Anyone else find Lord of the Rings a boring read?

[J.J.]

Randy wrote: "J.J. wrote: "I'm actually getting annoyed with this thread. If your going to judge a book of that kind and the year it was written then add all the variables and comparison to the 'T'. If not, all ..."

Any discussion that catches my interest I will join and put my two cents in just like anyone else. Feel free to ignore my comments if it annoys you.. My path is my own and I don't ever suggest what paths to follow to anyone, for their life is there own.

I will apologize with the 'ignorant' bit and will not happen again.

[Cody]

J.J. wrote: "Randy wrote: "J.J. wrote: "I'm actually getting annoyed with this thread. If your going to judge a book of that kind and the year it was written then add all the variables and comparison to the 'T'..."

is there a way to put people on ignore? i dont think i need to waste my tme reading your comments to know they are annoying

[Andrea]

Cody wrote: "J.J. wrote: "Randy wrote: "J.J. wrote: "I'm actually getting annoyed with this thread. If your going to judge a book of that kind and the year it was written then add all the variables and comparis..."

Please everyone. JJ already apologized, let's move past this and get back to the topic of the thread, otherwise I'll start deleting off-topic post (i.e. where we're saying what we think of each other instead of what we think about LotR)

[Cody]

Andrea wrote: "Cody wrote: "J.J. wrote: "Randy wrote: "J.J. wrote: "I'm actually getting annoyed with this thread. If your going to judge a book of that kind and the year it was written then add all the variables..."

my apologies, will do.

[J.J.]

Cody wrote: "J.J. wrote: "Randy wrote: "J.J. wrote: "I'm actually getting annoyed with this thread. If your going to judge a book of that kind and the year it was written then add all the variables and comparis..."

Group Rules says Please do your best to stay on Topic

I think my comments were due to the topic(read history of my comments on this thread) and I was apologizing.

Your comments don't seem like the LoTR is a boring read comments

And no there is no way to put people on ignore, I've tried.

[Andrea]

J.J. wrote: "Cody wrote: "J.J. wrote: "Randy wrote: "J.J. wrote: "I'm actually getting annoyed with this thread. If your going to judge a book of that kind and the year it was written then add all the variables..."

JJ, my comment about not keeping this discussion going applies to you too :)

Everyone, rather than complain about someone's inappropriate comments in a thread, either ignore them, or report them to a mod, please don't start arguments that everyone is forced to be part of, it ruins the fun for the rest.

And starting NOW I will delete any additional posts on non-LotR boredom topics.

[Sarah]

I'm halfway through The Fellowship of The Ring and as a pretty young reader, I'm finding it quite tedious and dull. But Lord of The Rings is my absolute favourite movie(s) so I feel like I have to get through the books!! Compared to LOTR, almost any other book is sounding pretty appealing to me, but I'm still determined to finish ;)

[Xochi]

I think the way LOTR was written was pretty dense and sometimes hard to get through but I did enjoy the plot.

[Silvana]

LOTR was my first epic fantasy and likely the third fantasy series I ever read after Narnia and Harry Potter. Clearly my mileage was very little at that time so it was a Revelation, even with all the descriptions, weird names, and long journeys. I did get annoyed and probably bored reading Tom Bombadil's parts but it was not too much and I could finally get into it after my second reread. The world is so fantastic I made myself read Unfinished Tales and some of those Christopher era books. Which is rather tedious, with the exception of The Children of Hurin and many parts of the Silmarillion.

Anyway, I would be curious to do a third reread now, after I have been exposed to many more fantasy novels and authors. I might find it boring. Or maybe not, hard to tell.

[E.H.]

It's been more than thirty years since I first read LOTR and The Hobbit, devoured them, but had no feeling of dull or slow. Seems I did nothing else for days on end but read them, total immersion therapy, or something like that. Did not have much interest in TV, no internet, we used rotary dial phones. If anything, I read them not to be bored, honestly. Also read Simarillion but not all Christopher's. LOTR will always be a romping adventure to me. I love a long-slow burn of a read, all the details, background of a fully imagined world. I felt like I was walking through another time, fascinating. Read Fellowship there before the movie, but not all front and back again. Maybe one day, if my son takes an interest in them, which of course I hope he does. I just reread Earthsea with him and he loved it.

[Andrea]

Saying I found parts of it slow didn't mean I don't have fond memories of it.

As for Tom Bombadil, I was never a huge fan of him, and in the grand scheme of things, if that section of the book were removed it would have no effect on the storyline whatsoever (which is why the two movie adaptations I know of leave him out). However, he's still an interesting character to run into, and while he's not significant to the story, he's part of the worldbuilding, reminding us that there are creatures in Middle-Earth that are as unaffected of the events surrounding them, as they themselves don't affect the outside world. They are just there, unexplained forces of nature kind of thing (we never do find out what Tom really is, doesn't seem to be a Maiar, just a unique kind of thing). So definitely not saying Tolkien should take him out :)

[Cindy]

Tom bombadil is so classically British, the kind of folks you'd see in Mrs. Miniver, much like the tra-la-lallying elves. I know he's supposed to be some old god in the story but I can just see him stomping through a flower show with the prize winning goldberry rose.

