AFAIK nothing happens between The Hobbit and The LotR. Bilbo smoked some pipe weed and Gandalf washed his hair. I think they mean a prequel prior to the Hobbit - maybe the war of the elves and men against Sauron depicted in flashbacks in the LotR, where they got the ring.
2951 \tARAGORN II, Sixteenth Chieftan of the Dúnedain, b. TA 2931
Elrond reveals to Aragorn II his true name and identity, and gives him the shards of Narsil and the Ring of Barahir. He first meets Arwen, daughter of Elrond.
Sauron declares himself openly and begins rebuilding the Barad-dûr. He send three Nazgûl to reoccupy Dol Guldor.
2953 \tECTHELION II, Twenty-fifth Ruling Steward of Gondor, b. TA 2886, d. TA 2984
Thengel, Sixteenth King of Rohan, b. TA 2905, d. TA 2980
He is recalled by Rohan, following the death of Fengel, and returns reluctantly.
The last meeting of the White Council, CurunÃ*r claims to have discovered that the One Ring has rolled down the Anduin to the Sea. He begins to keep agents in Bree and the Shire.
2954 \tOrodruin bursts into flame. The last inhabitants of Ithilien flee over the Anduin.
2957-2980 \tAragorn II travels widely and, as "Thorongil", serves both Thengel of Rohan and Steward Ecthelion II of Gondor.
2968 \tBirth of Frodo Baggins, sailed into the West TA 3021. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring, and one of the Bearers of the One Ring.
2977 \tAdrahil, Twenty-first Prince of Dol Amroth, b. TA 2917, d. TA 3010
Bain, King of Dale, d. TA 3007.
2978 \tBirth of Boromir, elder son of Steward Denethor II of Gondor. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
Aragorn II and Arwen plight their troth in Lórien upon the hill of Cerin Amroth, he gives her the Ring of Barahir.
Ferumbras III, Thirtieth Thain of the Shire, b. TA 2916, d. TA 3015
Eighteenth Thain of the Took line, he never married and was succeded by his cousin Paladin II.
2981 \tBirth of Samwise Gamgee, sailed into the West FA 61. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
2982 \tBirth of Meriadoc Brandybuck. Later Master of Buckland. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
2983 \tBirth of Faramir, younger son of Steward Denethor II of Gondor.
2984 \tDENETHOR II, Twenty-sixth Ruling Steward of Gondor, b. TA 2930, d. TA 3019
He married Finduilas of Dol Amroth (b. TA 2950, d. TA 2988) in TA 2976.
2989 \tBalin leads a company of Dwarves from Erebor to Moria, in an attempt to reoccupy it. Balin is slain, and the colony destroyed, five years later in TA 2994.
2990 \tBirth of Peregrin Took. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
c. 3000 \tCurunÃ*r dares to use the palantÃ*r of the Orthanc, and is ensnared by Sauron.
Well... I never read the Lord of the Rings books. I started the Fellowship of the Ring and I thought it was bollocks (I was about 13.)
But I loved the films. They rocked. So... I'm glad Peter Jackson's directing it, because he's good.
(This isn't, um, a purist's approach, but it is honest...)
Maybe your tastes changed, or maybe you didn't read past Bilbo's birthday party (which is really long in the books). I read the books 10 times or so around that same age, and loved them - I couldn't get into the Simirilion, but I think that might be because it was above my reading level at the time.
The moment he cut out old Tom, who had no bearing on the story whatsoever and was indicative that Tolkien's writing style was completely masturbatory, I realized Jackson might have something.
I agree.
The cutting of Tom B was key to the sucess of the first movie and thus the series. He was a fascinating character but very problematic to the logic of the story that follows and preceeds.
Nevertheless, I object to the characterization of Tolkein's writing as completely masturbatory. I would call it exploratory. He had no idea where the story was going when he started it so you ended up with Bilbo's party and Tom before he got hooked into the story that became TLoTR.
I suspect he would have edited Tom out or shifted things completely if he had had more years to rewrite.
Maybe your tastes changed, or maybe you didn't read past Bilbo's birthday party (which is really long in the books). I read the books 10 times or so around that same age, and loved them - I couldn't get into the Simirilion, but I think that might be because it was above my reading level at the time.
