I ordered an old single-volume paperback of The LOTR, via WOB (World of Books), prob via Amazon. It lists 17 previous similar single/volume paperback editions, the last being 1977. I don’t know if this means this is a 17th edition, or poss’ the 18th?
Anyway, I got this ‘cause, albeit perhaps not the exact same edition, this is very much in the style of – it looks and feels the same, basically – the one I first owned and read, as a child. Inside, very near the back of the book, I found a slip of paper (pictured below); perhaps used as a bookmark by the original owner/reader?
Rather happily/amazingly (like the oh so convenient clues in a Poirot or Holmes mystery) it’s dated very specifically, 16/4/82. Looks like it’s a strip torn from a photocopy of a technical drawing!?
I turned ten on January the 5th, 1982. With a rather beautiful synchronicity, at least to my mind, and although I didn’t know it back then, I share my birthday with the illustrious J.R.R. himself, no less! And it was around that age that, having already read The Hobbit, I first started reading The Lord of the Rings.
I’ve talked about that elsewhere, no doubt on several occasions. I was very proud to be a precocious or advanced reader. Is that a bit pathetic? Maybe. But I can’t help it now. I’m still a bit that way, i.e. conceited about my supposed ‘erudition’!
I had to collect this book from the local sorting/delivery branch of the PO. Twice they’d tried to deliver. And, to their credit (and with better professionalism than is often the case), they’d left those red attempted delivery slips, all properly filled. Most unusual (the latter part esp’)!
I was of course in, on both occasions. But quite possibly catatonic, having lain awake till around about 5am the previous night. This is quite regular and ‘normal’ for me, at present. And, not to put to fine a point on it, it’s f*cking awful!
Anyways, I collect the book, three Zopiclone tablets from the Boots pharmacy at Tesco (plus an English breakfast lunch and a few pizzas for our dinner), and dispose of a broken Breville sandwich-maker at the dump.
Back home there’s the endless Sisyphus style tasks of de-cluttering, cleaning, and re-arranging our home, with a view to letting a room. As exhausted as I always am, thanks both to severe chronic depression and my totally screwed sleep cycles, such tasks get harder and harder.
Just now, for instance, it felt like a Herculean task just emptying, cleaning and re-stocking (thinned down) our two cutlery drawers. So much so I’m now typing this on a break from said doings.
I’m still managing to avoid booze and other temptations. That must count for something, surely? And yet I feel no sense of joy or accomplishment, alas. Just a dead leaden depression.
When I’m teaching – only my Wednesday teaching really remains, and that’s severely depleted, I feel like – or rather I know – I’m losing my skills (both teaching and drumming itself), through lack of practise. And music as a whole area of my life seems like an oppressive weighty burden of failure.
So a few simple pleasures get leaned upon, for solace. I binged on snooker for a spell. Then I replaced that obsession with tennis (mostly but not only Wimbledon). And now, having just finished re-reading The Hobbit, I feel inclined to re-read The Lord of the Rings. Hence this nostalgic purchase.
I’ve actually got quite a few editions of the LOTR trilogy. Mostly in proper separate three-volume trilogy format. But I rather fancy the physical and aesthetic prospect of re-reading this old George Allen & Unwin single volume paperback version. My only concern is that it may well, just as my old copy did, simply fall to bits.