Rekindling an Old Flame

When I was little you would be hard pressed to find me without a book. I was constantly reading, to the point that the only thing I ever asked for on my birthday was books (usually Redwall books). I absolutely adored reading. I don't know what I would be now if I hadn't had such an endless appetite for stories.

Fast forward a few years to my now college-muddled brain. I just haven't been reading as much. It takes more brain power than college leaves me with. Sure, I read books for school (I am an English minor, after all) but I never got the same joy out of them that I remember getting when I was little. It used to be that I would be utterly absorbed in a story and would be unable to leave the book until it was finished. I devoured stories as fast as I could. But in college even the rare books I did enjoy didn't capture my attention the way they once could. Was it the amount of school work? Was it the lack of energy? Was it the books themselves? Really, I think it was a mixture of all of the above. But I never read anything for fun and I just turned to Netflix for my adventures in other lands.

Then summer break came and I decided I wanted to read again. I picked up Julia Child's My Life In France and while I enjoyed it, I still wasn't captivated by it. I'm still only a fourth of the way through and haven't picked it up in weeks. Whoops. But finally, right as I began to despair of ever experiencing reading the same way again, Tolkien's Beowulf arrived in the mail. I have always loved the story of Beowulf and couldn't wait to dig in. The story itself was wonderful and the commentary was very enlightening but it was still more scholarly than anything. Not exactly transport-you-to-another-world reading. Until I got to Sellic Spell.

Honestly I haven't read anything so enjoyable in a very long time. Sellic Spell is Tolkien's retelling of what Beowulf might have been like if the poet hadn't combined it with history. In other words, if he had left the myth the way it originally was. It's the story of Beewolf, the bear-man with the strength of thirty men, Handshoe, his friend with magical gloves, Ashwood, the bold man with a powerful spear, and Unfriend, the sinister traitor in their midst. It read like a fairy tale and I read the whole thing (admittedly not very long) in one sitting. I should have known that if anyone could rekindle my love for reading it would be Tolkien. When I finished Beowulf I found myself in desperate need of a new book and as soon as possible. Thankfully I had just the thing waiting for me on my shelf. I received the Chronicles of Prydain for my graduation from some wonderful friends who have a great taste in books. They had been telling me to read the series for a while and, well I already told you that I never got around to reading. Now was my chance. I picked up the first one (I had read it once before, two years ago) and finished it in two days. It was every bit as enjoyable as I had hoped. The characters are delightful, the descriptions are vividly beautiful and it's just short enough that I can finish it in no time (maybe I won't appreciate that at the end when I'll inevitably wish it could go on forever).

Now, all I can think about is all the books on my summer reading list and how eagerly I want to read them. Since I've been on a King Arthur kick ever since Merlin, the next books on my list are the Dark is Rising Sequence which is another series I started and never finished (boy, it's embarrassing to admit how little I could focus with college looming over my shoulder).

I guess all of this is to say, in a long drawn out way, that Tolkien's Beowulf has managed to break a two year spell that had me in it's grasp ever since college started, and has rekindled an old flame. Netflix, you're still a great companion, but boy have I missed my books.