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Should I start reading the LOTR series?
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Tim
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Aug 17, 2014 08:41PM
I don't understand why so many fantasy writers feel they have to put songs in their stories, most make very little sense and the rest are pedantic at best
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I like the little songs in the Hobbit! Though to be honest I've only come across two so far, both of which seems to be about gold and mountains, but that's dwarfs for you! So long as they are short and to the point, I think the songs set the tone and add characterisation in a unique way, Tolkien could have just said the dwarfs love gold, but having them sing about it is much more creative.
You do not lose the story if you miss the songs and once you are in to it, it's an amazing story.
The Hobbit is an amazing story, but I couldn't help feeling that it was wrote more for a young adult audience than for adults, which is fine, because i loved The Hunger Games trilogy, and Ender's Game as well, and they were wrote for that same audience
And while we are at it, it's ok to skip the songs in the films add well. The song at the very end is so awful in such a great film it actually made my teeth itch.
Tim wrote: "The Hobbit is an amazing story, but I couldn't help feeling that it was wrote more for a young adult audience than for adults,"Actually, it was written as a children's book, for his own children. An effect not altogether happy, as he put it:
"It [The Hobbit] was unhappily really meant, as far as I was conscious, as a 'children's story', and as I had not learned sense then, and my children were not quite old enough to correct me, it has some of the sillinesses of manner caught unthinkly from the kind of stuff I had had served to me, as Chaucer may catch a minstrel tag. I deeply regret them. So do intelligent children."
Gav451 wrote: "And while we are at it, it's ok to skip the songs in the films add well. The song at the very end is so awful in such a great film it actually made my teeth itch."
Which one? (I love both. Or really, all 5 end credit songs to date from Jackson's movies).
Maybe it's because I first read The Hobbit when I was 5, but I've always loved the songs. And reading them as poems with great rhythm to my now 5 year old son was a lot of fun. The silly interpretations of them in the cartoon movies floating around when I was a kid only served to burn them further into my brain. I do have to admit that re-listening to them recently on Youtube was a bit of a let-down. Most weren't as good as they sounded in my head. (I have a ridiculous memory for things like cartoon theme songs.)
The Misty Mountains as a poem reads so beautifully, and the rendition by the dwarves in the first Hobbit movie is magical. (While the cartoon version was underwhelming.) And judging by the number of Youtube views of the songs and many, many covers, I'm not alone. :)
But to each their own!
Lauren I read the Hobbit when I was around.. 13, quit. Read it again at 15, got further and still quit, then read LotR when I was 18, and loved it. Read the trilogy through two or three times, then returned to The Hobbit and finished it.
Don't get me wrong I love the book and the films but when the king breaks into a folk song all the atmosphere stands up and walks of the screen in my mind. Also that wistful, mystique destroying smile of the elves add they look at Frodo at the end.
2 small cuts to the film, that's all I ask.
Clearly having never made a film and no artistic talent I am ideally placed to advise talented people who have made films how to do their job.
The LOTR movies are some of the best movies of all according to critics and audiences alike and the books have inspired pretty much every contemporary fantasy author. so yes I would say its well worth your time.
I think LOTR is a must-read for everyone. It gets 5/5 stars from me. I cherish those books very much c:
Definitely. Book of Lost Tales is interesting too, if you want more of a fairy-tale glimpse at the world.
Re-reading it myself. Much better the second time around!
It is possible that you yourself are different. A great work of art will speak differently to people at different points in their lives. HAMLET, read at age 20, is a very different work than when you read it at age 40.
It starts out slow but it gets pretty intense after Frodo reaches Bree. I would totally read them. They're classics and I think you'll get a lot out of them. The last book is definitely my favorite, so you're also working toward an incredible end. :)
There is also the point that LOTR is probably one of the most influential novels in the past century. Almost every fantasy novel written in the past 75 years is either an answer to it, or resolutely ignoring its influence.
Did you start reading it? I think we all agreed you should?
Chris wrote: "I'm going to dissent a little from some of the views in this thread.Should you read LOTR? If you're writing a dissertation about fantasy fiction, yes, because to omit LOTR would be like writing a..."
*slow clap*
That was awesome. (And I say this in all earnestness.)
Chris, my objection to what you said is the phrase "it's just a bad habit, picked up from reading the Bible." Not that I'm religious and was offended by that. No, it's the implication that Tolkien wasn't 100% aware of what he was doing.He was a scholar of words and of language and ancient (Norse) mythology and epic writing. EVERY line he wrote he scrutinized to death.
