LOTR Or The Hobbit II?

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I believe that had Tolkien continued on the vein of the early LOTR drafts, the book would have been much shorter, and would have ultimately lacked the depth and sense of immensity the finished work contained. We might hear of Tolkien today spoken in the same breath as a Kenneth Graham or an A.A. Milne, and the even larger compendium of works brought to some form of completion by CJRT would likely have remained private papers for the family. So perhaps the critics of "hobbit-talk" did more good than they ever knew.

Oh yes! There are stacks of great children's books that were just as good as The Hobbit and didn't have the 'fatherly' tone, that have now largely fallen into the dusty ranks of 'classics', namely books that only the bookworm kids read or those lucky enough to stumble on them - thinking of books by John Masefield, E Nesbit, Arthur Ransome etc. Had Tolkien rushed out a sequel it might have had that same tone and now few of us would be discussing his work (fans of the above three mentioned writers certainly exist but it's very niche). Eh, thank goodness for the spectacular writer's block that Tolkien suffered.

But I don't see A Long Expected Party as all that close to The Hobbit. It might well be about rural Hobbits and assocated fun and games, but it's written in a more adult style and tone. I tend to think that it serves throughout the entire Lord of the Rings as an anchor, as something worth fighting for. And at the very end of the story, when the Hobbits finally take their country back from Saruman, they quickly try to turn it back to the way it was, and the tone returns back to that of the beginning, but with an underlying sadness. I think that's important, because at heart the story is not about saving Elves, or Dwarves, or Men, it's about saving The Shire.

[Boromir88]

If we're talking about the tone of LOTR and the difference in the tone of The Hobbit, I think some might find the "narrator's voice" enlightening to to the topic.

As John Rateliff illuminates in The History of the Hobbit, Tolkien never really liked the "Narrator's voice" in The Hobbit, feeling it talked down to the audience:

The narrator's importance to the story is usually slighted by critics who would prefer The Hobbit to conform to and resemble its sequel in every possible detail. In later years Tolkien came to regard the tone of the intrusive narrator's remarks as condescending, feeling that it marked the book as targeted for children, and said over and over again in letters that he regretted this, considering it an error on his part and a severe flaw in the book.~History of the Hobbit Part 1; Bladorthin script

Rateliff however, appears to be a proponent of the Narrator's voice:

Finally, there is the voice of the narrator, an essential element in establishing the overall tone of the story and hence of the book's success.

Well, I suppose there is no denying that it was an "essential element" of the book, and Tolkien didn't seem happy with it even thinking it was condescending and a "severe flaw."

Personally, I always rather liked the Narrator, and the tone the voice establishes in The Hobbit. As the story continues, the Narrator gets used less and less as the book changes from light-hearted to a more serious tone. However, I don't think it's good or bad writing, just a matter of personal taste. Something the reader will probably either love or dislike (not much middle-ground ). I would have been most disappointed if a book of LOTR's magnitude and darkness used the Narrator's voice. But for The Hobbit I quite like it.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Personally, I always rather liked the Narrator, and the tone the voice establishes in The Hobbit. As the story continues, the Narrator gets used less and less as the book changes from light-hearted to a more serious tone. However, I don't think it's good or bad writing, just a matter of personal taste. Something the reader will probably either love or dislike (not much middle-ground ). I would have been most disappointed if a book of LOTR's magnitude and darkness used the Narrator's voice. But for The Hobbit I quite like it.

Yes, it's not at all an essentially 'bad' thing. It's something you find in children's books even now, though more often in stories aimed at younger kids. If you read a lot of children's lit from a hundred years ago or more, you find it used quite often. It's not that Tolkien wrote 'badly', he wrote in a perfectly acceptable tone for a children's book, especially one of his era. Even JK Rowling starts the Harry Potter series with a more authorial tone which she lost rapidly as the books kept coming.

Tolkien did indeed dislike it - Verlyn Flieger brought it up in a lecture at Birmingham 2005 where she highlighted that it was a prime example of the 'pigwiggenry' Tolkien deplored so much in On Fairy Stories.