Bathroom Reads #16: THERE AND BACK AGAIN by Sean Astin + Joe Layden

 

My dad purchased this book when it was first published (in 2004, less than a year after the theatrical release of The Return of the King, to almost universally poor reviews: this one is representative for the curious: https://www.popmatters.com/there-and-back-again-2496241478.html), but I don't believe he ever actually read it, though I myself would sometimes flip through it... a number of years ago he asked me if I wanted it, so I said sure, and it ended up becoming one of those books I would skim through in the bathroom once a year or so (though this year I finally did read it for real). 

I actually don't have all that much to say about this one, other than it's mainly an actor's memoir (despite the fact Astin was only in his early thirties when he wrote it) dealing briefly with his early years in a bit of detail, but which is mainly concerned with his time spent during the production of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. It must be said that reading this book, one does not walk away with a very good impression of Astin as a person, as he comes off as very needy, self-centered, selfish, always needs to be the center of attention, and so on and so forth (he also does a lot of backhanded complimenting, where he'll talk about a person and praise them at length, then proceed to whine and complain about them). Basically, in some ways he embodies almost the exact opposite of all of the good traits exhibited by his character Samwise Gamgee in the movies. Which makes him, I suppose, a pretty good actor! I won't lie, for the longest time this book kind of soured me towards him, though he somewhat redeemed himself with an incredible performance in the second season of Stranger Things. . .  perhaps the lean years after the LOTR films humbled him somewhat. 

Top Ten Lists (Updated November 4, 2024)

Top 30 Bands/Musical Acts (in no order)

First Tier (1-10)

Siouxsie & The Banshees + Nine Inch Nails (tied for first)

Lady Gaga

Joy Division

Depeche Mode

Fleetwood Mac (+ Lindsey Buckingham solo)

Sting (solo + The Police)

Emerson, Lake & Palmer

Throbbing Gristle 

Ministry

Garbage

 

Second Tier (11-20)

Bauhaus

Dead Can Dance

The Cure

Coil

Current 93

Whitehouse (+ Cut Hands & Consumer Electronics)

Nico

Suzanne Vega

Sonic Youth 

Yes

 

Third Tier (21-30)

Wire

Madonna

Kate Bush

Skinny Puppy

Chappell Roan  

Keane

Ladytron

Aphex Twin

Manic Street Preachers 

Harry Styles

 

Top 10 Favorite Albums (in no order)

A Kiss in the Dreamhouse (Siouxsie & The Banshees) 1982

The Downward Spiral (Nine Inch Nails) 1994

The Marble Index (Nico) 1968 

The Holy Bible (Manic Street Preachers) 1994

Dead Can Dance (Dead Can Dance) 1984

Tusk (Fleetwood Mac) 1979 

A Bell Is A Cup... (Wire) 1988

Selected Ambient Works 85-92 (Aphex Twin) 1992 

Horse Rotorvator (Coil) 1986

Closer (Joy Division) 1980

Top 20 Favorite Fiction Writers (in no order)

First Tier (1-10)

H.P. Lovecraft 

J.-K. Huysmans 

Stephen R. Donaldson 

Bret Easton Ellis 

Dennis Cooper

Yukio Mishima 

Meredith Gran

J.G. Ballard 

Thomas Ligotti 

Cormac McCarthy

Second Tier (11-20)

Thomas Pynchon

John Bellairs 

Carson McCullers

William Shakespeare

Clark Ashton Smith 

Grant Morrison 

William S. Burroughs

Arthur Machen 

Yasunari Kawabata

Tom Clancy

 

Top 10 Favorite Novels (in no order)

La-bas (J.-K. Huysmans) 

Guide (Dennis Cooper)

American Psycho (Bret Eason Ellis)

Sea of Fertility (Yukio Mishima) 

The Gap Cycle (Stephen R. Donaldson) 

Blood Meridian (Cormac McCarthy) 

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland/Through the Looking-Glass (Lewis Carroll) 

The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)

The Night Land (William Hope Hodgson)

The White Plague (Frank Herbert)

 

Top 20 Favorite TV Shows (in no order)

First Tier (1-10)

Friends 

Game of Thrones 

Seinfeld 

Frasier

The Office (American version)

Family Matters

Saved By The Bell (original series)

Castlevania

Monk

Zorro (1990-1993 series)

Second Tier (11-20)

True Detective (season 1 only) 

Twin Peaks

Fawlty Towers 

The Vicar of Dibley 

Blackadder

Mr. Bean

Hannibal

Death Note (anime) 

Batman: The Animated Series

How I Met Your Mother 

 

Top Ten Favorite Movies (in no order)

Reality Bites (1994)

Patriot Games (1992)

Jackie Brown (1997)

The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

A Serious Man (2009)

Jurassic Park (1993)

House of Gucci (2021)

Star Wars: Return Of The Jedi (1983) 

Les Miserables (2012) 

First Reformed (2017)

 

Top 10 Favorite Video/Computer Games (in no order)

Deus Ex (2000)

Thief Gold (1999)

System Shock 2 (1999)

