i cant understand the greatness of this book. Characters are very plain, the plot is linear, poetry is boring, mythology stolen. and the only impressive thing is elf's language, but how many people did actually learn it??
2006-06-19 16:52:02 · 19 answers · asked by vlad 2 in Arts & Humanities ➔ Books & Authors
well, im not a real fan of fantasy but i do like it!
my abs fav is Ursula Le Guine! Also Asprin (well, he's relaxing and writes like a gay))), Zhelazny, Sapkovski, well JKRowling ))....
2006-06-19 17:31:55 · update #1
TO RONNIE E
2006-06-26 09:15:11 · update #2
i have read it indeed!! the hobbit -- a few times and TLOR -- two times. just cant get trough the Silmarilion -- english is way too havy and thick as for me (( ive also tried to read it tranlated in my first language but just got confused with the names ((
2006-06-26 09:19:21 · update #3
Tolkien was a genius. He didn't just create characters and cities and landscapes...he created races, fantastic creatures, maps, family trees, cultures and whole languages. I can't even fathom that there are people who read his work and think, "wow, great book" and then put it down and forget about it. I think I've read the appendices alone 30 times just trying to get the chronology of it and understand the races and cultures.
The main reason it's great (to me) is because while you're reading it, Middle Earth exists. It seems entirely plausible, and you BELIEVE. All of the mythology and creatures and timelines and geneology are fantastic....but all of the human elements are why people love this story: Loyalty, love, courage, bonds of friendship, the willingness to sacrifice whatever it takes to save the world you love, selflessness, long-estranged races forging bonds of fellowship in a common purpose and, perhaps most importantly, hope.
2006-06-21 06:12:27 · answer #1 · answered by circe 3 · 4⤊ 1⤋
Saying the mythology is "stolen" is stretching it a little; Shakespere nicked a lot of his basic plot ideas from earlier plays, and he is still generally considered to be a pretty good playwright.
It's what you do with your source material that counts... Tolkien created an unbelievably detailed world, with a coherent history, geography and several different races, cultures and languages. All in all, an impressive feat of sustained imagination. The plot is a classic picaresque adventure, like Don Quixote (go on a journy, have adventures, learn lessons, collect/destroy macguffin). And some of the poetry is pretty good. I like Bilbo reciting ,"I sit beside the fire and think"; a nice litle meditation on mortality.
On the other hand, his prose style tends toward the pompous, particuarly in the second and third volumes, where the language degenerates into apalling, tedious, pseudo medievalism, what Josephine Tey calls a "forsoothly" style, which has always marred my enjoyment of the story. And a lot of the characters, particuarly the women,and the elves, are just ciphers.
Basically, he makes me think of a criticism levelled at Henry James, that he could not write up to the demands of his towering style, only in Tolkiens' case, he couldn't write to the standards of his vast imagination
2006-06-26 08:35:54 · answer #2 · answered by babaganoosh 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Even for those who don't believe that Lord of the Rings was great in and of itself... "Lord" was archetypical. It essentially birthed a genre and turned 'high' or 'epic' fantasy into respectable reading. At best, it had been an outsider or niche genre.
There is lots of genius in the trilogy. An elven language. A dwarven language. A history particular to Middle Earth including a timeline! A race that had not been seen before in ANY mythology (hobbits). An ending that had some tragedy or at least melancholy mixed in the rejoicing.
2006-06-20 00:02:56 · answer #3 · answered by aross07 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A lot of what makes the Lord of The Rings great is not even in the books. Tolikien created the tha languages of the various races and developed a great historical background for the story. This makes for a depth to the story that adds realism. The Lord of The Rings takes place in the third age of Middle Earth, Tolkine had documented for himself, the history of the first two ages and referred often to that history throughout the story. Also his development of the cultures of the various inhabitants of Middle Earth greatly adds to the believablity and richness of the story. If you would be interedted in knowing more about the history of Middle Earth, check out the Silmarillion. The book was assembled from Tolkien's notes for The Lord of The Rings about the history of Middle Earth by his son Christopher and released for publication. It may answer some of your questions far better than I can.
2006-06-20 13:03:27 · answer #4 · answered by tom5551 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The thing with Lord of the rings is ; that it is so much more than fiction!! Everything about the book one can associate with life i.e the world being changed by something as small as a hobbit has to be inspiring. Or friends standing together no matter what!!!!! The real magic of the book is the lessons that one can learn from it.
2006-06-20 05:30:19 · answer #5 · answered by Ecko 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You have to remember when it was written. For it's day it was ground breaking stuff. Tolkien practically invented the fantasy genre. Its an epic tale of the struggle between good and evil, pitting the smallest beings in the land (Hobbits) against the most despicable evil in the world (Sauron) and it has a (mostly) happy ending... what more could you want?
2006-06-19 23:58:07 · answer #6 · answered by eggman 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sorry you missed out on the fun. May I ask if you care for the fantasy genre (literary), and if so, who do you like?
Myself, I read and reread The Hobbit and the LOTR trilogy when I was very young, and when I was older, and loved it every time.
I still think it is the all time best fantasy chronicle, bar none, and I've read many.
As pointed out above, it was the primer for all the fantasy epics which followed, and IMHO it was (and is) the standard against which they are measured.
2006-06-20 00:13:17 · answer #7 · answered by Bender 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i brought all 3 lord of the rings books and the hobbit and couldn't get past the 4th chapter coz i was so bored. saying that i did enjoy the films. very unusual for me to prefer the film to the book.
2006-06-20 04:44:56 · answer #8 · answered by rubytuesday. 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you must read all of the books, including the hobbit to truly appreciate tolkiens world, but then again its not every ones cup of tea.
By the look of it you obviously haven't read it and you are only trying to provoke a reaction.
which you have succeeded in doing.
Hura,
2006-06-25 23:03:18 · answer #9 · answered by Ronnie 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Many literary critics hail it as the greatest art of written literature in modern times.
2006-06-20 01:35:37 · answer #10 · answered by skeetejacquelinelightersnumber7 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