Did you like the LOTR trilogy? (Books)

[Hoffa]

I read the hobbit first when i was about 12. Thought it was awesome and ive reread it a few times. I loved everything about it, the mystery, the wizard, goblings, powerful artifacts, amazing at that age. So i decided to read LOTR.. i was quite disappointed, i thought it was kinda tedious. Some chapters were great but i had a hard time going through the Sam and Frodo capters. I lost interst a bit but then i bought The Silmarillion and that was absolutely AMAZING! 

So guys, what do you think about the LOTR triology?

[VigoTheCarpathian]

One word to describe this triology and its capters: OVERRATED.

Sword of Truth or GTFO

[SeanF]

1 hour ago, VigoTheCarpathian said:

One word to describe this triology and its capters: OVERRATED.

Sword of Truth or GTFO

Those are fighting words around here.

[Inkdaub]

It isn't a trilogy and is my favorite book of all time.

I know people who dislike it, though, and while they are bad people they can like what they want.

[One-Winged Balrog]

Asking a question like this is like asking if you like the Bible.

Even if you don't, you still must acknowledge LOTR is a book of enormous cultural significance. Terry Pratchett has explained it very well:

Quote

“J.R.R. Tolkien has become a sort of mountain, appearing in all subsequent fantasy in the way that Mt. Fuji appears so often in Japanese prints. Sometimes it’s big and up close. Sometimes it’s a shape on the horizon. Sometimes it’s not there at all, which means that the artist either has made a deliberate decision against the mountain, which is interesting in itself, or is in fact standing on Mt. Fuji.”

For better or worse, there would be no fantasy genre as we know it without LOTR.

This out of the way, I like LOTR. In particular, I like Tolkien's voice. All those "DeScRiPtIoNs Of LeAvEs" that make it boring for other people, I can't have enough of.

Of course, this is subjective. Some people like Dune, and I found it intensely boring. Well, at least me and Tolkien can share our dislike of Dune...

[One-Winged Balrog]

5 hours ago, Hoffa said:

Some chapters were great but i had a hard time going through the Sam and Frodo capters. I lost interst a bit but then i bought The Silmarillion and that was absolutely AMAZING! 

Wait, are you serious?

I find it hard to believe that someone could dislike LOTR and like Silmarillion.

[Werthead]

1 hour ago, One-Winged Balrog said:

For better or worse, there would be no fantasy genre as we know it without LOTR.

I always thought this somewhat overstated. There are vast, vast numbers of fantasy works before LotR, many of them resembling modern fantasy as we know it: Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, Vance's The Dying Earth, Leiber's Lankhmar stories, Lord Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees, George MacDonald, L. Frank Baum etc. There's entire branches of modern fantasy (Moorcock, Erikson, Cook) which descend from those sources rather than Tolkien, and in some cases reject Tolkien.

GRRM does acknowledge Tolkien as a major influence, but it's also clear that he owes a lot to the pulp fantasies (particularly Vance), and ASoIaF's somewhat troubled worldbuilding is a result of that early tension between wanting to be both in the pulp house (with !CRAZY! spans of time and not much attention to realism) and the Tolkien house (with more realistic, measured, described worldbuilding), because GRRM made the conscious decision circa ASoS to commit to the Tolkien approach, and he's been on damage control from his earlier ideas ever since. 

I think fantasy as we know it would still exist without Tolkien, but maybe that idea of focusing hard on worldbuilding would be less pronounced, and the genre overall would be poorer without it.

Quote

I find it hard to believe that someone could dislike LOTR and like Silmarillion.

LotR is very traditional in structure and certainly somewhat old-fashioned in its writing (not necessarily a bad thing). The Silmarillion is vastly more epic, broader in scope, less traditional and cookie-cutter in places, and is also considerably shorter and faster-moving than LotR.

I think it's more of an acquired taste (it's not a traditional novel, but I can understand people preferring it.

