zarabia
Tol Eressea
Jan 12 2013, 5:53am
Views: 272
|
|
Definitely NOT where I live
|
|
|
Nothing against Oklahoma where I've lived much, but certainly not all, of my life, but I've always been drawn to books and films that let me imagine distant lands. Part of what I like about LOTR was that quintessential English-ness of the Shire. My image of the Shire was probably a combination of some of the landscapes I saw on my - at the time - one brief visit to the UK along with stuff I had picked up from TV. I'm afraid Brits would probably be horrified by how "twee" my image is.  It's probably entirely too idealized, but, for me, it works for the Shire.
As for other locations from the book, I don't have any particular place in mind though I have a vaguely Andalusian landscape in mind for Rohan. But as I've never been to Spain, I don't know why or how that came about. 
I guess southern Georgia (not South Georgia, Daniel ) and northern Florida helped me understand how claustrophobic a forest -like the Old Forest - can make one feel. I had read in another book about that feeling and I couldn't understand because the only forests I'd been in were in mountainous regions where views can suddenly open up to spectacular vistas. But driving through southern Georgia to visit my mom in Florida, I saw how many, many trees growing side by side on a very flat landscape can, indeed, be extremely claustrophobic. However, the trees and general atmosphere that I imagined while reading about The Old Forest were quite different than Georgia.
However, when I was in Poland a couple of years after reading the books and after having seen the first two films, I would often see landscapes that seemed very Middle-earth. I was especially captivated by the Birch? trees; they seemed like something right out of Lothlorien. 
"The question isn't where, Constable, but when." - Inspector Spacetime
(This post was edited by zarabia on Jan 12 2013, 6:00am)
|
