Lord of the Rings boring books
 

Hi, friends! Yeah, that's the title. I just want to know, how do you guys react when someone says, "Lord of the Rings is boring"? I just saw a girl crying out loud how she found LotR boring. I maintained my patience, and told her that she's lucky for I have learned patience. And, she said that She meant offense. I STILL FEEL LIKE TO PUNCH IN HER FACE!! Jeez!
How do you people react?

I've never had anyone say that to me personally. My response would be that it's one heck a lot more meaningful and inspiring than anything modern instant-gratification-Kardashian-loving-loud-social media obsessed-fast food society can offer.

I cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

No wait, that's what I do when I spill milk :D

Here's what happened.
How dare she??
That's cool. Fits on me perfectly. :p
Heh! Why so proud on hating the best fantasy work ever? (am I wrong when I say so?)
That's fine. :)
That's me.
'Tis a bit okay.

You're lucky, I'd say. I heard someone else say so too. He met me on Facebook. I was reading the books those days. And he said while discussing books that he found books BORING, and I deleted him! :pI felt relieved.
You can't compare LotR to the modern literature by any means. LotR and other stuff by Professor is CLASSIC. It definitily offers much more than any other modern book can.

"The intelligent man finds everything fascinating; the dullard is constantly bored" --Belloc

Five bucks says this young person also finds Shakespeare boring and stoopid.

I have a friend who found LOTR boring. She didn't quite say so - I think she was interested in the characters and plot, but she said she couldn't get through all the descriptions in FOTR. She got bogged down somewhere in the middle of it and dropped the book (and to think that I'm trying to get her to read Victor Hugo!). I told her I respectfully disagree, because the book is awesome even if you don't like the descriptiveness, and because I found the descriptions of the landscapes quite picturesque and thus fascinating. In the end, we've left each other to our own opinions.

However, despite my disagreement, I can see where she's coming from. For a long time I had to really force myself through the Shire chapters in FOTR. I still find them less interesting than the rest, but there was a time when I found them downright tedious. You have to read the entire LOTR to appreciate everything in it, but if it's not your type of book, then there's only so much you can do. Some people can be convinced to suffer through Shire with a promise of a story that keeps you on your feet more a bit later. Other's aren't even wavering about it. Either way, it's not worth fighting with real people over their taste in books. (However, I do agree with and second Zil's complaint about the modern instant-gratification-[...]-society.)

Okay I might make myself unpopular here :-(

First of all, NO I do NOT think that the LOTR is boring, however I can see how somebody might find it so. I myself find the Two Towers my least favorite of the three parts, but I LOVE the Return of the King. The Two Towers simply doesn't have anything for me, it doesn't have the wonder/magic of Fellowship (except the Ents) and it doesn't have the epic climax of Return, instead we spend a whole book sitting in Rohan with the boring blonde horse people that could be cut out of the story without losing anything -_- And the LOTR is awesome but by no means perfect (no book is)

Please don't take offense, but saying that is a tiny bit narrow minded and discards a huge corpus of literature. Not sure what you define as modern literature if who mean the "Twilight" "World of Warcraft" "Magic the Gathering" s***te, I totally agree, but what about all the good stuff that was written since the LOTR was released?
Even if we only count fantasy: "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle, "Gormenghast" by Mervyn Peake "The Princess Bride" by William Goldman, "A Song of Ice and Fire" by R.R.Martin "The Once and Future King" by T.H. White... do I need to go on? I would count all these books as on the same level, if different, and in some ways superior/inferior to the LOTR (Song of Ice and Fire, for instance, has imho more relateable and colorful characters, but it does have annoying, gratuitous sex scenes and the way the story slags since book 4 is the "Rohan Situation" taken to its extreme) AND "Song of Ice and Fire" has something I have always missed in LOTR: an "evil" character who, over the story redeems themselves: Jamie Lannister. In the LOTR good characters can fall from grace: (Denethor, Saurman) but there is (for instance) no Orc that changes sides. Considering Tolkien is a Christian writer that is a bit strange.

Anyway: If we expand that statement beyond fantasy....then I have to check if these posts have a maximum word count.

Bottom line, new stuff is not automatically inferior to old stuff (just like old stuff is not automatically inferior to new stuff) and if we believe that we'll end up like the Elves at the end of the Third Age; in a state of endless, cultural stagnation and melancholia for the "good old days" The LOTR times also had their fair share of horrid literature, but horrid literature doesn't survive usually and gets forgotten, while the good stuff gets remembered and remains in print to become "classics".

