Tolkien-mania

I hesitate to admit that I'm old enough to remember the FIRST round of Tolkien-mania, but I do remember it, just. Those were the days when every young hippy had a copy of The Lord of the Rings tucked into his backpack (next to Jack Kerouac), and people had "Gandalf for President" and "Frodo Lives" bumper-stickers on their VW camper-vans. The best bookstore downtown had, I remember, a poster with "Come to Middle Earth" in the front window. That poster was a copy of the awful original artwork on the Ballantyne paperback, pink and purple blobs from Mars; now a similar poster would be one advertising travel to New Zealand. Going to New Zealand has become trendy these days, not least because of the movies; I love hearing my students talking about going to such and such a place - "it was Isengard," or "that's where they shot the battle of the Pelennor Fields"... Well. I'm very very happy that Peter Jackson got all the recognition he deserved at the Oscars. And a new generation of popularity couldn't happen to a better set of books.