Not good enough Tolkein. See me.
This past month has involved daily commuting for much of it, and I'd finally given in and started reading the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy more or less just before I started having to spend 2 and a half hours on a train every day. It served its purpose by lasting the entire month, but not in terms of entertainment. So I'm going to rip into the bits I hated most.
By the way, this is not an anti-fantasy literature bias rearing its head. I admit I don't tend to enjoy fantasy books, but I liked "The Hobbit", and considering that was full of midgets, wizards and dragons I can't say I wasn't prepared to see a few more in the sequels. So I'm going to stay away from the more fantasy elements in my criticism and focus on the plot and characterisation.
The most annoying thing, what made turning each page a chore, was the pace of the damn thing. Every little incident has to be explored in unbelievable detail until my eyes weren't actually taking in the meaning, just passing over words and then picking up at another point, wondering how everyone's in Moria already. That cannot be ascribed to the fact that it's an old book. I've read Austen and Dickens, and actually got into the plots, especially with the latter. Old Charles knows what suspense is, and uses it to good effect. Equally, while nothing really happens in Austen, every tiny social act is given such significance that your judgement adjusts to compensate. So when Harriet gets snubbed by Mr. Elton at a dance the reader can react with as much shock as the characters, because that has been signposted already as an important part of the plot.
But in the "Lord of the Rings" it's just that nothing really happens. I think I'm right in saying that from the point of leaving the Shire to getting to Butterbur's inn, there is about one real moment of danger, and that's only to the support characters. Oh yes, the Black Riders are around, but they're pretty dumb for all their sense of smell and immortality if Frodo can outfox them by staying out of sight. And when there is real trouble, a good old deus ex machina turns up and makes everything alright. I'm talking about when Merry and Pippin get almost eaten by the willow. Which is another point. If the trees hate living things so, how did the party survive even that long without losing at least a limb or two? They seemed pretty effective later when up against the orcs. But now I'm coming to another silly thing about the trilogy. While constantly in terrible danger, only one of the primary "good" characters dies. Two, if you count Theoden. But he's old, and Eomer was itching to take his place. It was so foreshadowed that it was very easy to miss that it hadn't happened already. And only after Boromir loses all pretence and attacks Frodo for the ring does he mark himself for death. Nobody dies who would be missed, even if some of the characters pretend they were important afterwards. And this renders all the talk of terrible danger and insurmoutable fear laughable. Which is stupid storytelling. There were enough support characters knock off and make the whole thing less complicated and still have the happy ending with the being led through the kingdom in triumph and all that. But Tolkein the gutless has near enough everyone survive. Just saying something dangerous is not enough, Tolky.
Something else that removes the sense of danger is the sense that every few miles is a safe haven where the characters will meet friends who let them stay for a couple of days, fill their bellies, heal their wounds, and load them up with provisions and enough magical trinkets to set up a suspicious supermarket that wasn't there yesterday, which would probably be large enough to trick a thousand hapless main characters into storylines. When Frodo and Sam finally made it into Mordor I was expecting them to come across a cottage housed by a benevolent white witch with a charter broomstick business right to the slopes of Mount Doom. Although women are only allowed in Tolkein's world on sufferance. Say little and look pretty or you'll spend the next couple of weeks sitting in hospital slowly falling for a future husband.
The battles suffer from this "safe haven just around the corner" syndrome as well. There's always extra reinforcements on their way, and someone unexpected turns up at the end to finish things off. The point of hopelessness at the beginning swiftly and easily turns into triumph so that even with full-on war there's nothing to be scared of. The hobbits, who have had no formal training with swords, are able to perform well enough to take down the chief of the (insert whatever synonym for "Black Riders" suits the mood, as there seem to be too many), and there's absolutely no chance of Legolas or Gimli getting even a scratch, no matter how long they fight or how many they kill. Who needs reinforcements? Just put those two and Aragorn in the middle of Mordor and wait a while.
Class is a big issue too. There's no real reason for Sam to call Frodo "master". Merry and Pippin don't. But Frodo seems to expect it, and nobody seems to find it odd. He became a servant with little fuss, and is always being put down for being slow and concerned with unimportant things. He is to be indulged with gardening items and food. Fine. I can sort of put up with that. It just becomes difficult when Gollum comes into the mix and does his faithful dog act with Frodo. Sam's reaction looks odd, because the fawning and crawling is only an emphasised version of what he does. I don't really have much sympathy for the two that actually enter Mordor, and this is a significant part of the reasons why.
