Popularity of LOTR... How sad...

[Mariska Greenleaf]

I have never forced any of my friends in reading the books, because if they really want to, they should make that decision themselves. Of course I praise the books whenever someone mentions the movies, but what they do with that information is up to them.

Sometimes it bothers me what commercial business Tolkien has become, but to be honest, the book hasn't changed, has it? It's still the same wonderful story, no matter what the movie made of it. If I'm confronted with "movie-people" who think they know all there is to know about the story and Tolkien, the only thing I can do is smile, and I just think by myself: "What do you know about a thing." It just doesn't matter to me.

I know what it means to me, how I feel about it, and that's enough.

I just wanna add that I do like the movies, I just consider them as a totally different thing, and that works just fine for me.