That all being said, I do think that the LOTR Movies are mindboggingly boring and ugly to look at (Minas Tirith looks like poo, Llothlorien looks like unholy spiderwebs etc.) But that has nothing to do with the books of course.

Only boring people get bored.. my mother had a very effective technique for dealing with children who claimed to be bored which was to give them silver or brass to polish... anyway... I have always been fascined by language and languages... I have a clear memory of waiting by the car for my mother prodding the grass verge with my foot and wondering who decided that grass got to mean grass..sadly that was the moment. I discovered my Mother was fallible because she didn't know (my father's infallibility was crushed when he failed to convince me that the sky went on forever when I wanted to know what was beyond the stars. With mature reflection I realise that the problem was with my understanding but six year olds are so judgemental...and yes I must have been a horrible child). So discovering Tolkien and its created languages AND cosmos was pretty much heaven and I have found it all fascinating ever since.

I rather like the blond horse people. The Rohirrim are responsible for some of my favourite bits like Eomer exulting even in the midst of grief because he was young and king of a fell people..and Eowyn was magnificent and then there is Theoden and Saruman "we will have peace...". And in Elfhelm you get one of those minor characters that Tolkien somehow makes so vivid.

Sometimes, I find LOTR boring. Overall though, I'd say it holds up very well for something I've read a score of times and expect to read again.

Anyway, I'm reminded, once again, of Gollum's lullaby to Sam and Frodo:

Now, the world don't move to the beat of just one drum,
What might be right for you, may not be right for some.
A man is born, he's a man of means, precious.
Then along come two, they got nothing but their jeans.

But they got, Diff'rent Strokes. It takes,
Diff'rent Strokes. It takes,
Diff'rent Strokes to move the world, my precious.

Everybody's got a special kind of story
Everybody finds a way to shine,
It don't matter that you got,
not alot, so what,
They'll have theirs, and you'll have yours, and I'll have mine
(Oh yes we will precious, yes we will...)
And together we'll be fine....

But they got, Diff'rent Strokes. It takes,
Diff'rent Strokes. It takes,
Diff'rent Strokes to move the world,
Bless us and splash us, my precioussss!

In other words, opinions are like fishes: everyone's got one, and after a day or two without proper refrigeration they all stink.

Very true! Plus now I have the picture of Gollum, Sam and Frodo dancing in giant 70s afro wigs in my head :D

And Mithalwen: I give you Eohwyn, I did like her and (to a much lesser degree Eomer) in Return of the King. I just wish the reason for their introduction wouldn't have taken up a whole book in which the plot on Aragorn's part screeched to a grinding halt. Particularly the whole Helm's Deep plot-line was painful and the whole "weak leader controlled by outside forces" aspect was then repeated with Denethor anyway.

Actually, the war along with Saruman in the Shire displays for me a quality of Tolkien's writing that is at the same time one of his strengths and weaknesses. The invasion of Rohan and the ruin of the Shire were things that would have logically happened in a war like the War of the Ring and it speaks for Tolkien to go the extra mile in describing them. Yet a run of the mill fantasy writer would have skimmed them over because, while they also contribute to the themes of the work, they are not necessary to advance the plot and, can be perceived to be less enjoyable by some.

I do agree if you want the essence it can be eliminated - they did that in the musical and it worked-effectively Rohan and Gondor wete merged and in the circumstances quite understandable.however I don't find them boring in themselves and I love the expansion given in UT on the battles of the. Fords of isen. I haveto admit it is the slog through Mordor and Bombadil I skip.

Meh. Different people are different.

On the other hand, and if she genuinely meant offense, then just do what you're supposed to do with trolls: not feed them.

Yeah that's what I meant; Rohan and Gondor could easily have been combined without losing anything. Eowyn, for instance, could have been the niece/daughter of a Gondorian noble. The whole of Two Towers just felt like lukewarm prelude where our heroes fight a "wannabe Sauron" to safe Gondor's "hick cousins".

Well, that's personal preference, I think what ruined Rohan for me was that when I first read the Lord of the Rings I was still in Middle School in Germany and we just learning about all those Old Germanic sagas in literature class (the Nibelungen, Grendel etc.) and I detested those for their language that, form a modern point of view, sounds a bit fascist and I guess Rohan reminded me too much of that (After all, wasn't Rohan inspired by Grendel?)

Very few people would say that to my face and not get their nose bitten off.

