Revisiting childhood favorites has been agony and ecstasy for me. Recently I reviewed several old fantasy movies and was alternately horrified and gratified, sometimes by the same films. My childhood adoration of The Last Unicorn, Labyrinth, and Dragonslayer was clearly misplaced. An adult perspective on those films just exposed the depths of my childhood naivete. On the other hand, I've gained new respect for Legend, which informed the creation of one of the greatest game series of all time (The Legend of Zelda) and remains visually and conceptually stunning even in this CG age. I found more to like in The Dark Crystal as well. Still, both are valuable mostly as visual and technical spectacles, and don't have much to say beyond the artistry of their creation.

Once the shiny newness has worn off and we become more experienced (and jaded), all that remains is the substance of what it is that we're reading or watching. Something like The Hobbit opens young eyes to adventure, imagination, bravery, and good and evil. But the essence of the novel is very simple, straightforward, and unrevealing. There's a call to adventure, wacky hijinks ensue, our heroes fall into a brief period of darkness followed by a triumph and a return. Everything else is imaginative worldbuilding. You could say similar things about Beowulf, Star Wars, and Harry Potter. These stories have value in that they tell us about our fantasies, ideals, and aspirations, and even a little bit about our more admirable qualities. But ultimately, these stories tend to appeal more to the optimism and inexperience of youth. Those of us in hoary age appreciate the familiarity, but perhaps not the essence of these stories.

What was most interesting - and was only mentioned in your Strange Horizons column - was the comment, "Unfortunately, some have been quite disappointed, finding little in supposed "classics" other than a sketch that an active young imagination embroidered with all the interesting details." When it comes to re-reading any book, its ability to capture our 're-imagination' would seem to be a crucial criterion for finding new depth in it. As we grow, various details of a book take on different significances for us - (I'm always pained when I find notes in the margin that I pencilled in 10 years ago and think to myself 'I must have been an idiot to think that') - but these new significances are only possible when the author has given us the right imaginative tools to work with.

Over the years, I've found that Ursula K. Le Guin mastered this technique most prominently. Unlike Tolkien who historicized and generated a "world" into which he inserted characters such as Bilbo and Frodo, I've found Le Guin's technique far more inviting to the imagination: she simply takes a character (such as Ged) for a 'walk' and asks him what he sees, what he desires, and how he feels about it - and that becomes her novel. What is lacking, I've found, in the Lord of the Rings trilogy are the 'hooks' for re-imagination - Tolkien is far more likely to describe a scene in painstaking detail than to hand over the brush to the reader and let their imaginations do the work. It seems that the Lord of the Rings trilogy did run dry for you - the world simply lost its feeling. I will be re-reading those books soon (they always seem like a good Spring read) and I hope that they do not lose their colours for me too.

Hi James!

An interesting thing about The Hobbit is that the ring seems unimportant, a mere trinket, precisely because that's what it was back then. Tolkien basically re-wrote that part in order for the invisibility ring to become "The Ring" in LOTR, and it shows. I hear first editions of The Hobbit have no tie-in to LOTR at all.

I think they are cool books, but of course, you can read them so many times before they lose their charm.

What is your opinion about guys like Moorcock, who basically thinks LOTR is pretentious crap written by an "aristocratic" writer?

--Android

I was very much enamoured of Tolkien's books when I was younger, and have also re-read the books a number of times - though not annually (as some people do, almost religiously) and not anywhere near 20 to 25 times. I most recently re-read them in the wake of Peter Jackson's movie adaptations.

At first The Hobbit and LOTR were the best things ever, then later I started to become more critical of them (my eyes were initially opened to criticisms of Tolkien's work in the article Epic Pooh by Michael Moorcock.) However, I eventually came back around to appreciating Tolkien's work for its good qualities, without expecting any more from it. One author can't be expected provide the perfect work - that's why other authors pick up the pen and create other books for us to read.

Mostly, I think I've been able to appreciate and re-appreciate both the Hobbit and LOTR because of the gaps between reading and re-reading them. The gaps provided enough time for me to change(and possibly to forget some things) between readings - since obviously the books aren't going to change. I think that your disatisfaction with Tolkien might just be as simple as that you have read these books way too much. I think you need to wait at least 7 to 10 years before you try reading them again.

I definitely see that Tolkien has some shortcomings as a writer, but LOTR remains a remarkable book. It basically created a new genre of adult "fantasy" fiction, separate from science-fiction and adventure stories. While I'm not sure if LOTR should fall in the cannon of "literature", it certainly isn't "pulp" either. (I like both, by the way!)

A re-read can function as an entirely different exercise than a first read. Sometimes we re-read to remind ourselves about what it was that we loved, or hated, or simply didn't understand the first time around. Often, we pick up something we missed. Occasionally, we discover that the magic was in our heads, not in the prose; sometimes, rarely, it works the other way around.

I am actually surprised that xyzzy lumps Beowulf, Star Wars and Harry Potter in together with LOTR. Beowulf doesn't even really come from a textual tradition - it originated in an oral tradition and was preserved in a language we don't even speak anymore. It seems unfair to label it as childish or escapist. It is more rightly compared (even if compared negatively) to something like The Illiad or The Odessey. And it really doesn't stike me as a terribly optimistic story, either.

On the other hand, I can't see Harry Potter as having the same enduring appeal as LOTR. I have tried to read that series but stopped with the third book. Everything after the first book seemed derivative and uninspiring. People tell me I should read the later books, that they are more mature, but to me they just look bigger, not smarter or more substantial.

I can, however, see the comparison of LOTR to Star Wars (the original movies) and how they might be the cinematic equivalent of LOTR - drawing on earlier myths and sources to create something new and fantastic. They also helped define a new kind of fantastic storytelling and inspired a host of imitators - and a host of fans who continue to recreate and re-enact the stories in various ways.