The style he uses in those passages, whether you like them or not, were purposefully written like that, and were certainly not "bad habbits" casually picked up in his religioius reading.
Tolkien's biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, described the style of prose used in LoTR as beginning in a simple rustic manner, much like that used in The Hobbit. It then expands out to ultimately become the very formal "high" prose (I'm not sure he actually used that term) used in ancient epic tales, mirroring the seriousness of the thematic elements. And then at the end it winds back down to the rustic as we see the Hobbits returning home.
So I think this was all highly calculated and intentional. I don't think any modern author could get away with it today becauase our society and culture has changed so much. But, then, neither could a modern writer (or film director) really get away with producing a 1930's style hard boiled detective Noir without it being either a) a pastiche, or b) a spoof. If you read someone like Chandler or Hammett today, they're writing is hysterical:
The opening of The Maltese Falcon, in which Sam Spade is basically described as an alien:
Samuel Spade's jaw was long and bony, his chin a jutting v under the more flexible v of his mouth. His nostrils curved back to make another, smaller v. His yellow-grey eyes were horizontal. The v motive was picked up again by thickish brows rising outward from twin creases above a hooked nose, and his pale brown hair grew down--from high flat temples--in a point on his forehead. He looked rather pleasantly like a blond satan.
And so are we all. We cannot shed our cultural milieu; we write in it as we live in it -- the way fish live in their water.An interesting exercise to prove this is to read a historical novel, that was published a long time ago. Read, say THE EGYPTIAN by Mika Waltari. It came out in the 1950s and was a best-seller. Or THE LAST DAYS OF POMPEII by Bulwer-Lytton, another monster hit. You will find that, even though the actual book is set in Pharaonic Egypt, or the Roman Empire, that the work itself sounds exactly like a novel written in 1950, or 1880.
And yet those short works are not known as his masterpieces.
Back in day size was way more impressive, now we have these fancy "word processors" that make it so much easier to edit a long work.
If that were true, Aaron, we wouldn't have seen the size of a paperback steadily grow.
Size is great as long as the content is equally great. More often than not the content needs to be savagely red inked.Not LOTR though. The content there is brilliant:)
I've tried multiple times to read LotR and failed multiple times. Most recently I set myself the task of reading them - I finished Fellowship, and took a (much needed) 'break' before Two Towers - a break which has thus far been going on for about 14 months.I find them the most dry, dull works of fiction imaginable - I love the world, and everything in it, but Tolkien could not write prose to save his life. He should have just written histories and called it a day.
I believe Aaron was referring to the fact that if you made editing changes to something like LotR you had to retype the whole damn thing - big is impressive at that point, where you have a stack of paper 2 feet thick.I find it irritating that people who don't like an author's work will say that he/she "couldn't write" or "is a bad writer" - I can't read Melville or Dickens, but I'd never claim they were poor writers. Their writing styles just don't capture my attention or focus on what's interesting to me.
The book bores you? Fine.
Michelle wrote: "I just finished reading "The Hobbit" and I thought it was pretty good (4/5 stars). However, I hear that the LOTR series are much longer and slower than "The Hobbit." I am not much of a fan of books..."Most definitely read them. Savor them, because there are very few stories that have the fun, the adventure and the pure entertainment of these books.
Like many, I re-read them. That is the ultimate compliment.
I hope you enjoy them.
Yes, right now.Start with Hobbit though. its childish innocence and adventurous delight will hook you.
As a teenager I regarded Lord of the Rings as something I ‘ought to read’ because it was THE great classic of the fantasy genre. When I finally got around to it, I found it pretty tedious (the story took forever to get going, there were endless descriptions of the scenery, and I found Tom Bombadil deeply irritating). When I re-read it in my twenties, I loved it (such obvious love and care had been taken over the world-building, the descriptions of the scenery were beautiful and Tom Bombadil was both mysterious and charming)! It’s funny how our ideas about what makes a good book can change...
As for the movies:
Lord of the Rings
I love these movies.
The first time I saw them, I thought they were an improvement on the books in many aspects. The characters are deeper and more sympathetic, and the story is much more gripping (Frodo actually experiences a sense of urgency when he is told to leave the Shire, whereas in the book he is obviously experiencing denial because he acts like he is preparing for a long holiday!)