Orphalesion, please do not think I'm one of those fans who set an author on a pedestal when I say that no, I can't agree with you that the Rohan section should have been left out- I think the story would have been poorer for it. (There are other parts that I do indeed think could have done with omission, or at least heavy editing.)

As for the rest- look, I don't where to start, honestly. The best way I can put it is to say that whatever they were trying to teach you about this stuff in school, I'm afraid they don't seem to have succeeded very well. You'll no doubt shortly be set right on a number of points, and I hope the people doing so will be polite about it and not just jump all over you. <--hint, hint.

However, what you are basically saying here is that for you, all Germanic-sounding names are sort of tainted by association with Nazism. Okay. You do understand that's a completely separate *type* of complaint and not really fair as a purely literary criticism?

Actually, a run-of-the-mill fantasy writer of the current crop would have expanded each of those into its own eight hundred page novel. :rolleyes:

Oh god, I hope I haven't offended you or anybody else :(. If so Nerwen, I am very sorry.
Look I'm way more eloquent in face to face conversations or academic papaers where I have time to research than I am in forum writing. But I will try to explain better and I will actually take quite a bit of time writing it.

No I don't think you're putting Tolkien on a pedestal for disagreeing with me. Why would I? My favorite part of the book are Lothlorien and the climax chapters of Return of the King, lot's of people probably disagree with that first part. Everybody is free to have their own opinion.

I didn't just dislike the Rohirrim because they reminded me of Grendel, another big part is that they were simply not "magic" enough. Come on the first book gave us enchanted forests and black riders and fire demons and Rohan doesn't measure up in that department imho.
There ARE some good parts in Rohan, I particularly like it when Grima tires to put down Galadriel and Gandalf counters with that "In Dwimordene, in Lorien" poem. Etc.

And no, the German part was not meant as literary criticism but just as why I personally don't like the Rohirrim. Basically I find the part of the book less good than the other parts AND I don't like the Rohirrim. The Shire part in the beginning is also not the most thrilling, but to me it can make up for it by being whimsical and Hobbitish, so the less enjoyable part of narrative gets saved by the enjoyability of the setting. Likewise Tom Bombadil, completely unnecessary and should be cut out, but I happen to like folklore stories about fairies reminiscent of Tom and Goldberry so it gets kinda saved in my eyes. Rohan was much less fairytale-like and more historical, which can be fun too, but I didn't like it in that specific situation, it's almost like a sub-genre shift.
In Rohan I find the narrative less enjoyable (as a said a lukewarm prelude of Return of the King) AND the setting fails to safe it to me.

And yep, my teacher that year was an idiot. And I never said I associate everything German with Nazism, and I would never accuse Tolkien of supporting such thought (I know his thoughts on that subject!) I just said that the fleeting association with one to the other was enough for 13-year old me to ruin that part of the book and while I'm now older and more learned, it's difficult to . The Rohirrim DO seem like ripped right out of the European Dark ages or the Migration Period and at that time I was simply sick of that subject/setting. The next year I head a better teacher who actually addressed some of the concerns I had with pre-war German literature and had quite a few, very interesting discussions with me. However, the damage was done in concern to the Sagas. I can see as a rational person that the sagas do not have any fascism in them (how could they, it wasn't invented yet for a few thousand years) and were actually perverted by the Nazis. However, the damage was done and I was never able to enjoy them. I think Tolkien something like that was also a concern of Tolkien if I remember correctly he said something to the effect that he was worried that the Nazis perverting German mythology would prevent late generations from enjoying them.

And the Rohirrim are among the more warlike cultures in the LOTR, (well of course they are at war) but compare Eowyn *must-seek-battle-battle* with Faramir (my second-most favorite character) or with Haldir's complaint that the peace has left Lorien. However I know that the Rohirrim are not in fact monsters, when Peter Jackson in the movie version had Theoden arm 10 year old children and elderly grey beards I almost screamed at the theatre screen that Theoden would never have done such a thing unless the situation would have been much, much more dire than Helm's Deep.

TL/DR: I don't like the part of the book and the Rohirrim, independent from one another. And I wouldn't have liked the narrative of that part even if Tolkien had set it in a (to me) more interesting setting and wouldn't have liked the Rohirrim if the part of the narrative had been more interesting to me. The combination of me not liking the setting and me finding the part of the narrative superfluous in part was what killed i for me.

I don't want to derail the thread, if you want we can discuss this further in PMs? Don;t worry I'm not offended, I'm always happy to learn something from discussion or have one of my misconceptions corrected. One of my biggest flaws is that I sometimes jump to conclusions and find it difficult to realize that I have done just that.

