Reading THE HOBBIT at the bookstore...

Well, I did it! I read the first two chapters of THE HOBBIT at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Mobile, Alabama!

I wish that I could report to you that there was a throng gathered for the performance and that it was cheered wildly and the listeners begged me to continue to the very end!

I can't.

(Sigh)

Well, it wasn't so bad. I felt good about the reading. I slipped characters once in each chapter and did not stumble more than a handful of times through about 70 minutes of reading, stopping only for a little water between chapters.

15 minutes beforehand, the fair voice of the Community Relations manager spoke over the PA, promising the new feature, SPELLBINDERS & STEMWINDERS, for the next six weeks, featuring THE HOBBIT. She read the very words I had prepared six weeks before for the publicity that went out.

I never had very many listeners at a time. Advance publicity had been slim, but there was lots of interest. Six weekly performances of about 90 minutes each would give every one at least one opportunity to sit in.

A young boy was there half an hour ahead of time, waiting eagerly. He earnestly told me that he had been abused by his alcoholic father, locked away in his room in Georgia for many months with little human contact and nothing to do. He had a number of the Goosebumps! books, but had soon read them through many times.

He found in the closet, a box with a number of old paperback books. A small brown book with crisp crackly brown pages entitled THE HOBBIT became his favorite book in the whole world.

He stayed until about halfway through the second chapter, when he had to leave. I thought he would only be gone a moment for he quietly said, "Excuse me" almost inaudibly and got up and walked away. He did not come back and I did not get to get his address, though before the reading I did talk to him of all the friends he might find on the internet who loved Middle-earth, too. I told him of THE LORD OF THE RINGS and urged him to read it one day. I wish I knew who he was...

A silver haired man came a little late and left a little early and returned to ask for me after I left. He told the store he would be back next week. A young lady came and sat. Two or three young fellows also stopped in briefly.

The frappacino machine in the coffee house on the south side of the store could be heard occassionally. The xylophone in the children's section on the north wall was an irritant that will be covered next week.

It is a large store and I was on the east wall. The entrance is on the west. I was not much distracted and was only dimly aware of the folks coming and going, lingering in the aisles, shushing small children, and otherwise going about their business.

For many folk, I was just ambiance. A more or less pleasant voice, slightly amplified, from the back of the store, reading a work of fantasy.

The booksellers expressed that they wished they could walk away from their posts and not be distracted by their duties. A woman who had to leave told an employee that she was enjoying the reading and the xylophone had gotten on her last nerve! I never saw her...

For the last twenty minutes or so, there was just one person in the chairs nearby, a girl in her tweens, reading along in a book as I read.

I finished the second chapter with Thorin's thanks to Gandalf, stepped off of my stool, took a sip of water and looked at the young lady. She never looked up from her book. It was not THE HOBBIT.

I went to the restroom and then walked out of the store. There were a few eyes upon me, but no one said a word as I made my way out.

I called my friend once I arrived home and had a glass of Beaujolais in hand. She told me that they certainly wanted me to return and filled me in on all that I could not see, focused as I was on the text before me.

I was a little discouraged. I thought that perhaps half a dozen or so would be there pretty much throughout and another half dozen in and out.

A serial reading of an entire novel is an entirely new venture at this store, and we expect things to pick up. It was the weekend after Labor Day, and folks are adjusting to school. We have begun the work and we will finish it. I'm not sure if I will have the heart to do THE LORD OF THE RINGS in January if this is not more successful week to week.

Still, I think of the folks lingering in the nearby ailses, listening intently to the children's story from their concealment, and of that pale young boy, and of what Middle-earth meant to him.

And doesn't it mean a little something like that to us all?

I will finish the job.