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Originally Posted by TheEndIsNigh  I never read a book of the film I've seen. |
See, for me it was always that I had read the book first, and saw the film second. I think the generational thing that J.D. brought up is really interesting. It's not a bad thing, just diffeent to the ways in which many of us oldies grew up. It's very hard going from the fast paced movie to the book unless the author has written it in a style similar to a movie (the success of the Davinci code is possibly an example. I haven't read it still, but I have friends in the 'literature' camp, and friends who just like a gripping read camp, and my general impression is that it wasn't written with anything people would call true literary skill. However, a new skill which is gaining recognition, is the ability to tell a tale that reads like a film, that's all action and plot and races so fast you don't realise it isn't fully fleshed out yet). All of these recent film remakes of novels I believe are great, as they get wonderfull tales out to people who don't normally read, or who wouldn't normally read in that style. By the way TheEndIsNigh, I will strongly reccommend you read the Harry Potter books if you enjoyed the films so much - J. K. Rowling's style is worth it, and the books have so much more in it than the films. The Potter Films are great or many reasons, but in the end they are just shadows of cardboard puppets when compared with the originals. The films just didn't have time to explore all the quirks of setting ad character that the books have... But I digress.
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Originally Posted by Marky Lazer The charm in LOTR to me lies in the slow-paced (endless) descriptions of landscapes, really. Not even taking his stories into consideration, Tolkien created such a detailed world that even if the story itself was rubbish, I would probably have enjoyed it... |
I think kinda sums up my perspective with Tolkien.
See, I can see where J. D. is coming from with the generational thing, but with Tolkien it's even more different. Tolkien's much harder to read at first. Mainly I believe, beause in many places, especially the beginning (bah, who needs to know what sort of weed they grew in which part of Hobbiton, and the relations of which hobbits to which families!), Tolkien reads more like a boring History book from the olden days when they thought history was about collecting 'facts.'
I started to read LOTR when I was 12, and put it down with disgust the first time. It wasn't until my mother started reading it out to the family, and finally got past the slow beginning, that I finally stole the second family copy and started to read ahead.
It does get you, eventually, and it is quite a beautiful read along the way. Tolkien is a good place to start testing your imagination.
My advice is to pick a point a couple of chapters in (maybe when they meet Tom Bombadil, seeing as he was a quirky character the films missed out on), and start from there. You know the general gist of the beginning, get started just a little bit in, skip the introduction. Yes, the build up is important there, butn if it's between having the background and not making it past the first few chapters, and not having the background and being able to truly read and enjoy Tolkien's tale. Well, I'll leave that choice to you...