The second time I saw them, having by now fallen in love with the books, I still thought they were great. I’ve even got the Special Extended DVD version in the fancy box! My only complaint is the way Legolas is so desperately cool while Gimli — a somber and dignified character in the book — is reduced to a source of comedy.
The Hobbit
I was excited about the Hobbit movies and intrigued to see how such a slim book could be expanded into three epic movies, but when I actually went to see them I was disappointed. The battle-scenes in the LOTR movies are dramatic, but in the Hobbit they are just silly and tedious. The comic elements of the movie just make it harder for me to believe in the world and the characters. And it’s so long! It’s like they forgot to edit the films!
During the last movie, as I watched Smaug chasing the Dwarves everywhere and failing to even singe their eyebrows, I just felt bored. It’s like everyone who made the movie had their own idea of what should happen in the chase scene, and they decided to include it all. It must have lasted at least half-an-hour. I’m not surprised to hear that the extended DVDs have only about 10 minutes of extra scenes — they’ve already squeezed the story dry!
I can’t believe LOTR and the Hobbit were directed by the same person...
I completely agree! I'm hoping the third Hobbit movie with the large battle will bring back some of what they lost since LOTR.
Brent wrote: "I completely agree! I'm hoping the third Hobbit movie with the large battle will bring back some of what they lost since LOTR."I shall certainly watch the third one. I’m not holding out much hope for it, but maybe you are right — perhaps the Battle of Five Armies will remind the film-makers how to create emotional engagement and fight scenes which are actually dramatic.
Agreed. And too many scenes in the other two which dragged out so they could presumably milk out 3 movies from one relatively small book. I also felt the CGI effects ventured into the silly or cartoony on some occasions, especially in the first Hobbit. That's a shame as Peter Jackson did such a good job on the first films. If they want to put out a collector's bluray, it should be one edited movie to compile all 3 movies into a single "best of Hobbit" film. So much in the films I don't care if I saw a second time.
Brent wrote: "Agreed. And too many scenes in the other two which dragged out so they could presumably milk out 3 movies from one relatively small book. I also felt the CGI effects ventured into the silly or ca..."I must agreed with the general consensus; though I love the Hobbit in book form, the movies were more exploitation than inspiration.
What a shame. I can almost see 2 movies, though I think one would have been great. But 3 is just silly and boring in places. The Hobbit story should NOT be boring; ever.
All that aside, I will watch and enjoy the movies. I want to see if my imagination still trumps Jackson's! (So far... yes!)
part of the problem was that he tried to turn The Hobbit into The Lord of the Rings.It's not the Lord of the Rings. It's not, I would say, even in the same genre.
I could have done without all the bits that are clearly in there so that there can be a ride at some future theme park.
No, actually, it's a lot closer to sword and sorcery than to epic fantasy. The stakes are small scale and personal, for instance.
I would definitely recommend reading the trilogy, I really enjoyed them and read them back to back. Whilst I was reading them I had regular vivid dreams of all the characters, descriptions and places in the books, it is that well written. I'm glad I read them before watching the films. I was glad to see the films did them justice, though there is understandable emissions of certain things. I found it somewhat creepy that some of the places were exactly as I imagined them, down to both good descriptive writing and movie directing.
Enjoy yourself, just remember it is a long distance marathon and you may find it useful to keep a notebook next to your book depending on how good your memory is.
Chris wrote: "The second Hobbit movie does perhaps feel a bit like Bilbo felt after years of wearing the One Ring - 'like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.' But even so, I would defend both it an..."Nicely put.
I first read the trilogy in sixth grade. I loved them, but didn't get as much out of them as I did later when I reread them as an adult. They and Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn" have had more influence in my life than any other books. They are what turned me into a reader of fantasy, helped pave my way into tabletop gaming, and influenced my visual and written art.Obviously, I think they are well worth your time.
If a medium has different rules from the ones in which the story works -- well, no one held a gun to his head and told him to film this story.
If there is any doubt about the value of LOTR, witness this thread.
The Hobbit movie may (one may hope) be better once all three movies can be surveyed. Currently I agree the 2nd one is disappointing.
It's almost required reading if you're into that genre. It's a very good read on its own merits, funny, tragic, and thrilling by turns, and to discuss fantasy without having the experience... Well, it's something like discussing heavy metal if you've never heard Led Zeppelin. It's hard to demonstrate your credibility without it on your resume.
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Books mentioned in this topic
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again (other topics)The Silmarillion (other topics)
