Overrated Reading

[ladyruby07]

By no ways a fail in every aspect, but I just know I'm going to get crap for this.

The Lord of the Rings

Yes, Tolkien.  Don't jump down my throat just yet.  I like his world, and for the most part his characters are well done and interesting.  But...

He is one of the most dry writers ever!  I made it through the first book because I had already seen

Comments

[tjgoldstein]

Oh God!!

I so agree on his style of writing! I could only trudge through the first two books due to having seen the movies first... but I still go lost. Too many names that were similar, too much breaking away and wanking on about things that just confused the hell out of the reader and really, just too boring overall.

I kept having to flip back and forth from the current page to an earlier page to see if I was still on the right track.. I even kept a list of the characters and what role they played in the books but I ended up so confuzzled, that I just gave up in the end.

Adore the movies though!!

[imora_mi_savur]

I actually agree with a couple of the points you made.

I think Lord of the rings is a brilliant story and the world it's set in is great, but it does seem to get bogged down in the little details. For me Return of the king was like wading through treacle a lot of the time (eg.I could have happily read the battle chapters without being told the exact numbers and ranks of ever battalion of ever race that turned up to fight).

I think it's one of the few instances where the film was actually better than the books. That said I prefer the first book to the first film.

It seems to be something he got more guilty of over time, The Hobbit is and prob always will be one of my favorite books, but I'd rather gouge my own eyes out than have to try to read the silmarillion all the way through.

[xeyra]

The Silmarillion is actually a lot less wordier than The Lord of the Rings. I managed to finish the latter after a long while, skimming some parts where the author spent pages and pages describing unrelated detours, but the Silmarillion is actually pretty much to the point. I really loved it and was very pleasantly surprised.

[bella_cheval]

I have to agree with you on Toliken. I tried very hard to read his books and just got tired very quickly of his writing. My poor hubby still can't understand why I can't get into them as he loves JRRT's writing.

[87_degrees]

I love Lord of the Ring. The best way to read it is just to skim over any paragraphs where Tolkien starts talking history.

I first read TTT and RotK in a ridiculously short length of time because I was into the plot and desperate to know what happened next. I think that helped. By skimming over some of the details of the text, I got to just enjoy the amazing story.

[suitetwentytwo]

I'm right there with you. I've been working on the books for around four years now. I'm only reading them because I feel like I should. But I hate them. He describes EVERYTHING!!!! And I don't need to know what that tree looked like. You aren't going to bring it back up again! I hate lots of description and that's probably why I hate his books. And all those songs and poems! They were awful! His story is very compelling and the characters are great, but not good enough to make me like the books.