The Fellowship of the Ring question

A lot of people have already said that if you enjoy high fantasy, you'll enjoy Tolkien's works. That's good advice. I'd definitely start with The Hobbit, though. It's a fun and easy read, kind of a starter's guide to Middle Earth. If you enjoy that, the Lord of the Rings trilogy is a step up. While not an "easy" read, I found the trilogy to be some of the most beautifully written books I ever read.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are wonderful books. If you read the Hobbit you will not get an idea of what the other book is like, the only thing you will get is an introduction to the Tolkien universe. It's a children's book and is written like one. Even so it has a huge following because it's a really fun book.

Now, The Lord of the Rings is another matter entirely. One thing to know is that it is one book split into three volumes. I've read that Tolkien was unhappy that it was split like that. He was concerned that people would only read one volume and miss huge parts of the story. I wonder if that would have been wise. I've got the book in one volume and it's huge.

That said LotR is a wonderful, deep, and moving book that, I think, transcends its fantasy genre to be a great book, not just a great fantasy book. I highly recommend you read the whole thing (it's riveting so don't worry about its length) and not just one volume.

Enjoy!

Roni wrote: "And can anyone tell me the order of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings books?"

Sure...

1. The Hobbit
2. Lord of the Rings

You don't even have to ask that question;
This book (In fact the 4 Books (The Hobbit, TFotR, TTT, TRotK)), are in every 100 must read books I ever saw.

Seriously, don't waste anymore time, go read it!

About the way the Book is written, have no worries, you will understand it perfectly fine;
Consider that Im not a native english speaker, and I managed to read it way before finishing my english studies at a decent pace :)

BTW, if you find the way Tolkien writes hard or uneasy, thats for the best, for one can only grow stronger through challenges. And when you finish the book you will be smarter than before ;)

That depends: how much do you like the word 'fortnight'?

Hi Roni,
Personally I love The Hobbit and the Lord of The Rings trilogy. The Hobbit came before Lord of the rings and is a much shorter book so my advice would be to read it first. If you enjoy it then move onto the larger books.

I know they are a bit long winded by modern standards and my son found the listing of the generations of Kings etc. to be tedious, but you can always skip it and move on to the action. I love the films as well and think they kept quite true to the books.

Hope you enjoy them as much as I did. Anne

I watched the first movie of The Lord of the Rings trilogy and was extremely frustrated by the ending- literally ended with a 'let's go this way', fade to black scene. I had to read the books to see what happened next. I can honestly say while reading the first book (yes- I read it even though I had watched the movie- a first for me) I was surprised how much I missed. Is it understandable? Yes- and it's necessary. The movie is great- but just doesn't do the book justice.

If you like High Fantasy, these books are a must. His books are the template for every Fantasy epic since. If you are not much of a fan of High Fantasy, then you may or may not want to try them depending if you want to try something different. The are an excellent read and fun.

Tolkien was a fantastic author and the Hobbit is a great place to start with his work. After that the trilogy and the silmarillion are great to follow up with.

Tolkien set the modern standard for high fantasy. You can't consider yourself knowledgable about fantasy without reading his works. The movies? Well, a movie is a different animal than a book. The movies do an excellent job of telling a story, but it's not exactly the same story. The movie focuses on the action part of the adventure and leaves out a lot of the deeply textured world building that makes the books so memorable.

Read the books.
Watch the movies—BUT watch the extended versions. They tell the story much more coherently.

I'll be the dissenter in the room and admit that I hated the books. Which actually surprised me because I generally like epic/high fantasy. However, I found Tolkien's writing style to be insufferably dull, and I only finished the books because I was dead-set on reading them before watching the movies.

I remember thinking that the first movie did a fantastic job at telling Tolkien's story but actually making it interesting. By the time the other two movies came out I no longer remembered enough detail to notice any subtle changes or deletions so I can't vouch for the accuracy.

Bottom line: I personally suggest you simply watch the movies.

Read them. they are better than the movies and the movies are very well done. The first book is a little slow but they are well worth your time.

Because of the hype and popularity of this series, I thought for sure I would be at least mildly disappointed by these books. I'm happy to say that I wasn't disappointed at all and thoroughly enjoyed the novels, despite watching the movies first. Don't worry about the language, its pretty easy to understand. There is a lot of information though, so don't feel the need to speed through them.

sorry ... not gonna read the thread ... I could not stand Fellowship, and barely got thru Towers before giving up on Tolkein ... and I am a fan of fantasy novels.

I cant specifically state why I don't like his works, it has been a decade since I gave up, but my memory is in the area of way too ... pretentious ... self absorbed ... 'takes itself too seriously ...? something like that ...

Part of my dislike is that I came to the works AFTER reading Terry Brooks, Robert Jordan and the Forgotten Realms. BY the time I got to Middle Earth I found the 'running man, high fantasy' concept to be stale ...

Honestly, I found the books to be slow and boring. The movies did a really good job and are epic of themselves. So to me this is one of the rare occasions where I prefer the film to the book (only other time this has happened was with Gone With the Wind). I would say check it out from the library or download a sample. If you get into it, Great! Read the books. If you find yourself struggling to get into it, just go watch the movies. We won't judge you for it. ;-)