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Do you find Tolkein boring?

Do you find Tolkein boring?  

41 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you find Tolkein boring?

    • Yes
      11
    • No
      26


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i voted NO but will admit he's not an easy read, i've only read LOTR once and in french it was one volume a special ediion with a pic from fellowship film on the cover, obviously i bought it after seeing the first film in theatre and realizing it would be a whole year before i knew what happened next and i just had to know after being swept by beautiful jackson productioni'd seen the books when i was very young in the scifi section of the public library but didn't think much of the synopsis , although i guess i was more into science-fiction rather than fantasy at the timeso the thing is its a difficult book to access,there's lots and lots of descriptive passages ,heck pages sometimes where nothing happens except atmosphere setting and not in normal english no no literary english where you stretch 5 words into 5 paragraphs(metaphor) but boy once you get going , once you've bravely threaded through "dead marsh" and get a sense of rythmn aahhh the pages fly, the action gets going, you've read too much not to be invested in the characters, you know their entire genealogy or so it seems!once you're done, there's still the appendix to go through a real treasure for fans, that leaves you stunned at the scope of tolkien achievement in creating such an exhaustive world, there's the first age the 2nd age etcits a helluva read, i mean you feel like you climbed mount everest and survived to tell the tale, now i want to read it in english but i've yet to see an edition i quite like to buy, i've also read "the hobbit" afterward in englishlazely sometimes i feel watching the extended movies is a good substitute its only about 12hrs compared to x amount of days it takes to read the books

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Fuck no! I adore his language, and Ladyevenstar, you should read in English. I`ve heard from many ESLs that it`s lost in translation and they started loving the books when they re-read them in English.I do think that his mythology about the Valar is subpar to Norse and Greek because he removed all the flaws that make those Gods so interesting. The Valar are a bunch of asexual bore (yes, their marriages are unconsumed) with no character traits but being goody-two-shoes. Zzzzzzzzz. You root for Melkor because he is relatable and has passions and personality unlike his mannequin doll breathren.

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I approached LOTR with great respect, but that was then(a decade ago). Now, if I re read them I would skip so many(more) passages. Last time I tried to have a look, I ended up skipping anything to do with Gollum.

I do think that his mythology about the Valar is subpar to Norse and Greek

Norse mythology, I mean the translated and abridged version reads like a parody. I'm referring to how the Norse gods multi task or solve their problem. Silmarillion's gods are the children of a genius of the 20th century. People now are more moral than in ancient Greece or asia minor.

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Not at all. If I had time I would tackle the Silmarillon. His universe is so rich and interesting. I wasnt bored at all reading the 4 Rings books. I have not read his other works set in the LOTR universe.

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I don't find him boring at all -- in fact, for the most part, I really enjoy the way he writes. He has a sparse beauty to how he describes things, especially nature, and I think it's very vivid.I do tend to get worn out by the chunks of epic poetry embedded in the text. The hobbit songs are OK (though a little goes a long way), but I tend to labor through the longer stuff, even after all these years. One of the odd things about the movies is I love the little epic songs they *did* include -- go figure that one of the most annoying things in the books ends up being some of my fave moments in the movies.The Silmarillion is more hit-and-miss, though -- some of the isolated stories I like, but there's a lot of just general sprawling stuff, like reading an encyclopedia entry about different kingdoms and mythic ages. And most of the stories are fairly bleak and tragic, honestly.

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I'd have to say yes now. When I was young I read the books twice but when the movies came out I decided to read them again. I got as far as Tom Bombadil and couldn't go on. Maybe I'll try again someday. Tomorrow I'm going to watch the extended editions back to back on blu ray for the first time.

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Bombadil was insufferable but that`s a standard problem with Tolkien and now Martin - adding too many characters who really don`t drive the plot forward nor do something another character couldn`t do. Tolkien is bloated. LOTR and TH could have lost about 50% of characters in them because that 50% either blurs into one (TH`s dwarves) or do marginal shit that is only of interest to Tolkien`s ecompassing lineage obsession than anything else (Faramir and Eowimp were such filler and bloaters that really didn`t add up to anything save Tolkien`s ridiculously long ME family trees).

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Between Tolkien and Rowling I`ll always pick Rowling because her characters feel so alive and real and that`s more appealing to me than geneology trees. I think that if someone could achieve Rowling`s characterisation and Tolkien`s epicness that shit would be the best ever.

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