I must have started the Simirilion two or three times at different ages. Every time I re-read the trillogy I tried to keep it going with the Simirilion. I think I was about 28 when it actually worked for me. It was like a switch flipped and I absolutely loved it. 'snot for everyone, though...
Bergermeister: In my post I said why I thought he ruined the end of The Lord of the Rings. Peter took too long with it. It would have been sufficient to cut the crap at the end and just say it was a happy ending. <snip>.
Well, I wasn't extreemly happy with the ending of the movies, but if you thought they were supposed to end happy he really messed it up IMHO. I always found them extreemly sad. Bilbo, Gandalf and all the elves leaving "to the west". Then end of the age. Magic leaving the land. The fading of the glory...
Bittersweet is the closest it comes to happy for me. Maybe that is hard to do in a movie, or with the studio hounding you...
The cutting of Tom B was key to the sucess of the first movie and thus the series. He was a fascinating character but very problematic to the logic of the story that follows and preceeds.
Nevertheless, I object to the characterization of Tolkein's writing as completely masturbatory. I would call it exploratory. He had no idea where the story was going when he started it so you ended up with Bilbo's party and Tom before he got hooked into the story that became TLoTR.
I suspect he would have edited Tom out or shifted things completely if he had had more years to rewrite.
But masturbatory? I think thats a little harsh..
You're probably right on the harshness, although it is true.
Tolkien wrote the books for himself. I'm a huge fan of them, but his pacing is truly awful. I think most people agree that Jackson's changes and omissions made for a much stronger story, which is part of the reason why he was able to make some of the changes he did without too much uproar (versus some of the uproar over the various Harry Potter movies).
Commence stoning, but it's true - when the reader has to wade through the words to keep up, when a glossary, timeline, and bibliographical reference are required for simply following a rather straightforward plot... something is wrong.
When people tell me "Every time I read Tolkien, I find more!" I can only think "That just means you missed things the first time."
JRR's background was in oral histories, and mythology, and it shows - if you read LOTR out loud, it has a *wonderful* cadence and flow, and it's obvious that it was meant to really be a series of oral tellings. But what makes for good spoken stories doesn't always work in long literary form... particularly if you don't have an internal voice reading in your head. This is something I realized just a couple of years ago - most people, when they read something, hear the words. I don't. Never have. Every person I've asked, who says they love Tolkien, has said that they have that internal voice. They hear the cadence. They enjoy the flow, and miss the content of the words. ("I always find more!") Those that, like myself, didn't particularly care for the writing, have almost all said that they don't have that inner reading voice. We concentrate on the content, not the cadence, and with Tolkien, that's like being thrown in to a pool of tapioca with all four limbs bound and told to swim.
So truthfully, I'm glad that Jackson did the *very* artistic and respectful paring down that he did. I finally got to find out how RoTK ended, after all... yup, after many attempts over the years to read the entire series, it still stands as the only book I've ever given up on. Repeatedly.
Raimi and Jackson have long been favorites of mine, both for the 'first' films, both of which were low budget comedic zombie flicks: _Evil Dead_ and _Dead Alive_ (_Brain Dead_ down under.) The fact that they've become such lauded directors now just amuses the hell out of me.
I totally annd utterly disagree with this type of thinking.
If I wanted an easy to follow book with a simple plot, Hollywood movie style, I'd read Stephen King. I expect a little bit of vocabulary and indirect approach when I read what I expect to be literature.
LOtR is not pulp fiction.
I bet you think Nabokov is a derivative hack and Huxley a pretentious fake.
(Flaming Commenced).
The problem is that Tolkien's plots are far simpler than even the dumbest Hollywood drivel.
They're simply episodes, a string of short stories that happen to come together.
The Hobbit is the worst offender in this regard. You could literally just move chapters around, and, ignoring that little map at the start of it, it would read just as well. With the exception of Bilbo finding the ring, no event really has any bearing on any future event.
For example, try to imagine a plot twist in the Hobbit. You can't. There's no build up to anything. Right from the beginning, they say they're gonna kill Smaug the Dragon and take his gold, and then random events happen on the way there.
The Lord of the Rings fares a bit better, yet it still has almost no drama and it's still plainly good versus evil.
As an aside, Tolkien isn't really even comparable to Nabokov or Huxley.
The problem is that Tolkien's plots are far simpler than even the dumbest Hollywood drivel.
They're simply episodes, a string of short stories that happen to come together.
