JR & JRRT

When Kevin Drum confessed that he wasn't blogging much over the weekend on account of the arrival of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows he got a lot of grief from the usual suspects who couldn't resist the chance to say how much they despised the books and those who liked them.

Your mileage may vary, I suppose, and it would probably be a dull world if everybody had the same tastes, but I always suspect that those who despise such things are missing a piece of their souls - doubtless tucked into a Horcrux somewhere.

I was an initial skeptic, and not just about Jo Rowling. I was a young adult who had just graduated from college and been drafted into the army when I first encountered Tolkien, and as a science fiction fan, had a deep distrust of swords and sorcery fantasy. Still, it was already clear in 1966 that Tolkien was going to be big, so I consulted an expert, my old high school debate partner who had gone on to become president of the MIT science fiction society. When he assured me that JRRT was the real deal, I dared to buy the The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring - I didn't want to commit the resources needed to buy all four books.

I got to my first posting, to an isolated Fort in the SouthWest, I was already well into The Fellowship and well and truly hooked. The PX there didn't carry the books, but while I was in the transient barracks I ran into another soldier who had had book two and only book two in Vietnam. He was as anxious to find out how the story started as I was to find out how it continued, so we worked out a trade.

I have read the books many times since, including aloud to my wife and later to my children, and was grouchy about but not outraged by the Peter Jackson movies. I encountered many fantasy works in the meantime but none that drew me in. By the time I was an old guy, I was thoroughly skeptical that any fantasy beyond Tolkien could be any good. My wife taught grade school though, so she was tuned into kid culture, and by the time Potter started to become a phenomenon - book three? - she was assuring me that it wasn't bad. A few chapters later, I was hooked again.

I have since read and reread the first six books, and have now completed book seven. I think it's great and a fitting conclusion, though she cetainly laid on the carnage in book seven.

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