ok so here it is, I, personally, think that Tolkein was an absolute drudge to read, I loved the hobbit, but the hobbit was aimed at kids, but when it came to the lord of the rings I had to seriously hack my way through that book.
I am not taking anything away from the mans achievements as a an academic, nor his achievements in gathering, collating and solidifying a basis for almost every piece of fantasy literature and filmaking since himself, even the story that he proffered was enjoyable in and of itself, But damn was his writing style dry.
I get a little annoyed when people praise him as a great writer! I think he was an appalling writer. With far too much attention paid to non plot driving devices and characters, a chronic indulgence in his pet race, the elves, and a style that i have already stated that i find dry and un-engaging.
so the question that i am hinting at here is this:
was tolkein a great writer? or did his ideas and plot carry his writing? Or am I just wrong?

I like the films, I even made a concerted effort to read the books. I got through the first book of the Fellowship of the Ring, started on the second but I just couldn't pretend to be interested anymore. Clearly a clever chap, just not much of a story teller.

The films were pretty good, but the book dragged on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on.


...and on.



He was born a few decades too early.

I've read The Hobbit, which I loved and Lord of the Rings, which I struggled with but enjoyed in the end. I've also struggled with several of his other books.

I voted genius - weren't his books originally written for his kids? Bedtime stories he made up on a whim or am I making shite up in my head? If I've got it right then for what he created for his own amusement that became a HUGE part of life for millons of people - well, that's more then a feather in his cap as far as I'm concerned.

I was under the impression he wrote the whole series for his own children.

One-liners feel so spammy. =/

Agreed. His kids indeed asked for an exciting story without too many girls in it. Thus the dearth of good female characters. I agree that it ran rampant and the storytelling style is far too dry, but his ideas had solid foundations.
Tolkein didn't write with the the intent to publish anything at first, so the obsession with the elves was really just to please himself. I really believe that he was a genius. How many people have the intelligence and attention span to write an entire language and thousands of years worth of history of an alternate world? His books were the foundation of fantasy as we know it, and without him my reading life would be a lot drier. His books aren't so much fun to read, but the premise, ideas, and level of detail were great examples to future fantasy writers.

Genius. Beautiful imagery throughout the books and a real divergeance from what came before.

Yes in some ways the writing style was poor. For instance at one point in the trilogy there was a new song EVERY TWO PAGES. ARGH! And they both stretched for a page each. That was mind-numbing. However if you skip that I really do think it was an engrossing tale.

I loved the Silmarilion too, though that was pieced together by his son from various short stories he wrote before his death... It really did flesh out an interesting and vast world. It drew you in.

Of course I was eleven the last time I read them and my artistic sensibilities probably wern't too developed at that time.

Thinking about it, if these were written as bedtime stories for his kids, then surely their sedative effect is intentional?

I think the films are brilliant pieces of story telling, evoking many of the strongest points of Germanic/Nordic/European mythology and combining them into an allegory (vociferously denied by Tolkien) that speaks to modern sensibilities on many levels, especially in regard to the futility of war.

My only experience with Tolkien's original texts is through the BBC radio adaptation. I'm working with the assumption that, like many BBC radio dramas, they kept pretty close to the source material, it's fair to say that while he had superb ideas his implementation was flawed. He would happily witter on about one line of the story for ages, give you a quick update on another strand, then go back to the other one for a long time again. The reorganisation done by Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh for the films made the plots seem to flow naturally between eachother, contrasting emotions and experiences of the main characters as the fellowship split apart. This balance doesn't appear to be there in the original text.

I'm not one to criticise: when I write by tutors constantly tell me that my ideas are great but but structure isn't good enough, but I think that from working at this for many years I've become sensitive to faults in writing, even if I am better at spotting them in the works of others than my own writing. I think that for sheer solidity of fabrication of mythologies, Tolkien's work is possibly the greatest ever written, but as a simple work of fiction it appears to be heavily flawed.

He was an innovator, but obviously one of the beginning fantasy writers to write in that style. He was also a brilliant linguist and had some good ideas, but I could never get into it. I find much of the stuff overly verbose and boring.

I dunno... it took me forever to get through 'The Hobbit.' And I've yet to finish 'The Fellowship of the Ring.' I got to the Council or Elrond and couldn't read further.

So brilliant? Yes. Boring? You betcha.

It was my belief that he wrote farmer giles of ham and the hobbit and the (now published i think) father christmas letters for his children, The lord of the rings was, if I am correct, written purely to provide an historical reference for languages that he was creating, specifically elvish and dwarvish. I don't think that "rings" was for his children.

I liked the books but I wouldn't say they were genius. Equally they weren't boring. The films were excellent.

Oh shoot. I forgot to mention that I absolutely _adored_ the films. They were all well done and I'm waiting for them to make a box set of all the DVDs for Mike to buy.

You got farther than me, I got to the Prancing Pony, or whatever it was called.... the Inn they stayed at. Then I decided it was too dreary for me to read and went on with other books....

Our teacher in class three at primary school (I must have been about... 8) used The Hobbit as a big part of our art, maths and english lessons- he read it to us, we got to make the huge spiders, and we even had a little excersise in which we had to make them a bridge to go across but we could only use paper, and it had to support 1 kg of weight. We also made a huge version of the dragon which was suspended from the celling of the classroom. I am incredibly grateful to his teaching style otherwise I would have never read any of Tolkein's writings! But I picked up the trilogy when I was 10, and have read and re-read it so many times it is ridiculous.
Yes Tolkien was fantatsic at creating imagery and characters with his words, but I will agree with what has been said about how he digressed into another sub-plot in a way which becomes irritating.

I hated the films though.

I've always felt a little guilty in the past when I've admited to not finishing the lord of
the rings, and felt like a pariah just because I didn't really like the books...

Glad I'm not the only one!

I think that the books were a grand achievment of imagination, just not thrilling or plot
driven... As many seem to agree.

My old flat mate was obsessed with the films and would not have a bad word spoken
about them, just questioning Aragorn's swordsmanship would send him into homicidal
rages! (You won't believe the trauma when I accidentally broke one of his Legolas's
action figures arrows! I have scars...)

* adopts silly voice*
"I am Aragorn I'm so moody and pained, now, what was it again? Oh yeah, block 1, 2,
riposte 1, 2, roll wrists and grimace! "

(Bryden42, I reckon you and I could'a done the the swordsmanship better!)

No mucky innuendos you lot!

Helll yeah!

*awaits the M&D re-enactment movie*

Who gets to be the Goblin King-type bloke?

Aww, I've always had a special little love for Tolkein. Granted, I encountered it for the first time in a very Lifetime-esque mushy moment (I had a horrible infection in second grade and couldn't move without lots of pain, so my mum read The Hobbit to me every day for two weeks. She told me that when it was over I was allowed back in school), but I've liked the books very much ever since. I even learned Elvish a few years ago.

And made up a tune to the "Namarie" song.

And made a cloak.


*sidles out*