Why do you keep at it?

[Folwren]

I don't know exactly why I keep coming back. Well . . . the funny thing is, and please don't be too shocked, but a year and a half ago, on May 5th, in fact, I put away the LotR books and pictures and have sworn not to open them until May 5th 2007. I have read the Sil. since then, so I have come back to ME. I don't know what is about his works that draw me in. It's. . .it's knowing that when I open the book, my hope to be taken to someplace else (why else would one read a book?), to be amused, to have the pity and emotion drawn out of me towards characters, to not be insulted by things in the books, and lots of other qualities and expectations are going to be fulfilled.

It's the quality of the writing mixed in with the amazing imagination and story and world. His characters so wonderfully painted and yet. . .not painted to the point that you can't come to some conclusion about them yourself. (For instance, did you ever notice that he never entirely explains the looks of his characters? His good ones, anyway. He leaves the construction of their face to the reader, dropping helpful hints along the way.)

I dunno. It's just charming, the way he wrote all this books. They're really moving.

And all that was very not clear, I think. It's too late for me to be writing something like this.

-- Folwren