Elvisse the Blue:
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It was then that the bitter realization dawned on me: The book is over! . . . I swear, one of the most painful feelings I have ever experienced was coming to the end of a wonderful book. . . and at a second/ third reading you discover new things and cherish the already known ones, but it cannot be compared with the feeling . . . when one is absorbed for the first time in a book. That 'being caught up in the heat of the events' feeling is rarely experienced a second time.
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You know, this sounds like rites of passage where we arrive at a place in which we very much want to be, then leave having been changed forever. An awareness of something lost and something gained--loss of a particular innocence, gain of a certain wisdom.
I cherish the experience of my first reading of
The Hobbit and LotR--on the edge of my seat, laughing, wondering, crying, and long moments of wondering about things I didn't know the name of yet. I still recall the passages that gifted me with such experiences each time I read the books. They've all been mentioned here. But there is one passage that moves me the same now as it did the first time--it gathers the emotion and energy of my self-world awareness and quietly brings them to a small, still point that pierces me each time I read it. It's been mentioned, too, but I would like to quote the passage here in full.
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And so Gollum found them hours later, when he returned, crawling and creeping down the path out of the gloom ahead. Sam sat propped against the stone, his head dropping sideways and his breathing heavy. In his lap lay Frodo's head, drowned deep in sleep; upon his white forehead lay one of Sam's brown hands,and the other lay softly upon his master's breast. Peace was in both their faces.
Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes, and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee--but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing.
But at that touch Frodo stirred and cried out softly in his sleep, and immediately Sam was wide awake. The first thing he saw was Gollum-- 'pawing at maser,' as he thought.
'Hey you!' he said roughly. 'What are you up to?'
'Nothing, nothing,' said Gollum softly. 'Nice Master!'
'I daresay,' said Sam. 'But where have you been to--sneaking off and sneaking back, you old villain?'
Gollum withdrew himself, and a green glint flickered under his heavy lids. Almost spider-like he looked now, crouched back on his bent limbs, with his protruding eyes. The fleeting moment had passed, beyond recall.
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When you put anyone of any age in that scene who still harbors a spark of energy to struggle for light amidst relentless assaults of the dark . . .
This is just one of many instances where Tolkien mastered the elements of fantasy to exemplify the realities of life. It just doesn't get more real than in that passage.