The Hobbit is the worst offender in this regard. You could literally just move chapters around, and, ignoring that little map at the start of it, it would read just as well. With the exception of Bilbo finding the ring, no event really has any bearing on any future event.
For example, try to imagine a plot twist in the Hobbit. You can't. There's no build up to anything. Right from the beginning, they say they're gonna kill Smaug the Dragon and take his gold, and then random events happen on the way there.
The Lord of the Rings fares a bit better, yet it still has almost no drama and it's still plainly good versus evil.
As an aside, Tolkien isn't really even comparable to Nabokov or Huxley.
That is a comparison on one element of the story only - what makes Tolkien amazing for me was that his stories have real atmosphere - they sweep me away and put me in another world in a way that most other fantasy stories don't. "The Black Company" and Gene Wolf's work also have this quality, while "Swords of Shannara" does not.
That is a comparison on one element of the story only - what makes Tolkien amazing for me was that his stories have real atmosphere - they sweep me away and put me in another world in a way that most other fantasy stories don't. "The Black Company" and Gene Wolf's work also have this quality, while "Swords of Shannara" does not.
I agree with you 100%.
I love Tolkien, and largely for that reason (especially his made up words).
But Tonton was specifically talking about the plot 'not being easy,' when the reality is that the plot just isn't there.
Commence stoning, but it's true - when the reader has to wade through the words to keep up, when a glossary, timeline, and bibliographical reference are required for simply following a rather straightforward plot... something is wrong.
First, not many people are going to say he was a great writer. He created the epitome of the fantasy genre, but no one would put him in a list of great pure writers.
But I don't think it's fair to say that the glossary, timeline, etc. are required for following the plot. Not at all. Tolkien was an academic, an historian of literature and language, and wanted to create his own world with its own history and mythology. He studied the history of languages and literature, and wanted to create an imaginary world that he might have studied if it actually existed. That's why he created the back story, because it was his hobby and his profession, not to explain the plot.
In 1997, voters in a BBC poll named "The Lord of the Rings" the greatest book of the 20th century. In 1999, Amazon.com customers chose it as the greatest book of the millennium.
A lot of people do consider him a great writer, or at least author, though I think they're confusing the craft of writing with the craft of world creation. At the latter, Tolkien has few peers... the man was amazing. I would have loved to have lived in his head for a while.
I think, however, that you misunderstand me - the plot itself is simple, and *once you find it*, it's easy to follow. The problem is digging through the hundreds of layers of inconsequential (to the plot) extras that he added to get to it. Maybe it's just me, but when I read something I *absorb* it. Every fact, every detail, every line gets read, digested, and hung onto a larger framework. When I get done reading something, fiction or not, I have a complete semantic picture to draw from, and I can essentially playback the entire work in my head, if not word for word, at least scene for scene and emotion for emotion. That's just the way I read. I never 'keep finding more' on rereads. So for me, Tolkien is sheer hell to wade through. The thousands of details become baggage, not tapestry.
In that respect, I don't think he was a great author - he didn't create a work of literature to be read, he created a world to be lived, and unfortunately, literature was the vehicle he had in which to express it. I still maintain that someone who was a better writer could have created works based on Middle Earth that would have told the same stories, with the same level of detail, but in a way that was more literary, and less encyclopedic. To be honest, it always felt to me like he was telling too many stories at once, instead of concentrating on one epic. The side-threads would have been more enjoyable on their own, instead of interwoven with the core. Personal preference, perhaps, but since it's all subjective anyway...
What you are also overlooking is that Tolkien wrote many short stories about Middle Earth prior to this series. So he is just building onto and tying into a world that was already created with the other stories. I for one enjoy a writer developing a scene. Some do better than others. For Sci-fi, fantasy I love the stories of Pern by Anne McCaffry. Still Mitchner and Stienbeck are my favorites.
And see, if he'd *continued* making those short stories as the adjuncts to the main epic, which could then have been tightened up, I maintain that LOTR would have been a much better work of literature. *shrug*
One of these days I'll have to track down a copy of the audio version of the unabridged trilogy. It's something like 38 hrs long. I suspect that, as an oral work, it simply works better.
A lot of people do consider him a great writer, or at least author, though I think they're confusing the craft of writing with the craft of world creation. At the latter, Tolkien has few peers... the man was amazing. I would have loved to have lived in his head for a while.