And don't get me started on that unnecessary plot involving the Shire and Saruman tacked onto the end. The films (watched a little after completing the books) were absolutely right to get right of that mindless little extension.
By the way, this is not an anti-fantasy literature bias rearing its head. I admit I don't tend to enjoy fantasy books, but I liked "The Hobbit", and considering that was full of midgets, wizards and dragons I can't say I wasn't prepared to see a few more in the sequels. So I'm going to stay away from the more fantasy elements in my criticism and focus on the plot and characterisation.
The most annoying thing, what made turning each page a chore, was the pace of the damn thing. Every little incident has to be explored in unbelievable detail until my eyes weren't actually taking in the meaning, just passing over words and then picking up at another point, wondering how everyone's in Moria already. That cannot be ascribed to the fact that it's an old book. I've read Austen and Dickens, and actually got into the plots, especially with the latter. Old Charles knows what suspense is, and uses it to good effect. Equally, while nothing really happens in Austen, every tiny social act is given such significance that your judgement adjusts to compensate. So when Harriet gets snubbed by Mr. Elton at a dance the reader can react with as much shock as the characters, because that has been signposted already as an important part of the plot.
But in the "Lord of the Rings" it's just that nothing really happens. I think I'm right in saying that from the point of leaving the Shire to getting to Butterbur's inn, there is about one real moment of danger, and that's only to the support characters. Oh yes, the Black Riders are around, but they're pretty dumb for all their sense of smell and immortality if Frodo can outfox them by staying out of sight. And when there is real trouble, a good old deus ex machina turns up and makes everything alright. I'm talking about when Merry and Pippin get almost eaten by the willow. Which is another point. If the trees hate living things so, how did the party survive even that long without losing at least a limb or two? They seemed pretty effective later when up against the orcs. But now I'm coming to another silly thing about the trilogy. While constantly in terrible danger, only one of the primary "good" characters dies. Two, if you count Theoden. But he's old, and Eomer was itching to take his place. It was so foreshadowed that it was very easy to miss that it hadn't happened already. And only after Boromir loses all pretence and attacks Frodo for the ring does he mark himself for death. Nobody dies who would be missed, even if some of the characters pretend they were important afterwards. And this renders all the talk of terrible danger and insurmoutable fear laughable. Which is stupid storytelling. There were enough support characters knock off and make the whole thing less complicated and still have the happy ending with the being led through the kingdom in triumph and all that. But Tolkein the gutless has near enough everyone survive. Just saying something dangerous is not enough, Tolky.
Something else that removes the sense of danger is the sense that every few miles is a safe haven where the characters will meet friends who let them stay for a couple of days, fill their bellies, heal their wounds, and load them up with provisions and enough magical trinkets to set up a suspicious supermarket that wasn't there yesterday, which would probably be large enough to trick a thousand hapless main characters into storylines. When Frodo and Sam finally made it into Mordor I was expecting them to come across a cottage housed by a benevolent white witch with a charter broomstick business right to the slopes of Mount Doom. Although women are only allowed in Tolkein's world on sufferance. Say little and look pretty or you'll spend the next couple of weeks sitting in hospital slowly falling for a future husband.
The battles suffer from this "safe haven just around the corner" syndrome as well. There's always extra reinforcements on their way, and someone unexpected turns up at the end to finish things off. The point of hopelessness at the beginning swiftly and easily turns into triumph so that even with full-on war there's nothing to be scared of. The hobbits, who have had no formal training with swords, are able to perform well enough to take down the chief of the (insert whatever synonym for "Black Riders" suits the mood, as there seem to be too many), and there's absolutely no chance of Legolas or Gimli getting even a scratch, no matter how long they fight or how many they kill. Who needs reinforcements? Just put those two and Aragorn in the middle of Mordor and wait a while.
Class is a big issue too. There's no real reason for Sam to call Frodo "master". Merry and Pippin don't. But Frodo seems to expect it, and nobody seems to find it odd. He became a servant with little fuss, and is always being put down for being slow and concerned with unimportant things. He is to be indulged with gardening items and food. Fine. I can sort of put up with that. It just becomes difficult when Gollum comes into the mix and does his faithful dog act with Frodo. Sam's reaction looks odd, because the fawning and crawling is only an emphasised version of what he does. I don't really have much sympathy for the two that actually enter Mordor, and this is a significant part of the reasons why.
And don't get me started on that unnecessary plot involving the Shire and Saruman tacked onto the end. The films (watched a little after completing the books) were absolutely right to get right of that mindless little extension.