Doom (1993)

Final Fantasy VI (1994)

Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines (2004)

Sid Meier's Civilization VI (2016) 

Perfect Tides (2022)

Shenmue (whole series) 

Elder Scrolls: Skyrim (2011)

(* Honorable Mention: Ultima VII- 1992)

 

Misc. Favorites 

Favorite color(s): blue, black, mauve
Favorite number(s): 28, 88 (tie)
Favorite holiday: Christmas (2nd place: Halloween)
Favorite animal: cat
Favorite bird(s): crow, owl, hummingbird
Favorite sea creature: sharks (especially Great White Sharks and the Hammerhead shark)
Favorite stuffed animal growing up: Shark Puppet
Favorite food: Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup + rice, & Chicken-flavored Rice-A-Roni
Favorite body part: the eye
Favorite card game: Hearts
Favorite board game: Clue
Favorite Clue character: Mrs. Peacock
Favorite city: Providence, Rhode Island
Favorite planet: Saturn
Favorite Zodiac sign: Gemini
Favorite subculture: Goth
Favorite artist: Andy Warhol
Favorite movie director: Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson (tie)
Favorite living actor: Sean Bean
Favorite living actress: Winona Ryder
Favorite comic strip(s):, Doonesbury (1st), Calvin & Hobbes (2nd)
Favorite Game of Thrones character: Qyburn
Favorite sport: Basketball
Favorite basketball player: John Stockton
Favorite Beatles song(s): Nowhere Man, Paperback Writer (tie)
Favorite electronic music program: Voyetra Digital Orchestrator
Favorite architectural style: Brutalism
Favorite art movement(s): Surrealism, Symbolist, Pop
Favorite carnivorous plant: Nepenthes lowii
Favorite comic book superhero: Batman
Favorite Batman villain(s): Dr. Simon Hurt, The Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, The Mad Hatter
Favorite comic book writer: Grant Morrison (2nd place: Alan Moore)
Favorite science fiction book series: The Gap Cycle (Stephen R. Donaldson)
Favorite movie monster: Godzilla
Favorite Doom monster: Cacodemon
Favorite DOOM levels: E2M4 (Deimos Lab), E3M4 (House of Pain), E3M7 (Limbo)
Favorite Record Label: Mute
Favorite Broadway musical: Les Miserables
Favorite Shakespeare play: Macbeth
Favorite Star Wars character: Momaw Nadon
Favorite Mario Kart racer: Toad
Favorite Warhol Superstar: Edie Sedgwick
Favorite old school Hollywood star: Audrey Hepburn
Favorite Hogwarts House: Slytherin
Favorite Harry Potter character: Luna Lovegood
Favorite Ninja Turtle: Leonardo
Favorite Disney Villain: Scar (The Lion King)
Favorite horror writer: H.P. Lovecraft, Thomas Ligotti (a close second)
Favorite Cthulhu Mythos monster: Cthulhu
Favorite book(s) of the Bible: Revelations, Ecclesiastes (tie)
Favorite Egyptian deity: Bast
Favorite Ancient culture: Ancient Egypt
Favorite Historical Time Period: The Middle Ages

2024 Reading List Monthly Update: October

Books read in October of 2024:

"Nightlands Issue 2 - Summer 2024" (Various) 10-2-24

"Charnel Glamour" (Mark Samuels) 10-4-24

"Uncanny: The Origins of Fear" (Junji Ito) 10-6-24

"The Universe As Performance Art" (Colby Smith) 10-10-24

"Come Tomorrow and Other Tales of Bangalore Terror" (Jayaprakash Satyamurthy) 10-13-24

"The Dark Chamber" (Leonard Cline) 10-14-24

"The Worlds of George R.R. Martin" (Tom Huddleston) 10-19-24

"Tales of the Grotesque" (L.A. Lewis) 10-23-24

"The Medieval Warrior" (Martin Dougherty) 10-28-24

"The Jordan Rules" (Sam Smith) 10-29-24

-

2024 Reading List Total:

-

1. "The Explosion of a Chandelier" (Damian Murphy) 1-7-24

2. "Empire of the Sun" (J.G. Ballard) 1-11-24

3. "The Consolation of Philosophy" (Boethius) 1-14-24

4. "CAW: Colossal Abandoned World" (James Champagne) 1-17-24

5. "The Green Fly and Other Stories" (Robert Scheffer) 1-19-24

6. "Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again" (Shigeru Kayama) 1-22-24

7. "Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982" (Cho Nam-joo) 1-27-24

8. "The Planetary Omnibus" (Warren Ellis) 1-28-24

9. "A Song in the Night" (Daniel Mills) 1-31-24 

10. "The Princess of Darkness" (Rachilde) 2-13-24

11. "i'm still growing" (Josiah Morgan) 2-15-24

12. "Winona" (Robert Rich) 2-16-24

13. "Alexandria: The City That Changed The World" (Islam Issa) 2-21-24

14. "Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)" (Mindy Kaling) 2-27-24

