Movie release stirs fond memories

Advertiser Staff

If you weren't the right age to have experienced the "Lord of the Rings" phenomenon on its first go-round, you may not realize what a profound impact it had. In the 1950s in England, and the '60s here, the long-haired, guitar-strumming, tie-dye-wearing generation made an unprecedented best seller of this obscure fantasy adventure. There were at least two dozen different editions, from paperbacks to leather-bound sets. People named their dogs Frodo and their kids Galadriel. They learned to write in runes. An entire generation could quote the verse about the "three rings to rule them all, and in darkness bind them," knew what a "precious" was and how many meals a day a hobbit likes to eat. And still remembers.

We talked to some residents who lived through the Era of the Ring:

'The Hobbit' was actually the first book I read on my own without being ordered to or having to for school. I just fell into it and was carried away. I wasn't even aware of the trilogy until I finished that and I was so glad there was more. I just loved it. I wanted to be a hobbit. I wanted to live in a little cave with my slippers and my pipe and everything warm and cozy and fuzzy."

Writer and architect Bob Rodin
Who can't wait to see the movie with his children

I was brought up on Celtic and other mythologies and this man, this fabulous fella, was knee-deep in language — Norse, Teutonic, Celtic and everything else — and what I think he's done really, he's the equivalent of Homer. He created a whole world, a brilliant realization of a world: maps, language, peoples, traditions ... If you do this the way he's done, you make Dickens look silly or Sir Walter Scott — they were just looking back at history. He brought it all out of his own noodle. ... He had an incredible intellect as well as a fantastic imagination. It's just glorious!"

Actor and drama professor Terence Knapp
Who read the books as a young actor in Liverpool in 1959

I read them in a day when there was no such thing as a fantasy section in the bookstore. If you asked for fantasy, it was 'Yeah, those three books over there. That's our fantasy section.' And it was 'Lord of the Rings.' The extraordinary thing is that Tolkien worked on these things over a 20-year period, and he actually developed an entire culture before he even had a word on paper. ... That's what strikes people: It's just so fully realized. It's not 'Oh, let's run from this monster and that monster,' your typical escapist episodic adventure. It is a wholly realized experience of another world."

Comic collector and dealer Ted Mays
Who decided not to re-read the books so he could appreciate the movie

I was this little would-be hippie back then, living in Honolulu, shopping at India Imports and wearing patchouli oil, and I heard about the books from this cute guy at Sandy's in the summer of 1966. I made my mother buy. She got them at Honolulu Book Shops and then she didn't see me literally for days: I was in my room reading and eating kakimochi. I never saw that cute guy again, but I am grateful to him. I think the thing that got me was ... I was very disillusioned, the Vietnam War and all that, and somehow these books let me get totally away, into a world where there were very clear-cut good guys and bad guys, and you knew in the end everything would be all right."

Artist and homemaker Pua Kiley of Maui
Who will see the movie with kakimochi (and grandchildren)