Parts We Skip and Why

[Juicy-Sweet]

Didnt skip anything as such, but my least favorite part is Frodo's and Sam's walk from Cirith Ungol to Mount Doom. Nothing much happens there, they get thirstier and thirstier, the ring gets heavier and heavier, Mordor sucks, Lembas is running out - he just repeats these two things endlessly

I think instead he should have cut the walking stuff to a few paragraphs, describing how thirsty and all they are, and used the space for a long interesting adventure, giving some more hints at "Life in Mordor" + hinting at some old secret stuff, like they come acrors the stables for another kind of fell beasts or somehting, to steel some food there from Orc WOMEN, as well as nick some gross mysteriously descibed animal to ride on using the ring to control it.

Caradhras is boring also.

Fav parts are: All the mysterious things and places (Bombadil, barrows, Moria, paths of the dead) + council of Elrond.

[littlemanpoet]

Funny, I've never skipped anything in a straight read-through. However, on my first reading at age 13 I came to a months-long halt just outside Minas Tirith. I was intrigued to learn that Tolkien, in his writing, came to the same halt.

I have often gone back and started with a particular section that I especially enjoy, only to read all the rest of the way through, then go back and read from the beginning back to that point, just to keep things even.

[Celuien]

I'm also in the non-skipper club. I don't feel like I can claim to have read a book without going cover to cover, and I'd fear missing something that turns out to be important for understanding what's happening later.

That said, if there was a point when I was tempted to put the book down, it was when Tom Bombadil ring a dong dilloed on to the page. The first time I read LotR, I was in the mood for more serious business, and while the glimpses of ancient history and myth left me wanting to read more, Tom's silly songs did not. Now, I've come to appreciate the enigma and don't mind his singing quite as much... maybe in part because I've grown more comfortable with being openly silly too as I've grown older.

Despite that, Sam's song in the tower of Cirith Ungol still holds more appeal, and I'll sometimes just go to reread that chapter, and go onward through Mordor with Frodo and Sam.

[mark12_30]

I don't reliably skip the same place every time; but I have read The Battle Of the Pelennor Fields many more times than I have read the entire trilogy. (Perhaps thirty or more times thru the Pelennor, maybe, vice a dozen or fifteen times thru the trilogy?)

[Mithalwen]

I have to admit to using LOTR mainly as a reference work these days but having recently got it on my kindle I have started a proper readthrough and I keep noticing things that seem new. Now it could be my memory is hoong but I have had a similar experience rereading The Forsyte Chronicles on kindle which is a series I have loved almost as long and have read many times always straoght through.

I sispect I have never reaf the verso pages as closely as the recto having the bad habit of folding back paperbacks. Since I also now have a hardback edition I will see if reading that provides the same discoveries.

[KamexKoopa]

Originally Posted by mark12_30

I don't reliably skip the same place every time; but I have read The Battle Of the Pelennor Fields many more times than I have read the entire trilogy. (Perhaps thirty or more times thru the Pelennor, maybe, vice a dozen or fifteen times thru the trilogy?)

Maybe this warrants a thread of its own - "Parts we read individually/separate/without reading the whole book"?

[Inziladun]

Every so often, usually yearly, I take it into my head to read LOTR all the way through again. I can't recall ever skipping over certain sections, and I seem on each re-read to find small points to consider I'd never noticed before.

[Snowdog]

I've read the trilogy over a dozen times through in the last 37 years. Sometimes I'd glaze over (wouldn't call it "skipping") the Tom Bombadil bit, and sometimes glaze over the Treebeard bits on some of the readings. That said, I started reading parts of Unfinished Tales during my readings. I will read Disaster on Gladden Fields before I start, and read the Fords of Isen when I get to that part of the book. It's funny that the first Tolkien book I read was The Hobbit in 1975, but never found it necessary to ever read it again.

[Morsul the Dark]

I've only read through twice... second time I skipped all the songs... I've tried rereading numerous times usually get through Two Towers before giving up though...

Don't get me wrong I LOVE Tlkien but he can be really really long winded sometimes...

Now the Hobbit on the other hand I've read at least 10 times

[Rhod the Red]

I skip Passages of the Dead & most of the chapters involving Gollum except when they meet Faramir and Sam's eavesdropping of the Orc captains after they take away Frodo's drugged body. Yes, that's huge chunks, but I've read the book about 20 times now, so not really 'missing' anything.

[Ardent]

As several members have said I too have tended to skip the poems/songs desiring to get on with the story. In the Hobbit I used to find the songs of the elves and goblins too frivolous and Tom Bombadil in LotR similarly out of kilter. However, since listening to the BBC radio versions of the books I've found myself drawn to them, especially Sam's songs.

The fact Tom does not appear in any radio or film version has made him seem more important when reading and I realise now that his style is rather comparable to the elven songs in the Hobbit and the humming of Treebeard: fah la la lally.../hey dol dey dol.../hoom hom...
These poems sort of provide reference points; they point to one another across the two books in so much as they show the oldest races retaining the most childlike traits: ba ba, la la, ma ma, da da...

Maybe I'm just appreciating the childlike more because I'm getting older?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Ardent

These poems sort of provide reference points; they point to one another across the two books in so much as they show the oldest races retaining the most childlike traits: ba ba, la la, ma ma, da da...

Maybe I'm just appreciating the childlike more because I'm getting older?

Some recent rock lyrics:

Originally Posted by Manfred Mann

Whoa, oh, oh, oh, oh yeah
Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do,
we'll sing it
Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do
Do wah diddy diddy, dum diddy do

Originally Posted by The Police

De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do, de da da da
Their innocence will pull me through
De do do do, de da da da
Is all I want to say to you
De do do do, de da da da
They're meaningless and all that's true

Originally Posted by Jackson 5

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Zip-A-Dee-A
Wonderful feeling
Wonderful day

Yeah

Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Zip-A-Dee-A

My oh my, what a wonderful day
Plenty of sunshine heading my way
Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah
Zip-A-Dee-A

Then there is the tradition of nonsense verse in English, which is really quite long and respectable.

Originally Posted by Children's nonsense rhyme

Hey diddle, diddle,
The cat and the fiddle.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.

And some other writerly folks.

Originally Posted by Wild Bill

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh nor more;
Men were deceivers ever;
One foot in sea and one on shore,
To one thing constant never;
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny;
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into. Hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties, sing no mo,
Or dumps so dull and heavy;
The fraud of men was ever so,
Since summer first was leavy.
Then sigh not so,
But let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into. Hey, nonny, nonny.

Originally Posted by PG Wodehouse

Half a league, half a league, half a league on, with a hey nonny, nonny
and a hot cha-cha!

Originally Posted by Edward Lear

There was an Old Derry down Derry, who loved to see little folks merry;
So he made them a book, and with laughter they shook at the fun of that Derry down Derry.

Originally Posted by ELETELEPHONY

Once there was an elephant,
who tried to use the telephant
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now i've got it right.)
However it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free
The louder buzzed the telephee
(I fear i better drop the song
of elehop and telephong!)

Originally Posted by Spike Milligan

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

There is actually a very long tradition of nonsense words and rhymes and poems and I think Tolkien was tapping into that with his tra la la lally elves and Tom, and it's not all related to childish stuff.

So you are in good company, Ardent!