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| The only time I've ever been sad near my map of Middle Earth |
In my head, everyone should want to be reading The Lord of the Rings trilogy every second of their lives, but it is becoming more and more apparent to me that there are people outside of myself.
Startling.
I tried to convince my boss that he should finish reading it, because he stopped in the middle of Fellowship in high school. So I tried soliciting opinions from my coworkers as they streamed in and out of the room. "Have you read Lord of the Rings?" was met by a lot of "haha"s and "I couldn't finish them"s. Then I remembered my coworker, Luc, who is obsessed with Lord of the Rings. I rushed off to find him, dragged him to my boss, then told him to tell my boss why he should finish.
"Oh, I couldn't get through Fellowship." Devastating.
My boss questioned why I wasn't labeling things or whatever I do here. I told him I quit. Ok, I didn't actually. Well, I probably did. But I say that every other day, so I went back to my desk to move papers around (I can't remember what I was hired to do).
The Lord of the Rings has been so profoundly influential on my life. To the point where I play the Lord of the Rings MMO, just because I want to hang out in Moria and visit Tom Bombadil (most ridiculous character in anything ever). Anyway, I'm not trying to tell people that it's the best book in the world. I don't need them to convert to anything (though that would be exciting for me). I just want them to give it a shot, because I think it is so beautiful.
My list of mildly convincing things I tell people:
1. It is like the movies, but longer!
2. No no no, I'm not really a fantasy person either, this doesn't count! (What does this mean? I'm not sure.)
3. Yeah, it's sort of dense, but it is dense with beautiful words. Please just read all of them.
4. It's more exciting than The Hobbit. Period.
5. A paragraph about an herb actually made me cry! (Referring to athelas. This one normally scares people out of the conversation)
6. I will literally give you a free copy, so you have to read it.
Is anybody else met with this much resistance even from people who loved the films? Is there anything I can say to my boss to make him actually want to read this? I gave him a copy, so he sort of feels guilty/obligated. I don't think he's read it yet, though. He's been avoiding eye contact.
Help me, please.