Recent watching

[foxinthestars]

So I've fallen down on posting again. The last few weeks I've been going back to a local Art Guild where I had dropped off attendance months ago and have been enjoying it, but I won't say much about that right now

Comments

[smurasaki]

In one scene Saruman incites some people I don't know to attack some other people I don't know; the first group is never adequately explained (and a later scene perhaps would have been more awesome if it hadn't made me so curious whether Saruman hadn't been a dumbass to build his fortress below a dam and where the dam came from to start with and who maintained it and why).

I'm pretty sure both of those are movie issues. The movies do a fairly good job of following the books, but apparently they left a few important bits out.

Of course, since I first read them with my parents when I was 6 or 7, I can't really separate out the nostalgia factor when it comes to Tolkien. I like them. That doesn't necessarily mean other people would.

Vonnegut, however, I don't like, genius or not. I read one of his books and was so put off by his anger, bitterness, and disgust with humanity that I never read another. (And yet I'm told he's supposed to be funny?) Eh, well, I'm more into enjoyable fluff anyway.

[foxinthestars]

I suspected they were movie issues, really, and was commenting only on the movie (as stated, I haven't read Tolkien --- can't spell him without help ^_^;; --- but am under the impression that he was all about thinking through things like that, moreso than actually writing novels in fact).

And Vonnegut, yeah. When it comes to writing, I suspect "humor" can be the last refuge of the scoundrel; if your stuff is impossible to take seriously, just claim you did it on purpose. (Anne Coulter is supposed to be funny for godsake, but as far as I can tell the "humor" depends entirely on hating the people she hates; maybe it does with Vonnegut, too.)

I've gotten where I don't entrust the line between fluff and sophistication to any standard categories; a high literary thing can be slapdash and sophomoric, and a comedic genre piece for children can be sensitively-observed, well-thought-out, and powerful. I know which I think more of.

[smurasaki]

Very good point. There's a lot of quite well thought out and insightful fluff.

[le_section_8]

Book one is a travelogue with too much Tom Bombadil. Book two has Sam vs. Shelob and is effin' metal. Book three kinda drags towards the end and has a super depressing ending. But the appendixes are funny.