Lord of the Rings boring books

[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?)

[Morthoron]

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

[Nerwen]

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?

[Orphalesion]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

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?

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.

Originally Posted by Nerwen

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.

No, each its own series of trilogies

[Morthoron]

Originally Posted by Orphalesion

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 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.

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.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

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

[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!



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(Or Rankin/Bass RotK, maybe.)