Entry tags:
Beginning an epic journey
I am probably going to be one of the few people not watching the Obama inauguration today. It's not because I don't want to - I've been waiting for a changing of the guard for years now, and I strongly support Obama - but my computer is bogged down as it cranks through millions of records of test data for a project. Watching streaming video, along with the rest of the world, is probably going to be more of a slideshow.
In other news, I'm undertaking a grand journey of sorts. As anyone who follows my Twitter feed knows, I recently started reading The Lord of the Rings again. The last time I tried tackling the series was in high school, and while I had no problems getting through Fellowship, the split narrative technique Tolkien used in Two Towers threw me off. I didn't want to wait until the second half of the book (actually Book 4) to find out what happened to Frodo and Sam, and it annoyed me enough that it put me off of finishing the series. It's actually the same problem I have with Wizard and Glass from the Dark Tower series; the flashback in the middle interrupts the main narrative, and I haven't been able to pick that book back up either. Hopefully, finishing LotR will get me back into reading that modern epic.
This particular copy of Lord of the Rings that I'm reading has special significance. It's my father's set of the books from when he was in college, printed back in October 1966. These ended up in my care, and they've had a spot of honor in my bookcase (complete with the original slipcase for all three paperbacks), but have been woefully unread save for some poking around in the many appendices. Not reading this series is a mistake I intend to correct, and I hope that this time around I'll succeed. There's so much good literature that I just haven't read, and I need to do more reading in general.
In other news, I'm undertaking a grand journey of sorts. As anyone who follows my Twitter feed knows, I recently started reading The Lord of the Rings again. The last time I tried tackling the series was in high school, and while I had no problems getting through Fellowship, the split narrative technique Tolkien used in Two Towers threw me off. I didn't want to wait until the second half of the book (actually Book 4) to find out what happened to Frodo and Sam, and it annoyed me enough that it put me off of finishing the series. It's actually the same problem I have with Wizard and Glass from the Dark Tower series; the flashback in the middle interrupts the main narrative, and I haven't been able to pick that book back up either. Hopefully, finishing LotR will get me back into reading that modern epic.
This particular copy of Lord of the Rings that I'm reading has special significance. It's my father's set of the books from when he was in college, printed back in October 1966. These ended up in my care, and they've had a spot of honor in my bookcase (complete with the original slipcase for all three paperbacks), but have been woefully unread save for some poking around in the many appendices. Not reading this series is a mistake I intend to correct, and I hope that this time around I'll succeed. There's so much good literature that I just haven't read, and I need to do more reading in general.