From the Bookshelf of Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)…

The Lord of the Rings

J.R.R. Tolkien

Start date: October 1, 2016

Finish date: December 31, 2016

Why we're reading this: 4th Quarter 2016 Long Read
[close] 4th Quarter 2016 Long Read

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Dec 17, 2009 Melanti rated it it was ok

Shelves: 1001-books

I keep struggling to define why I don’t like this series.

Part of it, obviously, is that I didn’t read it when I was young. (Though that’s not quite correct – I seriously disliked the first 50 pages of The Hobbit even at 10 or 11.) By my early 20’s when I forced my way through the first two books of the series, I’d already read so much of the derivative literature that everything seemed repetitive.

But this time around I had several different impressions.

First, it really shows that Tolkien was a I keep struggling to define why I don’t like this series.

Part of it, obviously, is that I didn’t read it when I was young. (Though that’s not quite correct – I seriously disliked the first 50 pages of The Hobbit even at 10 or 11.) By my early 20’s when I forced my way through the first two books of the series, I’d already read so much of the derivative literature that everything seemed repetitive.

But this time around I had several different impressions.

First, it really shows that Tolkien was a scholar of middle English (“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”) and early English (“Beowulf”) hero poems. While he’s written a trilogy of novels, I’d argue that he wrote the books in the manner of a poem. While I’m not sure I can name specifics, there’s just something about his writing style that screams “hero poem” to me. Maybe it’s something about it being ornate in language yet sparse in plot and character or maybe it's the way he often phrases things backwards. It definitely has something to do with the way that characters relate their experiences to the hobbits after the fact rather than showing the action while it was happening or as a proper flashback. Often, my eyes saw a standard paragraph, but my ears heard something that should have been broken up into individual lines.

The next major thing that bothered me was the pacing, or lack thereof. There’d be a lot of tension built up; the fellowship or the hobbits would be fleeing from some foe – they’d stop for the night, have dinner and relate tales and songs over their campfire to pass the time. I think this ties back into my impression of the series as hero poems, as it’s something that’s done often in that style of tale. But while it does work to flesh out the history of Middle Earth, it also works to interrupt the action and ruin that tension.

My other major gripe is that the lack of characterization. I did feel like I knew Sam very well, and Frodo a bit less. But the rest of the characters? They did have defining mannerisms and in many cases quite firm histories, but in general, I really couldn’t say what was going on inside their heads. And other than a couple of characters and scenes, if I was quoted just the dialog of a character out of context, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what character it was that said the line. It does bug me that such a wide variety of characters from such different backgrounds all tend to the same mode of speech. Again, in my opinion, this is also something that’s rather typical of a hero poem. You might get the main hero being fleshed out but the rest tend to fall by the wayside.

So. Finally, nearly 20 years after starting The Hobbit, and 10 years after starting the trilogy proper, I’m finally done. Whew. I feel more cultured now. ...more

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