Since we recently finished the last book left from the Roald Dahl collection, it is now time to return to Middle Earth and into the world of Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves and Orcs. The Lord of the Rings is a bit different to The Hobbit however, as there is far more detail and lore brought into the story, and references to events that took place in a time far removed, so it is going to be interesting to see how Smallsteps connects with it. As we are reading it together though and I am quite familiar with the stories, it should make for a fun journey for us both.
Smallsteps is still trying to get her head around the writing of the books themselves, not for how long they are, rather that Tolkien created several languages and histories to build an entire world that doesn't exist. Of course, a lot of the races in the book bear resemblance to actual cultures, but still, it impresses me also, especially given the time. I am not that much of a LotR nerd to speak the languages or know all the lore by heart, but if you consider that all this complexity and the multiple layers that stack outside of and weave into the books was built and organised in someone's head and with paper and pen, it is pretty incredible.
The books themselves are relatively simplistic and don't have the level of character development that would be included today, but whenever I read them I keep in mind when they were written and that as far as mainstream literature went, they were ground-breaking. The first epic adventure in the fantasy genre.
Are they timeless?
Only time will tell, but they have held up for nearly a century now and people are still connected to them and new readers are connecting with them each generation. But I wonder, for how long these stories will remain part of culture, since a lot of kids are no longer reading books anymore. Sure, the movies are decent also, but there is an enormous difference in the way we connect with a story through film, than through reading and the self-created world it inspires in the imagination. I don't believe movies are anywhere near as sticky or compelling as when a person connects with a book, because other than time spent, the viewer has no skin in the game. The reader however, has to work for the story to appear, by building the world.
I believe that this is what is meant by the "read them fairy tales" quote by Einstein, because having to build an imaginary world filled with things that don't exist, requires deep problem solving skills and will help build the structure and processes required for finding solutions later in life. It isn't the story that makes a child smarter, it is the problem-solving practice they get while reading or listening - and they don't even know they are learning, training, perfecting.
Our imagination is an incredible tool - perhaps the most important tool we have as species - because it is through our imagination that we can not only problem-solve today, but predict a potential future and start problem solving before the problem even arises. That said, it doesn't mean we use our skills well or apply them to the right problems, but the potential is there.
I don't know if Smallsteps will connect with these books in the same way I did at her age, but I am hoping that at the very least, she gets a lot of practice world building, because we definitely need a new world built. And if we don't have the imagination to do anything other than what we currently have, then we are just going to keep doing the same thing over and over.
There are a lot of influential people in the world today with large platforms and even larger bank accounts, but I don't think we have people with enough imagination to build a better world. We all seem to be stuck in a cycle of wealth creation, even though it is taking us into a world that we do not want live upon. We don't even spend time imagining what a better world might be, let alone imagining and creating the pathways that can lead to it.
We want better, but we keep doing and accepting the same.
Smallsteps is worried that these books will be too scary for her. But while I do not think they will be, perhaps it is a good thing to get comfortable with scary thoughts, because if we don't, we will keep on thinking only what is safe, what is familiar, what doesn't change us.
Change is a constant.
It can be positive or negative change.
Taraz
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