What I'm getting out of the Books is the very will to survive. Right now, I have so many problems (exam week, evil parents, a horribly confusing love life, etc.) and I'm so stressed out that life just doesn't seem worth living any more. I also lost someone who was dearer to me than life itself, you could call him the Pippin to my Merry. After a while, life just doesn't seem worth living.
I recently started re-reading LotR to keep myself from dwelling on my problems, and somehow, bit by bit, it's given me the strengh to struggle on, to live for the freedom I will get, to live for the woman I will become, to live for the people whose lives I will change. As I read about Frodo's gradual decline, I see some of himself in me. I feel that hopeless despair, that drags you down like a boulder around your neck. But along with Sam, I try to hold on to hope. I try to hold on to the hope that one day, this darkness will pass, and the sun will shine out the clearer. I try to hold on to the belief that the good left in this world is worth fighting for, even worth dying for.
A truly great work of literature is, in my opinion, one that truly influences the lives of its readers. It is a treasury open to all, where rich and poor alike can take their own gem from it. The gem that I received from the Books is keeping me alive, and is keeping people alive all over the world, I imagine. Now is that not a truly great work?
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But Melkor also was there, and he came to the house of Fëanor, and there he slew Finwë King of the Noldor before his doors, and spilled the first blood in the Blessed Realm; for Finwë alone had not fled from the horror of the Dark.
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