No, each its own series of trilogies :D

With the Rohirrim, Tolkien was describing an entirely different culture than what we have met previously, and one of wholly mortal men, not Half-Elves and Hobbits, Istari and Elves, or Dwarves and Dunedain. It was important to Tolkien that these stoic and superstitious men -- distant relatives of the Edain -- should be given their due, particularly because they mirrored the Anglo-saxon literary heritage that Tolkien felt was denied England when the Normans damned the newly evolving language with their Frenchified foppery and lawyerly Latinate. We gain insight into normal mortals with the Rohirrim, not the impossibly pristine Noldor or all-powerful Maiarin sorts that fart magic. These are Dark Age men and women fighting a foe that they know is beyond them, yet they fight on anyway.

Once you get past the Tim Benzedrine bits, the Bombadil chapters contain some of the finest writing in The Lord of the Rings.

Orphalesion, I'm not offended at all- if it came across that way, well, you know, it's hard to get the "tone" right over the net.

True. All the same, if you were going to pick a section that *could* be excised without too much effect on anything else, that would be a better choice than the Rohan chapters.

The discussion went way too deeper than I had imagined, and slightly 'beyond' my own understanding. :D
Books are not perfect, true. None is. Absolutely. By any means boring? Hell, no. Am I the only one who found no part boring as others did? Shire scenes are mindblowingly beautiful. You get to know, this is the race the story is mainly about. The unlikely four heroes emerge from this place whose presence affects the story greatly(One can find these chapters boring either he is only in love with 'action' or doesn't care about the Hobbits much, imho). The chapters are childish, indeed, not boring. Bilbo wrote them, and the tone of "The Hobbit" is explicit in the first chapters of the Fellowship. Though, they are relief for me, because the later story becomes darker.
As for the book 3 & book 5, i.e. Rohan and Gondor's story. That isn't boring either. True, it doesn't have the magic that we got in FOTR, but it still tells the tale of EPIC freaking awesome battles. Professor wrote books multiple times and finished it in 10 years. He added many things that most of us can't understand or judge on our own. This is why putting our opinion above Professor's, I don't think, is fine(may be that's just me!).

Tom Bombadil! :D
Yup, he's a weirdo. There's an article saying he is evil. Another thing to add, if someone finds books boring, I guess it is because of his or her personal opinion, and the books can't be accused for that.

I liked the story from the beginning to the end too. I guess people don't like Hobbits, or their customs and way of living at least. I thought the Shire part was cool, and the prologue.

I'd disagree with them as they would disagree with me. But I would not expect them to conform to my views, rather to embrace their own.

I think I would have to be very thin-skinned to object to people claiming that The Lord of the Rings is boring. Lots of people think it's boring. I don't, but plenty do.

The main objections seem to be:
1. too much description, especially of landscapes: "he describes every blade of grass"
2. too much monotony: "they just walk for ages"
3. too much archaism: "the characters say things like 'Forsooth! Thou art slain!'" etc

I've actually heard people say some of these things. But if people think it's boring, well, they're perfectly entitled to.

Interestingly, Book Three (or the first part of "The Two Towers" if you will) is one of my favourite parts. When I was a child my least favourite was Book Four. These days I appreciate every part of the book.

This isn't specifically related to The Lord of the Rings but in terms of 'boredom' I've always been impressed with how, in my opinion, in Chapter VIII of The Hobbit, "Flies and Spiders", Professor Tolkien manages to convey a sense of the horrible oppressiveness, tedium and drudgery of the journey through Mirkwood. I'm always as desperate to escape as the characters themselves.

No. You did not make yourself unpopular. I liked your posts. :)
No offence really. When I meant "modern literature", I didn't mean to say the new stuff is bad or something (yup, Twilight was in my mind :p ). But, it can not be said that the new stuff is as good as old one. New work is inspired from old(not sayin' copied).
It's like, today scientists invent/discover, and we say, if the invention is useful, that they are "better" than Al Einstein. Surely, they did something that is more useful than Einstein's discovery, but who led them?
Similarly, modern literature is inspired from old ones; not inferior, but not as powerful as classics.

