I’m just coming to the end of The Fellowship of the Ring, and you know…
I don’t think I care…
I first read LOTR about 14 years ago after many false starts. I just could
never get into it. However while I was at SCi we started working on a LOTR
game so I figured I needed to read it. So I did. I remember enjoying it
but not be particularly blown away by it.
I’m listening to it now on audio book and it feels like pulling teeth. I
understand better now why I found it so hard to get into. It’s just so
dull. I always used to say that I found it verbose, that Tolkien liked to
describe too many sunsets. ( NOTE: I’m not sure he ever describes one,
it’s just a figure of speech. ) But now I think that he doesn’t even
describe them well. I still think he’s verbose but I now think that he is
not very flowery. I don’t find myself getting lost in the prose. So I find
myself coming back to the thought that the book needs a really good edit!
I’m not a person that gets hung up on language. I read a variety of
authors. Some are better storytellers than others. Some are better writers
than others.
I always considered Tolkien as a very good writer with a reasonable story.
Now I think I’m going to have to downgrade him to and OK writer with an OK
story! I just find myself now thinking that there is nothing in LOTR that
makes me want to read it again, therefore do I really want to spend the
next 40 hours of my life listening to the the next two books?
All that said, I aspire to be that OK! 🙂