15. "Self-Portraits" (Osamu Dazai) 2-27-24

16. "The Siren's Lament: Essential Stories" (Jun'ichirō Tanizaki) 3-10-24

17. "The Secret History with Related Texts" (Prokopios) 3-13-24

18. "The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up" (Marie Kondo) 3-14-24

19. "Crampton" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 3-16-24 +

20. "Stitches" (Hirokatsu Kihara + Junji Ito) 3-26-24

21. "Artists and Their Cats" (Alison Nastasi) 3-28-24

22. "Great Cities of the Ancient World" (L. Sprague de Camp) 4-3-24

23. "Terminal Boredom" (Izumi Suzuki) 4-12-24

24. "Dragon Palace" (Hiromi Kawakami) 4-16-24

25. "Alexander the Great: His Life and Mysterious Death" (Anthony Everitt) 4-21-24

26. "The Antichrist: A New Biography" (Philip C. Almond) 5-24-24

27. "The Old Capital" (Yasunari Kawabata) 5-16-24

28. "The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" (Bettany Hughes) 5-20-24

29. "The Cat Inside" (William S. Burroughs) 5-22-24 +

30. "A Travel Guide to the Middle Ages: The World Through Medieval Eyes" (Anthony Bale) 5-29-24

31. "Diary of a Void" (Emi Yagi) 5-29-24

32. "The Book of Marvels and Travels" (Sir John Mandeville/Anthony Bale translation) 6-4-24

33. "The Edge of the World: How the North Sea Made Us Who We Are" (Michael Pye) 6-9-24

34. "The Three Cornered World" (Natsume Soseki) 6-15-24

35. "A Kingdom of Frozen Tears" (Tom Champagne) 6-21-24

36. "Michigan Basement" (Thomas Ligotti & Brandon Trenz) 6-22-24

37. "The Stronghold" (Dino Buzzati) 6-24-24 

38. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (Gawain-Poet/Keith Harrison translation) 7-1-24

39. "The Death of King Arthur" (Sir Thomas Malory/a retelling by Peter Ackroyd) 7-2-24

40. "Flunker" (Dennis Cooper) 7-4-24

41. "The Rule of St. Benedict" (St. Benedict of Nursia) 7-5-24

42. "Beowulf" (Unknown/John McNamara translation) 7-9-24

43. "Alley" (Junji Ito) 7-15-24

44. "Out of the Silent Planet" (C.S. Lewis) 

45. "Soviet Asia" (Roberto Conte + Stefano Perego) 7-17-24

46. "The Adventure Zone Vol. 6: The Suffering Game" (The McElroys + Carey Pietsch) 7-19-24

47. "The Tokyo Zodiac Murders" (Soji Shimada) 7-27-24

48. "The Singularity" (Dino Buzzati) 7-31-24

49. "Goodnight Tokyo" (Atsuhiro Yoshida) 8-3-24

50. "Helter Skelter: The True Story of the Manson Murders" (Vincent Bugliosi + Curt Gentry) 8-5-24

51. "Spook" (Klabund) 8-7-24

52. "Dark Entries: Bauhaus and Beyond" (Ian Shirley) 8-9-24

53. "The Sun Also Rises" (Ernest Hemingway) 8-15-24

54. "Depeche Mode: A Biography" (Steve Malins) 8-20-24

55. "The Sirens of Titan" (Kurt Vonnegut) 8-25-24

56. "We" (Yevgeny Zamyatin) 8-26-24

57. "Siouxsie & the Banshees: The Authorised Biography" (Mark Paytress) 9-3-24

58. "Vita Nouva" (Dante Alighieri/Mark Musa translation) 9-5-24

59. "Shakespeare and the Medieval World" (Helen Cooper) 9-10-24

60. "The Medieval Castle: Design - Construction - Daily Life" (Charles Phillips) 9-19-24

61. "The Art of War" (Sun Tzu) 9-23-24

62. "Generation Friends: An Inside Look at the Show That Defined a Television Era" (Saul Austerlitz) 9-26-24

63. "Peppermint Werewolf: Murkstave" (Aaron Lange) 9-28-24

64. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (J.R.R. Tolkien) 9-29-24

65. "Nightlands Issue 2 - Summer 2024" (Various) 10-2-24

66. "Charnel Glamour" (Mark Samuels) 10-4-24

67. "Uncanny: The Origins of Fear" (Junji Ito) 10-6-24

68. "The Universe As Performance Art" (Colby Smith) 10-10-24

69. "Come Tomorrow and Other Tales of Bangalore Terror" (Jayaprakash Satyamurthy) 10-13-24

70. "The Dark Chamber" (Leonard Cline) 10-14-24

71. "The Worlds of George R.R. Martin" (Tom Huddleston) 10-19-24

72. "Tales of the Grotesque" (L.A. Lewis) 10-23-24

73. "The Medieval Warrior" (Martin Dougherty) 10-28-24

74. "The Jordan Rules" (Sam Smith) 10-29-24

*= book I have read at least once in the past
+= book I have read before, but not this reprint/edition/translation

Currently Reading: 

"Four Great Comedies: A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, The Tempest" (William Shakespeare)