Saruman & Denether good people? I can say that for Saruman 'cause he was a Maia. Can't say the same for Denether 'cause he was already 'bad' from the start. Not that bad, but ego led him to arrogance, and his arrogance led him to his own fall.
As for Saruman, I feel, he kind of redeemed himself. Not upto that extent from where he could gain his old self and dignity; but he accepted his defeat and fall(isn't that the first step to redemption or repentance?)
Gollum? What of him? He does repent. But, there is something else at work. There is something that, imho, is as valuable as characters turning good from bad. Frodo's mercy(and later Sam's as well) leads to the ultimatel success of the quest.
Evil in Tolkien's word is stronger than I have ever seen in any Tale. After being overpowered by it, it takes alot to be the same. The Evil isn't the Evil of outer world, but that of inside of us. The fall of the Tolkien's characters, instead of showing them turning evil, shows their big flaws.

I wouldn't care much, but would ask them why they thought so and then perhaps have a conversation about it. At the end of the day I am sure I would fine many of the things they like boring.

Fantasy just isn't everyone's bag. I find gothic novels on the whole dreadfully dull (although I love Victorian novels with gothic elements). A friend of mine loves the gothic genre but can't get into fantasy at all. We both love lots of other books/literature, though.

As Tolkien said, "Many people who have read [LOTR], or at least reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, [another pejorative adjective?] or contemptible, and I have little cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their work, or of the kinds of writing they evidently prefer. But even from the point of view of those who like the work, there is much that fails to please."

Approximate quotation only. I think it's in the Foreword to LOTR.

That was a nice little snipe at some of his reviewers too, the obvious implication being that those who reviewed it badly never actually bothered to read it.

I wonder has the girl in the OP read Wheel of Time? :D

Meee-ow!

That's Tolkien for you!



...




(Or Rankin/Bass RotK, maybe.)

Differences in taste are usually not worth arguing about, IMO
 

I can certainly agree that parts of the book are slow, but then lots of great books are slow. And I could probably prattle on all day about what I don't like about the book, but my positive feelings far outweigh the negative. I happen to like The Shire bits and Tom Bombadil, the parts that seem to give people the most trouble. LOTR is quite probably my favorite book (depending on the day of the week and what kind of mood I'm in) and it is certainly one of the two or three books that have affected me greatly. But there really is no accounting for taste.

I understand somewhat about boredom
 

I can understand when someone, who has made a genuine effort to read LotR, finds it boring. I recall feeling that way at the start, when first reading it at thirteen; but then things began to pick up for me by the time of Gandalf's death, then Boromir's. :(

I remember particularly enjoying, by the time of RotK, how everything was coming together, hoping that Minas Tirith would be relieved, and that Frodo and Sam would succeed. That they did with Gollum's intervention amused me. Farmir and Eowyn's romance made me go all mushy. :D In short, I was no longer bored.

All this is, of course, my own experience. ;)

Society today is very rushed, and this is also something that defines the taste of a large part of the population. Films, which is the most popular artform nowadays, are densily packed with action, with almost no room to breath. People today seems to find it boring to relax, find any moment that doesn't seem to be a large step forward in a story (or anything else) as a waste of time, and boring - of course, this is not including holidays, when those same people are being grilled on beaches.

However, the thing that makes it boring to other people, is the thing that attracts me in LotR: it gives me room to breath, to let me wander throughout Middle-Earth. It makes it feel the journey more realistic: not a chain of action sequences, but a long time travelling while there isn't happening much.

Of course, this is a matter of taste and state of mind, so I can't criticize them for finding it boring. If they actually read it of course.

There are plenty of classics that are infinitely dull; for instance, Camus could perhaps be the only writer to make a plague tedious, and I would rather stick a rusted fork in my eye than read Jane Austen or Thomas Hardy ever again (Jude was obscure for a reason!).

But I love the long novels of Victor Hugo, Tolstoy and Umberto Eco. I even enjoy James Joyce (but Joyce requires more research than actual reading, honestly, particularly in the case of Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses).

It is all a matter of preference, really. There are those readers who agree with me, and those with no evident taste. ;)

I used to think the Odyssey sucked. I couldn't really follow along when we had to read it in 9th grade.

I found The Fellowship rather boring when I first read it, it took me a month before I made it to Rivendell... I don't know what happened then, but I got hooked and finished the rest of the trilogy in a weekend.

I normally acknowledge that Tolkien's writing style is very detailed, and not necessarily an 'easy read'.

I find it much harder to deal with my nerd friends, that insist that LotR is more of a mythology, than it is 'proper/good fantasy'.

I have to wonder what the difference is.....
 

And I'd say being called a mythology is really rather a compliment, anyway.

LotR more a mythology
 

Welcome to the Downs, demnation! :)

I agree with your comment about Rune calling LotR more a mythology being 'rather a compliment' to the author. ;)