Sure lots of people like Lord of the Rings. But Tolkien is not considered one of the great writers. Lots of people like Titanic, but James Cameron isn't considered one of the most artistic film directors in history.
Quote:
I think, however, that you misunderstand me - the plot itself is simple, and *once you find it*, it's easy to follow. The problem is digging through the hundreds of layers of inconsequential (to the plot) extras that he added to get to it. Maybe it's just me, but when I read something I *absorb* it. Every fact, every detail, every line gets read, digested, and hung onto a larger framework. When I get done reading something, fiction or not, I have a complete semantic picture to draw from, and I can essentially playback the entire work in my head, if not word for word, at least scene for scene and emotion for emotion. That's just the way I read. I never 'keep finding more' on rereads. So for me, Tolkien is sheer hell to wade through. The thousands of details become baggage, not tapestry.
In that respect, I don't think he was a great author - he didn't create a work of literature to be read, he created a world to be lived, and unfortunately, literature was the vehicle he had in which to express it. I still maintain that someone who was a better writer could have created works based on Middle Earth that would have told the same stories, with the same level of detail, but in a way that was more literary, and less encyclopedic. To be honest, it always felt to me like he was telling too many stories at once, instead of concentrating on one epic. The side-threads would have been more enjoyable on their own, instead of interwoven with the core. Personal preference, perhaps, but since it's all subjective anyway...
Well that's a pretty idiosyncratic criticism. Sure, if you're impatient and just want the basic plot, you're not going to enjoy reading 1000 pages of Lord of the Rings. But many people love fiction just for the atmosphere and details rather than simply the plot. And there are a lot of solid criticisms of Tolkien's writing style.
I'd like to hear midwinter's opinions on the matter.
Comments
AFAIK nothing happens between The Hobbit and The LotR. Bilbo smoked some pipe weed and Gandalf washed his hair. I think they mean a prequel prior to the Hobbit - maybe the war of the elves and men against Sauron depicted in flashbacks in the LotR, where they got the ring.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~sdgeard/hccag2.html
2941 \t <the events from the hobit occur>
The White Council attack Dol Guldor. Sauron, as long planned, abandons it and removes to Mordor.
2943 \tThengel of Rohan marries Morwen of Lossarnach.
In Gondor, she bares him two daughters and a son, Théoden.
2944 \tBard, King of Dale, d. TA 2977.
Dale is rebuilt.
2951 \tARAGORN II, Sixteenth Chieftan of the Dúnedain, b. TA 2931
Elrond reveals to Aragorn II his true name and identity, and gives him the shards of Narsil and the Ring of Barahir. He first meets Arwen, daughter of Elrond.
Sauron declares himself openly and begins rebuilding the Barad-dûr. He send three Nazgûl to reoccupy Dol Guldor.
2953 \tECTHELION II, Twenty-fifth Ruling Steward of Gondor, b. TA 2886, d. TA 2984
Thengel, Sixteenth King of Rohan, b. TA 2905, d. TA 2980
He is recalled by Rohan, following the death of Fengel, and returns reluctantly.
In Rohan his wife bares two more daughters, the younger is Théodwyn (b. TA 2963).
The last meeting of the White Council, CurunÃ*r claims to have discovered that the One Ring has rolled down the Anduin to the Sea. He begins to keep agents in Bree and the Shire.
2954 \tOrodruin bursts into flame. The last inhabitants of Ithilien flee over the Anduin.
2957-2980 \tAragorn II travels widely and, as "Thorongil", serves both Thengel of Rohan and Steward Ecthelion II of Gondor.
2968 \tBirth of Frodo Baggins, sailed into the West TA 3021. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring, and one of the Bearers of the One Ring.
2977 \tAdrahil, Twenty-first Prince of Dol Amroth, b. TA 2917, d. TA 3010
Bain, King of Dale, d. TA 3007.
2978 \tBirth of Boromir, elder son of Steward Denethor II of Gondor. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
2980 \tThéoden, Seventeenth King of Rohan, b. TA 2948, d. TA 3019
Aragorn II and Arwen plight their troth in Lórien upon the hill of Cerin Amroth, he gives her the Ring of Barahir.
Ferumbras III, Thirtieth Thain of the Shire, b. TA 2916, d. TA 3015
Eighteenth Thain of the Took line, he never married and was succeded by his cousin Paladin II.
