The Journey Is About To Begin...Again

When I first started this site over two years ago, I had no idea if I would finish the journey that I began. At times, it was tough to stick to the road and at other times the posts flowed as easily as the Fellowship's Elvish boats down the Anduin. With the release of Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" on DVD, the last wave of publicity for the film project rippled across the world bringing yet more readers to the original work who had never experienced it before. Interest in J.R.R. Tolkien's magnum opus was still at a fever pitch. And surprisingly, some of those readers found their way here. I got lots of great feedback and encouragement from visitors.

Since then, the fever has subsided in the wake of other media phenomena like the "Harry Potter" books and films. And my subsequent browsing trips through the book stores found fewer and fewer Tolkien volumes on the shelves. Where once I had found whole stacks dedicated to the works of Middle-Earth, I noticed a slow reduction to a few shelves. And before you could say "A Elbereth, Githoniel" the various books became seemingly absorbed into the rows of the general sci-fi/fantasy sections.

I'd figured at that point that this site's traffic - especially with such sparse updates - would plummet, reflecting the gradual waning of interest in "The Lord of the Rings".

"Anyone home?"

But something interesting happened. The hits kept coming. Certainly they were reduced in number but that number stayed fairly steady. They came mostly from Google searches from all over the globe looking for references to characters, place names and even quotes. Every so often the page view numbers of some visitors would amount to dozens in one trip. Among the hundreds of "drive-by" hits there were many who stayed and sat a while, clicking from chapter to chapter. And a project that I considered pretty much behind me had still proven to be a resource where readers were interested in reading about what another fan had to say about these books.

So I decided to nibble a little at "Unfinished Tales". And as with the research I did for the chapter posts, I found myself learning so much that I didn't know.

Now, I'm heading into that time of year where this Tolkien Geek returns to the world he's visited so many times before. While I usually wait for Labor Day weekend, I'm starting a little sooner since I'm taking a vacation. And when I take the time to unwind with something to read I really want to start with phrases like "Concerning Hobbits".

As I go through once again, I will keep my mind open to new thoughts and ideas that may find their way into the existing posts. It may be that I end up turning a particular topic over enough in my head and decide to write a separate post on it. Most certainly I will be adding cross-links to other non-chapter posts and those that I wrote about "Unfinished Tales" as reference points for those looking for more background information.

In any case, I invite you all once again to dust off your copies of "The Fellowship of the Ring" and head out with me again. Be sure to pack plenty of lembas bread.

UPDATE:
Going forward, I will be reposting my original entries over the next two months or so. I will feature a new one (in sequence) every couple of days. The links between all the posts remain intact. I'm just changing the dates to bump them to the top. Enjoy.