Every so often, usually yearly, I take it into my head to read LOTR all the way through again. I can't recall ever skipping over certain sections, and I seem on each re-read to find small points to consider I'd never noticed before.

I've read the trilogy over a dozen times through in the last 37 years. Sometimes I'd glaze over (wouldn't call it "skipping") the Tom Bombadil bit, and sometimes glaze over the Treebeard bits on some of the readings. That said, I started reading parts of Unfinished Tales during my readings. I will read Disaster on Gladden Fields before I start, and read the Fords of Isen when I get to that part of the book. It's funny that the first Tolkien book I read was The Hobbit in 1975, but never found it necessary to ever read it again.

I've only read through twice... second time I skipped all the songs... I've tried rereading numerous times usually get through Two Towers before giving up though...

Don't get me wrong I LOVE Tlkien but he can be really really long winded sometimes...

Now the Hobbit on the other hand I've read at least 10 times

I skip Passages of the Dead & most of the chapters involving Gollum except when they meet Faramir and Sam's eavesdropping of the Orc captains after they take away Frodo's drugged body. Yes, that's huge chunks, but I've read the book about 20 times now, so not really 'missing' anything.

As several members have said I too have tended to skip the poems/songs desiring to get on with the story. In the Hobbit I used to find the songs of the elves and goblins too frivolous and Tom Bombadil in LotR similarly out of kilter. However, since listening to the BBC radio versions of the books I've found myself drawn to them, especially Sam's songs.

The fact Tom does not appear in any radio or film version has made him seem more important when reading and I realise now that his style is rather comparable to the elven songs in the Hobbit and the humming of Treebeard: fah la la lally.../hey dol dey dol.../hoom hom...
These poems sort of provide reference points; they point to one another across the two books in so much as they show the oldest races retaining the most childlike traits: ba ba, la la, ma ma, da da...

Maybe I'm just appreciating the childlike more because I'm getting older?

Some recent rock lyrics:


Then there is the tradition of nonsense verse in English, which is really quite long and respectable.


And some other writerly folks.


There is actually a very long tradition of nonsense words and rhymes and poems and I think Tolkien was tapping into that with his tra la la lally elves and Tom, and it's not all related to childish stuff.

So you are in good company, Ardent!:smokin:

Not so very recent, zippadeedoodah won the best original song Oscar in 1947
Bb you needvto getvdown with the kids like fascinating aida..

Thanks Bethberry.
I don't know if JRR put it this way but I do draw a distinction between the 'childish' and the 'childlike'.
Childlikeness suggests the joy of those who can be like children by choice.
Childishness suggests the ruling passion of those who know nothing else.

Tolkien certainly drew on both ideas as there is a mean childishness to the goblins in The Hobbit: Grib, grab! Pinch, nab! ...

I wouldn't consider the goblins good company even though they're fun to read about.

You are of course right and I suspect Tolkien was too wise not to see both sides of childhood. Your identification of the goblins as childish is very intriguing. (It's a trait we might also see in Lobelia, before she redeems herself in the Scouring of the Shire, perhaps.)

And if the goblins are the precursors to the orcs, then we have a perspective on orcish nature as well.

And welcome to the Downs, by the by.

Mith, I've split my sides laughing at Fascinating Aida. Thanks for the links (elsewhere). I do tend to think that anything in the twentieth century is recent, in comparison to some of the first nonsense stuff in Old English! :D

I tend to read through the Silmarillion in a heartbeat, till I get to Turambar. I don't know why, but that part always makes me pause and not pick it up for weeks on end.

But they aren' t usually classified as rock...:P just reminded me of my dad chuntering that you couldn't make out the words in modern stuff...but I shouldn't talk rather more of a baroque girl myself.