2981 \tBirth of Samwise Gamgee, sailed into the West FA 61. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
2982 \tBirth of Meriadoc Brandybuck. Later Master of Buckland. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
2983 \tBirth of Faramir, younger son of Steward Denethor II of Gondor.
2984 \tDENETHOR II, Twenty-sixth Ruling Steward of Gondor, b. TA 2930, d. TA 3019
He married Finduilas of Dol Amroth (b. TA 2950, d. TA 2988) in TA 2976.
2989 \tBalin leads a company of Dwarves from Erebor to Moria, in an attempt to reoccupy it. Balin is slain, and the colony destroyed, five years later in TA 2994.
2990 \tBirth of Peregrin Took. One of the Nine Companions of the Ring.
c. 3000 \tCurunÃ*r dares to use the palantÃ*r of the Orthanc, and is ensnared by Sauron.
3001 \t<the events from LOTR start>
btw Curunir = Saruman
But I loved the films. They rocked. So... I'm glad Peter Jackson's directing it, because he's good.
(This isn't, um, a purist's approach, but it is honest...)
Well... I never read the Lord of the Rings books. I started the Fellowship of the Ring and I thought it was bollocks (I was about 13.)
But I loved the films. They rocked. So... I'm glad Peter Jackson's directing it, because he's good.
(This isn't, um, a purist's approach, but it is honest...)
Maybe your tastes changed, or maybe you didn't read past Bilbo's birthday party (which is really long in the books). I read the books 10 times or so around that same age, and loved them - I couldn't get into the Simirilion, but I think that might be because it was above my reading level at the time.
The moment he cut out old Tom, who had no bearing on the story whatsoever and was indicative that Tolkien's writing style was completely masturbatory, I realized Jackson might have something.
I agree.
The cutting of Tom B was key to the sucess of the first movie and thus the series. He was a fascinating character but very problematic to the logic of the story that follows and preceeds.
Nevertheless, I object to the characterization of Tolkein's writing as completely masturbatory. I would call it exploratory. He had no idea where the story was going when he started it so you ended up with Bilbo's party and Tom before he got hooked into the story that became TLoTR.
I suspect he would have edited Tom out or shifted things completely if he had had more years to rewrite.
But masturbatory? I think thats a little harsh..
Maybe your tastes changed, or maybe you didn't read past Bilbo's birthday party (which is really long in the books). I read the books 10 times or so around that same age, and loved them - I couldn't get into the Simirilion, but I think that might be because it was above my reading level at the time.
I must have started the Simirilion two or three times at different ages. Every time I re-read the trillogy I tried to keep it going with the Simirilion. I think I was about 28 when it actually worked for me. It was like a switch flipped and I absolutely loved it. 'snot for everyone, though...
Bergermeister: In my post I said why I thought he ruined the end of The Lord of the Rings. Peter took too long with it. It would have been sufficient to cut the crap at the end and just say it was a happy ending. <snip>.
Well, I wasn't extreemly happy with the ending of the movies, but if you thought they were supposed to end happy he really messed it up IMHO. I always found them extreemly sad. Bilbo, Gandalf and all the elves leaving "to the west". Then end of the age. Magic leaving the land. The fading of the glory...
Bittersweet is the closest it comes to happy for me. Maybe that is hard to do in a movie, or with the studio hounding you...
I agree.
The cutting of Tom B was key to the sucess of the first movie and thus the series. He was a fascinating character but very problematic to the logic of the story that follows and preceeds.
Nevertheless, I object to the characterization of Tolkein's writing as completely masturbatory. I would call it exploratory. He had no idea where the story was going when he started it so you ended up with Bilbo's party and Tom before he got hooked into the story that became TLoTR.
I suspect he would have edited Tom out or shifted things completely if he had had more years to rewrite.
But masturbatory? I think thats a little harsh..
You're probably right on the harshness, although it is true.
Tolkien wrote the books for himself. I'm a huge fan of them, but his pacing is truly awful. I think most people agree that Jackson's changes and omissions made for a much stronger story, which is part of the reason why he was able to make some of the changes he did without too much uproar (versus some of the uproar over the various Harry Potter movies).
But he was a lousy writer.
Commence stoning, but it's true - when the reader has to wade through the words to keep up, when a glossary, timeline, and bibliographical reference are required for simply following a rather straightforward plot... something is wrong.
When people tell me "Every time I read Tolkien, I find more!" I can only think "That just means you missed things the first time."