[SeanF]

55 minutes ago, Werthead said:

I always thought this somewhat overstated. There are vast, vast numbers of fantasy works before LotR, many of them resembling modern fantasy as we know it: Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, Vance's The Dying Earth, Leiber's Lankhmar stories, Lord Dunsany, Hope Mirrlees, George MacDonald, L. Frank Baum etc. There's entire branches of modern fantasy (Moorcock, Erikson, Cook) which descend from those sources rather than Tolkien, and in some cases reject Tolkien.

GRRM does acknowledge Tolkien as a major influence, but it's also clear that he owes a lot to the pulp fantasies (particularly Vance), and ASoIaF's somewhat troubled worldbuilding is a result of that early tension between wanting to be both in the pulp house (with !CRAZY! spans of time and not much attention to realism) and the Tolkien house (with more realistic, measured, described worldbuilding), because GRRM made the conscious decision circa ASoS to commit to the Tolkien approach, and he's been on damage control from his earlier ideas ever since. 

I think fantasy as we know it would still exist without Tolkien, but maybe that idea of focusing hard on worldbuilding would be less pronounced, and the genre overall would be poorer without it.

LotR is very traditional in structure and certainly somewhat old-fashioned in its writing (not necessarily a bad thing). The Silmarillion is vastly more epic, broader in scope, less traditional and cookie-cutter in places, and is also considerably shorter and faster-moving than LotR.

I think it's more of an acquired taste (it's not a traditional novel, but I can understand people preferring it.

Since these are, in theory, scholarly texts, in my headcanon, The Silmarillion and LOTR Appendices are the unexpurgated version of LOTR.

Murder, rape, torture, cannibalism, are all alluded to in LOTR.  At the same time, they are all a bit glossed over.  In the Appendices and Silmarillion, we learn that the good guys can do some pretty awful stuff, as in real life.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I have read LOTR at least once a year every year since I was 10.  I’m 51.  
 

[Jaxom 1974]

I never made it past page 80 of Fellowship...one of only a handful of books I've ever set aside instead of finishing.  I don't think I've seen all three movies...at least, I didn't remember trying to watch the third one...

It doesn't make it any less a cultural touchstone...it just means I found it dull.

@Werthead, I agree with your assessment of LOTR impact on modern fantasy...but what timeframe defines the "modern" era?  Doesn't modern fantasy really become what it is in the late 70s with the advent of Dungeons and Dragons? And the influence Tolkien had on the game? Yes there was other stuff, but the way D&D changed the way people were exposed to fantasy fiction...

[Ser Not Appearing]

9 hours ago, VigoTheCarpathian said:

Sword of Truth

Gross

[Ser Not Appearing]

The only time I've read the entirety of LoTR is when I heard the movies were coming out and I wanted to make sure I had read it first. It was something of a struggle at the time.

I've since picked through the books at various times and enjoyed myself, though I didn't read the entire series or an entire book from front to back. What I was mostly interested in is how he wove the narrative. Sometimes I like to read books that have a reputation and to then open a section of that book and read through it and compare it to the reputation.

Where does he spend his time focusing in world building and how does he approach that? Was he actually describing the leaves and going off on tangents about history? From what perspective is he discussing the leaves? How does he flow into and then flow back out of those tangents? Does it work for me? Why or why not? That sort of stuff.

In the various times that I've read sections of LoTR, I've enjoyed the narrative. It's easy to see why it succeeded because it just feels well done. A lot of books that are more my style have burrs in the narrative ... things that draw me out of the book because they feel forced. LoTR is butter smooth. There are lessons in it, I imagine, about how to present information and plot so that it's more readily accepted.

[LongRider]

I've read and reread the LOTR many times and always enjoy it, finding I like JRRT's writing better each time.  However, the Hobbit and the Silmarillion are not my cup of tea.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

45 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I've read and reread the LOTR many times and always enjoy it, finding I like JRRT's writing better each time.  However, the Hobbit and the Silmarillion are not my cup of tea.

I’m not super fond of The Hobbit however I love The Silmarillon.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

I never made it past page 80 of Fellowship...one of only a handful of books I've ever set aside instead of finishing.  I don't think I've seen all three movies...at least, I didn't remember trying to watch the third one...

It doesn't make it any less a cultural touchstone...it just means I found it dull.

