What a fun topic,
davem! There's another Tolkien reference to something similar in
Smith of Wootton Major - the fairy queen on the Great Cake:
Quote:
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Better a little doll, maybe, than no memory of Faery at all. For some the only glimpse. For some the awaking.
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If anything in particular paved the way for LotR for me, it was probably the reading of fairy tales as a child. After all, many of them are short story versions of quests, and there are dragons, talking animals, kings and queens, magical items - and fairies! I read a lot of "advanced" fairy tales after the usual assortment of Grimm's etc. - international or literary stories that took me away from the familiar world of folk tales.
What also prepared me for an epic tale of this magnitude was the fact that I began reading huge historical novels in my early teens. LotR does read like an historical story, and anyone who has already read
War and Peace can't be fazed by a mere 1000 pages or so...
Of course, I read LotR at a later age than many others here, and 'The Council of Elrond' was fascinating, not boring to me!