I wouldn't have wanted to see him in the movies, but I do enjoy his silly and spooky scenes in the books.

[Andrea]

Cindy wrote: "Tom bombadil is so classically British, the kind of folks you'd see in Mrs. Miniver, much like the tra-la-lallying elves. I know he's supposed to be some old god in the story but I can just see him..."

I must admit I've always pictured him as a garden gnome.

[Cat]

Tom Bombadil was probably my favourite part when I first read it! I loved the character and his wife (whose name escapes me at the moment). Just loved it. A sweet moment. I was a bit disappointed that we never saw them again!

[Silvana]

Maybe we all need to buddy (re) read LOTR someday.

[Andrea]

Just thought I'll add this blog post from Tor.com where the author is arguing that the third LotR book is the strongest which implies it's worth getting all the way there. Though he concedes there's still a section of about 20 pages where Gandalf and Aragorn are just chatting in the snow :)

https://www.tor.com/2018/02/28/five-t...

[Chris]

Andrea wrote: Cindy wrote: "Tom bombadil is so classically British, the kind of folks you'd see in Mrs. Miniver, much like the tra-la-lallying elves. I know he's supposed to be some old god in the story but I can just see him..."

I must admit I've always pictured him as a garden gnome.

I'm afraid to me he's become indistinguishable from his alter ego Tim Benzedrine in Bored of the Rings: A Parody of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. 'Hop a pill, pop a pill, Tim Benzedrino.'

[Byron]

I haven't read the LOTR trilogy in a while, but I'm glad that fantasy has shifted from the info-dumpy style of LOTR. In fact, I think it's a testament to a writer's ability to build a vivid fantasy world without it. Not saying Tolkien is bad, but the craft has evolved from that and readers' expectations and tastes change.

[Darryl]

I think that there is nothing, almost nothing that is, to compare to the LOR. But of course if you don't like elaborate worlds and invented languages then this probably isn't for you.

[Roger]

Tim wrote: "I think that there is nothing, almost nothing that is, to compare to the LOR. But of course if you don't like elaborate worlds and invented languages then this probably isn't for you."

That's a huge oversimplification of what causes you to like and dislike a a story. I love elaborate worlds and enjoy when an author has such a back story that he has created a language for the world, but I find LOTR to just drag and drag on. Everything does not need to be described to the smallest detail and Tolkien does that and then some.

[Robin P]

It has been a long time since I read LOTR so I might find it dragging now. But Brandon Sanderson & GRR Martin also have plenty of (perhaps unneeded) detail.

[Cindy]

the detail isn’t unneeded, for me, if i’m interested in it. i am interested in the detail in tolkien. and dickens, and austen, and many others. i’m not interested in the detail in tolstoy, in much of robert Jordan, and others. i think it’s a matter of personal taste because it’s obviously not a matter of objective quality. i know tolstoy is good and yet he loses me on the nature walks. that’s a me problem. i’m reminded of a quote from mad men about boredom but i’ll let it be.

[Andrea]

Cindy wrote: "the detail isn’t unneeded, for me, if i’m interested in it. i am interested in the detail in tolkien. and dickens, and austen, and many others. i’m not interested in the detail in tolstoy, in much ..."

I agree it all boils down to what a person enjoys in details. For example, if you were a geologist, you'd probably love the long stretches in The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson, but after a dozen pages of some guy rolling around in a rover describing the different shades of red, I was bored out of my mind. The quality of his descriptions were great, very informative, but I just wasn't all that interested in rocks. In fact Robinson covered a little bit of everything from politics, economics, biology, geology, etc so I went back and forth from "I don't care about this stuff" to be completely engrossed.

In the Eragon series, the second book had this whole chapter that described how to basically make a katana (technically an elf sword, but if you know how a Japanese sword is made you'll recognize it for what it is). Since I already knew this, I didn't need the step-by-step description. The rest of that book I enjoyed since it described the elf-culture of that world.

However, I enjoyed the Silmarillion because I love getting all the history, religion, and cultures of worlds described to me. Now, to be sure the Silmarillion is not a "story" like the Lord of the Rings, it's a kind of historical text book sort of thing. Since it doesn't have a plot per-se I can see why people find that one really hard to get into (notwithstanding the million characters to keep track of over eons of time, many with similar and even multiple names)

[Chris]

Andrea wrote: Now, to be sure the Silmarillion is not a "story" like the Lord of the Rings, it's a kind of historical text book sort of thing. Since it doesn't have a plot per-se I can see why people find that one really hard to get into ...

And, in the opinion of some of us, not worth the effort.

[Coleman]

What blasphemy is this?

Actually I did find it quite hard going.

[Lori]

I loved the Lord of the Rings, I didn't find it boring at all. I was amazed by J.R.R. Tolkiens world building skills it absolutely amazed me. I loved when the characters would be travelling through an area and there would be a statue and Tolkien would give you a brief (sometimes not so brief) history that went along with it.