@Werthead, I agree with your assessment of LOTR impact on modern fantasy...but what timeframe defines the "modern" era?  Doesn't modern fantasy really become what it is in the late 70s with the advent of Dungeons and Dragons? And the influence Tolkien had on the game? Yes there was other stuff, but the way D&D changed the way people were exposed to fantasy fiction...

Gygax infamously hated LotR and I don't believe ever finished it. He did quite like The Hobbit, though, and borrowed, well stole, his halflings from there.

Gygax and the original D&D game were much, much more heavily influenced by Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber. Gygax borrowed Vance's magic system from The Dying Earth (right down to spell names) for D&D and Leiber's Lankhmar books were basically the inspiration for D&D's entire urban adventure line (Gygax later licensed Lankhmar for considerably more than it was really worth, just to help Leiber out when Gygax learned he was living in penury). Moorcock was also a significant influence.

You can see a much stronger LotR influence on Dragonlance, but that didn't come about until ten years after D&D was created, and around the time when Gygax was decreasing his involvement in the company. Unofficially, Dragonlance and later Forgotten Realms were introduced so they could scale down their use of Gygax's Greyhawk setting and not have to pay him a licence any more.

[The Marquis de Leech]

The greatest problem with The Silmarillion: the book really is too short.

So far as The Lord of the Rings goes, I think its influence might be summarised as follows:

• Popularised extensive worldbuilding (worldbuilding was a thing, with Howard and Baum, but we're talking the Wright Brothers versus the Apollo Program).
• Separated out fantasy and science-fiction as distinctive genres - overlap used to be more common.
• Codified the novel (rather than the short story) as the standard form of fantasy. This was coming anyway, but I think Tolkien accelerated the trend.

[The Marquis de Leech]

19 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Gygax infamously hated LotR and I don't believe ever finished it. He did quite like The Hobbit, though, and borrowed, well stole, his halflings from there.

Gygax and the original D&D game were much, much more heavily influenced by Jack Vance and Fritz Leiber. Gygax borrowed Vance's magic system from The Dying Earth (right down to spell names) for D&D and Leiber's Lankhmar books were basically the inspiration for D&D's entire urban adventure line (Gygax later licensed Lankhmar for considerably more than it was really worth, just to help Leiber out when Gygax learned he was living in penury). Moorcock was also a significant influence.

You can see a much stronger LotR influence on Dragonlance, but that didn't come about until ten years after D&D was created, and around the time when Gygax was decreasing his involvement in the company. Unofficially, Dragonlance and later Forgotten Realms were introduced so they could scale down their use of Gygax's Greyhawk setting and not have to pay him a licence any more.

Treants are stolen from Ents, and that's not from The Hobbit.

[One-Winged Balrog]

1 hour ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

The greatest problem with The Silmarillion: the book really is too short.

 

Fortunately, we have The Unfinished Tales and the 12 volumes of The History of Middle-earth.

And I admit I haven't read most of it, but one day I will.

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, The Marquis de Leech said:

Treants are stolen from Ents, and that's not from The Hobbit.

That's true. They're even called Ents in the very first edition of D&D from 1974, and halflings are called hobbits. Both were renamed after a threatened legal action by the holders of the Middle-earth gaming licence.

[TormundsWoman]

12 hours ago, Inkdaub said:

while they are bad people they can like what they want.

Too funny

I enjoyed the LotR it when I read it the first time, tried about 5 years back I think to reread it and see how it stands the test of (my) aging. Not bad. Not too great either. (Tom Bombadil, I’m looking at you!) I suppose it’s the fact I’ve read so many books in between (?) Maybe my literary tastebuds have changed. Strange that never happened with the Arthurian legends TH White’s or Malory’s.

As for how influential his books were to shape all fantasy: I can definitely see & appreciate the huge influence one can see in many writers of today in the English speaking world. I suspect the landscape of the non-English speaking world would probably be just fine. It would be too much to assume the rest of the world’s fantasy literature spins around Tolkien though. I’m sure the Chinese lit, Spanish or French to name a few have their own influences. After all, for example Jules Verne was French. Clearly they have their own talent.