JRR's background was in oral histories, and mythology, and it shows - if you read LOTR out loud, it has a *wonderful* cadence and flow, and it's obvious that it was meant to really be a series of oral tellings. But what makes for good spoken stories doesn't always work in long literary form... particularly if you don't have an internal voice reading in your head. This is something I realized just a couple of years ago - most people, when they read something, hear the words. I don't. Never have. Every person I've asked, who says they love Tolkien, has said that they have that internal voice. They hear the cadence. They enjoy the flow, and miss the content of the words. ("I always find more!") Those that, like myself, didn't particularly care for the writing, have almost all said that they don't have that inner reading voice. We concentrate on the content, not the cadence, and with Tolkien, that's like being thrown in to a pool of tapioca with all four limbs bound and told to swim.
So truthfully, I'm glad that Jackson did the *very* artistic and respectful paring down that he did. I finally got to find out how RoTK ended, after all... yup, after many attempts over the years to read the entire series, it still stands as the only book I've ever given up on. Repeatedly.
Discuss.
...that's like being thrown in to a pool of tapioca with all four limbs bound and told to swim.
Don't keep lingering on it. That frat party was years ago. Just let it go.
ROTFL!
Raimi and Jackson have long been favorites of mine, both for the 'first' films, both of which were low budget comedic zombie flicks: _Evil Dead_ and _Dead Alive_ (_Brain Dead_ down under.) The fact that they've become such lauded directors now just amuses the hell out of me.
For that matter, I don't think his books are unassailable or anything...
I totally annd utterly disagree with this type of thinking.
If I wanted an easy to follow book with a simple plot, Hollywood movie style, I'd read Stephen King. I expect a little bit of vocabulary and indirect approach when I read what I expect to be literature.
LOtR is not pulp fiction.
I bet you think Nabokov is a derivative hack and Huxley a pretentious fake.
(Flaming Commenced).
The problem is that Tolkien's plots are far simpler than even the dumbest Hollywood drivel.
They're simply episodes, a string of short stories that happen to come together.
The Hobbit is the worst offender in this regard. You could literally just move chapters around, and, ignoring that little map at the start of it, it would read just as well. With the exception of Bilbo finding the ring, no event really has any bearing on any future event.
For example, try to imagine a plot twist in the Hobbit. You can't. There's no build up to anything. Right from the beginning, they say they're gonna kill Smaug the Dragon and take his gold, and then random events happen on the way there.
The Lord of the Rings fares a bit better, yet it still has almost no drama and it's still plainly good versus evil.
As an aside, Tolkien isn't really even comparable to Nabokov or Huxley.
The problem is that Tolkien's plots are far simpler than even the dumbest Hollywood drivel.
They're simply episodes, a string of short stories that happen to come together.
The Hobbit is the worst offender in this regard. You could literally just move chapters around, and, ignoring that little map at the start of it, it would read just as well. With the exception of Bilbo finding the ring, no event really has any bearing on any future event.
For example, try to imagine a plot twist in the Hobbit. You can't. There's no build up to anything. Right from the beginning, they say they're gonna kill Smaug the Dragon and take his gold, and then random events happen on the way there.
The Lord of the Rings fares a bit better, yet it still has almost no drama and it's still plainly good versus evil.
As an aside, Tolkien isn't really even comparable to Nabokov or Huxley.
That is a comparison on one element of the story only - what makes Tolkien amazing for me was that his stories have real atmosphere - they sweep me away and put me in another world in a way that most other fantasy stories don't. "The Black Company" and Gene Wolf's work also have this quality, while "Swords of Shannara" does not.
That is a comparison on one element of the story only - what makes Tolkien amazing for me was that his stories have real atmosphere - they sweep me away and put me in another world in a way that most other fantasy stories don't. "The Black Company" and Gene Wolf's work also have this quality, while "Swords of Shannara" does not.
I agree with you 100%.
I love Tolkien, and largely for that reason (especially his made up words).
But Tonton was specifically talking about the plot 'not being easy,' when the reality is that the plot just isn't there.
Tolkien was a great story creator.
But he was a lousy writer.
Commence stoning, but it's true - when the reader has to wade through the words to keep up, when a glossary, timeline, and bibliographical reference are required for simply following a rather straightforward plot... something is wrong.
