyone know if her accent was faked? Being unfamiliar with the actress, I looked her up on The Internet Movie Database -- and found out she had grown up in Texas!


A question about faked British accents in North American movies...are these obvious to you genuine Brits? If so, how do they come across? Obnoxious? Stuffy? Side-splitting hilarious?


But I digress from my intended topic of today's Blathering: THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I never finished reading this trilogy. I did actually try once when I was much younger, and got within the last 50 pages or so of the third book. Then I got distracted, and never came back. My Tolkien-loving friends were incredulous and scandalized. "How can you POSSIBLY stop reading it so close to the end??" To tell you the truth, I found LOTR pretty dry, with dull characters and an interminably plodding plot.


Before you Tolkienites start hurling big rocks at my head, however, you should know that I've decided that I might have been wrong about the book. Maybe I tried reading it at the wrong time in my life. Maybe I went in with too high expectations. Maybe I had indigestion. Anyway, I'm going to give it another shot, and to post mini-reports after each chapter. I got the idea from Allison, who recently told me about a similar project on a Tolkien site, by a "Tolkien virgin" reading the books for the very first time.


Why publicly document the process? Because I figure I'm more likely to finish the books that way. Plus I figure it would be intriguing to get feedback from others who have read (or attempted to read (or who are determined never to read)) the books along the way. My goal is to finish reading the trilogy by the time the movie comes out in December. I'm going to start reading the book in a few days, when Jeff and I head off to the cottage for most of May.


Posting reports in my Blatherings, however, would involve heavy spoilers for those who haven't yet read LOTR. So I've set up a separate section, which I hope to update on a regular basis. Like my comic strip, I will post links to updates on my Blatherings so you'll know when I've managed to get through another chapter. Feel free to check out this new section:




Reading LORD OF THE RINGS

...A Final Attempt




I've posted the URL on my links page. For the sake of those who aren't LOTR fans, I'd appreciate detailed LOTR comments being posted on that message board rather than in Blatherchat, thanks. :-)


Today's Blatherpic:

With Jeff, Jennifer, Bryan, and Christine.


Link of the Day:

Dancing Paul.


Poll:

Have you read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy?