Lord of the Rings boring books

[Inziladun]

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.

[Galin]

I cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

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

[Lotrelf]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

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.

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! I 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.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

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

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

[Galadriel55]

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.)

[Mithalwen]

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.

[Mithalwen]

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.

[Orphalesion]

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)

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

You can't compare LotR to the modern literature by any means. LotR and other stuff by Professor is CLASSIC. It definitely offers much more than any other modern book can.

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.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

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.

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by IxnaY AintsaY

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

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.

[Mithalwen]

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.

[mhagain]

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.

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

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.

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?)

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

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.

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.

[IxnaY AintsaY]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

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

That's Tolkien for you!



...




(Or Rankin/Bass RotK, maybe.)

[Lotrelf]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

Okay I might make myself unpopular here :-(

No. You did not make yourself unpopular. I liked your posts.

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.

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 ). 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.

[cellurdur]

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.

[Pervinca Took]

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.

[mhagain]

Originally Posted by Pervinca Took

As Tolkien said, "Many people who have read [LOTR], or at least reviewed it..."

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?

[William Cloud Hicklin]

Originally Posted by Pervinca Took

... since I have similar opinions of their work, or of the kinds of writing they evidently prefer.

Meee-ow!