First, not many people are going to say he was a great writer. He created the epitome of the fantasy genre, but no one would put him in a list of great pure writers.
But I don't think it's fair to say that the glossary, timeline, etc. are required for following the plot. Not at all. Tolkien was an academic, an historian of literature and language, and wanted to create his own world with its own history and mythology. He studied the history of languages and literature, and wanted to create an imaginary world that he might have studied if it actually existed. That's why he created the back story, because it was his hobby and his profession, not to explain the plot.
In 1997, voters in a BBC poll named "The Lord of the Rings" the greatest book of the 20th century. In 1999, Amazon.com customers chose it as the greatest book of the millennium.
Also: http://classiclit.about.com/od/tolki..._jrtolkien.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Write.../229ZQ65I1HH3B
etc...
A lot of people do consider him a great writer, or at least author, though I think they're confusing the craft of writing with the craft of world creation. At the latter, Tolkien has few peers... the man was amazing. I would have loved to have lived in his head for a while.
I think, however, that you misunderstand me - the plot itself is simple, and *once you find it*, it's easy to follow. The problem is digging through the hundreds of layers of inconsequential (to the plot) extras that he added to get to it. Maybe it's just me, but when I read something I *absorb* it. Every fact, every detail, every line gets read, digested, and hung onto a larger framework. When I get done reading something, fiction or not, I have a complete semantic picture to draw from, and I can essentially playback the entire work in my head, if not word for word, at least scene for scene and emotion for emotion. That's just the way I read. I never 'keep finding more' on rereads. So for me, Tolkien is sheer hell to wade through. The thousands of details become baggage, not tapestry.
In that respect, I don't think he was a great author - he didn't create a work of literature to be read, he created a world to be lived, and unfortunately, literature was the vehicle he had in which to express it. I still maintain that someone who was a better writer could have created works based on Middle Earth that would have told the same stories, with the same level of detail, but in a way that was more literary, and less encyclopedic. To be honest, it always felt to me like he was telling too many stories at once, instead of concentrating on one epic. The side-threads would have been more enjoyable on their own, instead of interwoven with the core. Personal preference, perhaps, but since it's all subjective anyway...
One of these days I'll have to track down a copy of the audio version of the unabridged trilogy. It's something like 38 hrs long. I suspect that, as an oral work, it simply works better.
From Salon.com:
Also: http://classiclit.about.com/od/tolki..._jrtolkien.htm
http://www.amazon.com/Greatest-Write.../229ZQ65I1HH3B
etc...
A lot of people do consider him a great writer, or at least author, though I think they're confusing the craft of writing with the craft of world creation. At the latter, Tolkien has few peers... the man was amazing. I would have loved to have lived in his head for a while.
Sure lots of people like Lord of the Rings. But Tolkien is not considered one of the great writers. Lots of people like Titanic, but James Cameron isn't considered one of the most artistic film directors in history.
I think, however, that you misunderstand me - the plot itself is simple, and *once you find it*, it's easy to follow. The problem is digging through the hundreds of layers of inconsequential (to the plot) extras that he added to get to it. Maybe it's just me, but when I read something I *absorb* it. Every fact, every detail, every line gets read, digested, and hung onto a larger framework. When I get done reading something, fiction or not, I have a complete semantic picture to draw from, and I can essentially playback the entire work in my head, if not word for word, at least scene for scene and emotion for emotion. That's just the way I read. I never 'keep finding more' on rereads. So for me, Tolkien is sheer hell to wade through. The thousands of details become baggage, not tapestry.
In that respect, I don't think he was a great author - he didn't create a work of literature to be read, he created a world to be lived, and unfortunately, literature was the vehicle he had in which to express it. I still maintain that someone who was a better writer could have created works based on Middle Earth that would have told the same stories, with the same level of detail, but in a way that was more literary, and less encyclopedic. To be honest, it always felt to me like he was telling too many stories at once, instead of concentrating on one epic. The side-threads would have been more enjoyable on their own, instead of interwoven with the core. Personal preference, perhaps, but since it's all subjective anyway...
Well that's a pretty idiosyncratic criticism. Sure, if you're impatient and just want the basic plot, you're not going to enjoy reading 1000 pages of Lord of the Rings. But many people love fiction just for the atmosphere and details rather than simply the plot. And there are a lot of solid criticisms of Tolkien's writing style.
I'd like to hear midwinter's opinions on the matter.