LotR re-read: Swanwick, "A Changeling Returns"

A last, for now, critical piece in service of preparing to resume the Lord of the Rings re-read, this time a skim through Meditations on Middle-earth, edited by Karen Haber. Most of the pieces are personal reminsciences or discussions of Tolkien's influence on the field, and thus there's not much for me to say about them. I was a little surprised, though, at how many people talked about being enthralled from the first page, considering how slow I'm finding the opening now. I wonder if this is a time-and-place thing? (I first read LotR so long ago that I can't remember what I felt when I successfully read it; also, it was during the phase when I would read anything. I do recall trying it a few years before and being bored, but I was somewhere around five years old, so this is hardly substantial literary criticism.)

I'd already read Ursula K. Le Guin's essay "Rhythmic Pattern in The Lord of the Rings," and I skipped Orson Scott Card's essay and the discussion with the Hildebrandts. Thus, all I have to discuss here is Michael Swanwick's "A Changeling Returns."

Swanwick's essay discusses reading LotR to his son after a long time away from the text. ( cut for length )

[ more LotR re-read posts ]