An Experiment for J.R.R. Tolkien fans.

[Lilmizflashythang]

I was wondering if you guys would participate in a little experiment. Are you game?

If so here is the experiment. You meet someone who has only heard of J.R.R. Tolkien, because everytime they read a review on a sci-fi?fantasy book, it gets compared to "The Lord of the Rings." How would you try to convince such a person to either read, or to advoid reading "The Lord of the Rings." Give the pros and the cons. The only rule is: you cannot say anything that would ruin the story line or ending, just in case you convince them to read it.

By the way, you just met your targeted audience. I have never even heard of "The Lord of the Rings" until recently.

[Majimaune]

Well if I were you I would read it. It is an excellent book which many people enjoy. It can be a bit slow moving at times but other then that it is full of character development and stuff like that.

[Sathai]

It depends on what kind of writing style you like. If you have trouble reading classic books in general, you probably won't like it.

[Rane Longfox]

It depends how much other fantasy you've already read. LotR was so groundbreaking and successful at the time that now everyone else has copied it. So if you've read a decent amount of other fantasy, it will all seem horribly cliched and unoriginal.

[kythe]

To me, Lord of the Rings is the ultimate fantasy. I believe it is the oldest of what might be called modern fantasy literature, but it is more than just a story. Middle Earth is an entire world of its own with a very complete history. J.R.R. Tolkien put a lifetime of work into this material, and it shows in the quality and depth of the stories.

I first read The Hobbit and LOTR after seeing the movie "Fellowship of the Rings" a few years ago. Even though it was the movie that drew me in, I have become a great lover of the books over time. I eventually went on to read The Silmarillion and some of the other volumes of the "History of Middle Earth" series. LOTR is certainly a complete story in itself, I just developed a strong enough interest to continue reading more of Tolkien's works.

The books are very detailed, and some people do not like them because they can feel slow moving. I enjoy the richness of the story that is provided through such strong descriptions and background. It seems that many other people do too, considering that LOTR has been a bestseller for over 50 years.

Edit to add: Rane Longfox, I tend to read other fantasy books and see them as cliched and unoriginal in comparison to LOTR.

[Rane Longfox]

Originally Posted by kythe

Edit to add: Rane Longfox, I tend to read other fantasy books and see them as cliched and unoriginal in comparison to LOTR.

Well, yes.

But if you read the other books before LotR, then it will appear the other way round, no?

[Lith]

It's a pretty straight-forward quest tale. And yet it's not. Lord of the Rings feels like a breeze from a long-lost era, like history itself in some respects. Tolkien's prose can be a little long-winded. The language is old-fashioned and natural.

Tolkien has a way of treating his characters with a respect and nobility that I've not seen in other fantasy. His world breathes, and is. I'm not sure how else to put it, but for all its slowness (and the books are very slow in places) it feels more real than other books. When I was done with Return of the King I really felt like I'd been on a long, arduous journey to Mordor.

And then there's the Silmarillion.

[Sathai]

It's funny, I never knew of anyone who didn't enjoy the LOTR books until I started visiting forums. I was suprised by how many people had difficulty reading them.

I first read them when I was a kid and breezed through them. I still re-read them every now and then.

[j. d. worthington]

Originally Posted by Lith

It's a pretty straight-forward quest tale. And yet it's not. Lord of the Rings feels like a breeze from a long-lost era, like history itself in some respects. Tolkien's prose can be a little long-winded. The language is old-fashioned and natural.

I think that's the sticking point for a lot of modern readers: we're used to a writing style that is either more terse or more flashy. Tolkien wrote relatively simply, without a lot of buttons and bows (in the sense of convoluted syntax or particularly obscure words), but he also wrote in an older, more leisurely style. To me, that is one of the book's strengths: it gives it a "natural" feel (that's spot-on, Lith, it is natural, both in itself and for the type of tale he's telling) rather than a "created world" feel; it's as if you're entering a place that has always existed -- it has an historical depth; it has roots, and it is a living, growing place... as are the characters there -- though the growth and change is not as we're used to (in the main): quick revolutions or following an easily-traced trajectory. Instead, it wanders, as happens with real people as their experiences change them, often in subtle but profound ways.

I'd suggest reading the story for its mastery of old-fashioned storytelling, for the fertility of Tolkien's imagination, for characters who grow in depth the longer you know them, and for a world that is so solid that one can smell the richness of the soil and feel the grass beneath your feet (or the stones, as the case may be). I think it's also a book that fits well one of the major purpose of "faity-stories", in Tolkien's view: "recovery" -- that is, it allows one to see familiar things anew, and to feel the wonder, the catch-in-the-breath, at the beauty of even the simplest natural things, the way you did as a child; it has a childlike (not childish) wonder in it.

I've read the thing probably 20+ times in the 35 years or so since I first encountered it (and yes, I mean the whole thing, appendices and all), and I still find myself being caught up short that way, both by familiar things in there, and by things I'd not really seen quite the same way before... and there aren't too many books I know of that can do that....

[The Fool]

If I was you I would read "The Hobbit" first. Its got a faster pace and you learn the history of Bilbo, Gollum and The Ring. It isn't crucial but i think it makes it easier to read the LoTR when it gets to a brutally slow part, and there are a few. None of my friends realise this but half of the frist book is spent reaching Rivendell. Much of that was cut out of the movie.
Anything else I could say has been said. Go Fer It!

[Sibeling]

LOTR is a great book - nowadays most texts do not describe things in detail and only show action, but reading LOTR is like a journey into the world that was not so full of stress and problems.
LOTR is a must-read for every person who is interested in fantasy because the book is considered to be the foundation of the genre, and to understand the later developments it is useful to know how it all started.

[Lilmizflashythang]

You all gave a very good arguement in favor of reading the books. I think that I will read them. Thanks again.

[Connavar]

I actually havent read LOTR yet so its interesting seeing your post about it.


Anyone esle agree with The Fool about reading The Hobbit first?

Im thinking about it cause what i liked most in the movie was Gollum. I was so fascinated by him.

[j. d. worthington]

I think it's helpful, as far as the characters and some of the incidents go, to read The Hobbit first. The only problem I see with that is that the tone of the two is quite different (speaking in general). So you'll need to shift gears somewhat in moving from one to the other; but they're both very good books....

[The Fool]

It's true, they are two books that are rather different but if you like gollum then you will love the part of "The Hobbit" that focuses on Bilbo and Gollum. It's an all around good book anyhow that almost anyone can read/understand it without too much trouble.