hat’s this page all about? Well, it’s what I’m calling the ‘booky’ page, and it might not have so much to do with the film. I’m going to invite people to join me in a kind of general musing about Tolkien and ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and books and fantasy writing.

I can’t claim that this is in any way a methodical well-researched study; it merely arose out of a desire to find out more about this phenomenon that has invaded my life since its abrupt collision with the idea of having a LOTR website. I mean, I’m not yet seeing the Ring in my waking dreams like a wheel of fire against my closed eyelids, but it is taking up more of my life than anyone could have predicted. There had better be a good reason why! What makes Tolkien’s ‘The Lord of the Rings’ worth all this effort?

Another reason for this page is that sometimes there there just isn’t a lot of news about the LOTR film project and we’ve got to find something else to occupy our minds besides the Connery/Keanu thing and the Great Soundtrack Debate. Much as we’d like to know everything that WingNut Films and WETA are doing, it might not be such a bad thing that we can’t. Because:

"…Bees, when they build cells, Do not let one observe them either, And do not observe themselves. When the rich honeycombs Have been brought to daylight, Then, before anyone, you shall taste them."

"Bienen, wenn sie Zellen bauen, Lassen auch nicht zu sich schauen, Schauen selbst auch nicht zu. Wenn die reichen Honigwaben Sie zu Tag gefoerdert haben Dann vor allen nasche du!"

What?! Poetry? And in another language? I can feel I’m losing most of my audience right here! Twitchy mouse-fingers hitting the little top righthand X en masse! Goodbye!

Just as well, they would only be bored and irritated by the rest of this page and it’ll only get worse if I get revved up about Old English or something.

We could kick off first with a look at what might have fired up Tolkien’s imagination.

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