What makes the Lord of the Rings a Good Book?

[ray gower]

It is a simple enough question, but remember the book is technically very poorly written:-
Major characters are suddenly introduced.
Huge chunks of the story doesn't do anything.
The beginning is far too long, compared to the very short ending.
There is the epilogue (the scouring of the Shire) which is longer than many novels.
The way the various storylines are ignored for hundreds of pages

and so on.

In short, if you, as a writer, were to present this book to a publisher today it would not be read, let alone published!

[sarah2040]

I guess, to me, that it's one of those books that just draws you into the world and one that you can read over and over again and still discover new things about it.

Tolkein has created his own world within the book which is entirely believable because he goes into detail so much. Also with the Silmarillion and the rest of his books you almost believe that he thought it was a real world as everything is explained (apart from the mysterious Tom Bombadil).

I'm sure other people will have much better explanations as to why they like they books but thats my reasoning behind it.

[captaincarter]

It has to be.. everything in the book that makes it good

[roadster]

Originally posted by ray gower
Major characters are suddenly introduced.
Huge chunks of the story doesn't do anything.
The beginning is far too long, compared to the very short ending.
There is the epilogue (the scouring of the Shire) which is longer than many novels.
The way the various storylines are ignored

Think about it, doesn't all this sound like "life"
You meet new people all the time
Much of life is doing nothing
It takes forever to grow up then when you do you realize life is really very short
And after your "story" is over people are still putting the pieces of your life into meaning
Finally, much of our lives are ignored
Tolkien's works are masterpieces becaise his stories have life and breath to them . I could be placed into Middle Earth today and know all I need to interact and move about. When I read LOTR I am there. Thats a gift the surpasses what the majority of authors I've read have ever given to me.

[pkgrl]

Originally posted by roadster


Think about it, doesn't all this sound like "life"...

Tolkien's works are masterpieces becaise his stories have life and breath to them . I could be placed into Middle Earth today and know all I need to interact and move about. When I read LOTR I am there. Thats a gift the surpasses what the majority of authors I've read have ever given to me.

Excellent way to put it, roadster! And I think you're right, too. The way the details mimic life is one of the reasons I loved Farscape so much.

As for the question posed, it's the complexity of detail that keeps me rereading LOTR. I can understand the dropping in and out of "major" characters because Tolkein has created entire languages and cultures for all of these people. There were things that bugged my while I was reading, but kept reading anyway. The characters that we get to know well are complelling and fascinating. I like knowing more, and Tolkein gave me plenty of details to find.

As for the structure of the book, you gotta know that the second time I read it, I read it the way the timeline spelled things out (thanks for the timeline) and ignored the broken structure altogether. That's just me. Besides, I figured PJ would make the movie more along those chronological lines anyway. And I wanted the movie to make sense to me. It is the reason I read the book in the first place.