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! 🙂
In fairness, the Fellowship of the Ring is the weakest of the three books. Very linear, somewhat lacking in purpose at times, and nothing much really happens.
Books two and three see the action develop much more, and to my mind at least are far better books.
However, I cannot complain overmuch about FotR as it’s lack of action led Jackson to up the involvement of Arwen in his films, so lots more of Liv Tyler with pointy ears speaking elvish than might otherwise have been the case if, say Glorfindel had actually served any useful purpose. Hurray, say I! 😉
Which audio books do you have? Is it the Radio 4 series? To my mind they are the best interpretation of the “purist” view of the books, even though they leave out a few things (Tom Bombadil, Dol Amroth etc).
It’s a full unabridged proper audiobook.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fellowship-Ring-Audio-CD/dp/0007141297
Try to get yourself a copy of the Radio 4 series if you have not done so before. A really good dramatisation, even if some of the voices (Aragorn, Arwen especially) may seem odd at first.