Problems with non LOTR readers...

[Olorgando]

I particularly like the "or", implying that those who have reviewed it negatively have not necessarily read it in the frst place! 😂

Some have, when pressed by others off-the-air (say in elevators), actually confessed to never having read it. 😈

 

[Hisoka Morrow]

The most common excuse I have heard is that it is too long.

That's the common excuse for all novels, I can't agree with you more.

 

[Radaghast]

This thread reminds me of comments made about the book by Philip Pullman, author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, who has seemingly taken every possible opportunity to blast the book, calling it 'thin stuff' and complaining there isn't anything sexual in the book as well as that there are 'no strong women characters'.

I think we can agree the complaints are silly or just wrong. The main problem with them is the fact that Pullman hasn't read the book since he was a teenager (he's said he's tried but was unable to get through it). So, we're supposed to respect this guy's opinion on something he hasn't read in decades? When I first watched the movies, I hadn't read the book in over ten years so I naively accepted at least some of what I saw as being faithful to the source. I reread the book immediately after watching RotK and was shocked at how much I misremembered and how much the films got wrong. As a fan of the work, my memory was bad after only maybe 15 years. Could you expect a detractor of the work to honestly appraise the book after a much longer period of not reading it?

So, yeah, Pullman can pull it.

A couple of links that bash Pullman for his silly, and uninformed, opinion of The Lord of the Rings.

Yelling at the Clouds: Philip Pullman on Tolkien and Lewis

The Silver Key: Happy birthday to JRR Tolkien; jeers to Philip Pullman

A quote from the first link that made me chuckle, so I'm sharing it here:

(Speaking of implicit stuff… does Pullman really need a blow-by-blow account to understand that Faramir and Eowyn are in a sexual relationship, or what Aragorn and Arwen do on their Wedding Night, or that Sam Gamgee bangs Rosie Cotton?).

 

[Olorgando]

Interesting link, Radaghast. But I had never even heard of Philip Pullman before today. The thing is, in the well over 1,000 books we own, the ones I bought are overwhelmingly non-fiction. Practically the only exceptions are Arthur C. Clarke (the Space Odyssey and Rama quadrilogies, mainly), Paul Harding (Pen Name of Paul C. Doherty for those two book series playing in the early and late 14th century that were translated into German), and Douglas Adams ... and JRRT is in that way a huge anomaly. If I count multiples (4 versions of The Hobbit) my library must have passed 90 books by now. Oh wait, I forgot C.S. Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy, which I have in a one-volume edition.

 

[Radaghast]

Interesting. I haven't done much reading of books of any kind, sadly, in recent years. Have to develop the habit again, just to get my brain moving again.

Re: Pullman, for His Dark Materials a film franchise was attempted with The Golden Compass, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman but it failed miserably. There's a HDM series on HBO but I'm not sure how popular it is.

Anyway, Pullman is outspokenly anti-Catholic, and his book series reflects that, but Nicole Kidman is Catholic and refused to do the part if it meant going against her religion.

 

[Erestor Arcamen]

Re: Pullman, for His Dark Materials a film franchise was attempted with The Golden Compass, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman but it failed miserably. There's a HDM series on HBO but I'm not sure how popular it is.

I watched it, it's not awful but there's definitely better fantasy and sci-fi out there. Haven't bothered to read the books.

 

[Ealdwyn]

A quote from the first link that made me chuckle, so I'm sharing it here:

(Speaking of implicit stuff… does Pullman really need a blow-by-blow account to understand that Faramir and Eowyn are in a sexual relationship, or what Aragorn and Arwen do on their Wedding Night, or that Sam Gamgee bangs Rosie Cotton?).

Has he not heard of fanfiction? 😂

 

[Ealdwyn]

Re: Pullman, for His Dark Materials a film franchise was attempted with The Golden Compass, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman but it failed miserably. There's a HDM series on HBO but I'm not sure how popular it is.

I've seen the series adaptations of the first two books, which were shown here on BBC. I enjoyed them, although they're strictly in the family viewing category.
That said, I've never read the HDM books, so may be they weren't true adaptations.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

but it failed miserably

I don't know if I'd go so far -- the box office doubled the cost -- and it did much better outside the US than domestically. It apparently confused a lot of people who hadn't read the books, and disappointed many who had. I'd read them, and enjoyed the film for what it was. But then, I admit to not being nearly as emotionally or intellectually invested in them as I am in Tolkien.

As for the books, they're an interesting experiment in interrogating -- to use a modern critical buzzword -- traditional fantasy tropes. Among other things, of course. I'd say they do that more successfully than GRRM managed. But perhaps that's a matter of taste.

I haven't seen the series.

 

[Radaghast]

I read the first book but don't remember anything except the daemons and the armored polar bears.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Ah, the Panserbjorne -- a great creation!

As a miniatures player, I really want some of those. As a matter of fact, I asked a maker, known for his whimsical figures, to sculpt some; unfortunately, he refused, because he "doesn't like polar bears".

 

[Radaghast]

LOL. Strange. But you could always ask him to sculpt a brown bear and paint it white

I've painted quite a few minis and have thought about sculpting my own but I'm not quite nearly there yet. There would likely be a lot of trial and error.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Strange

Well, he's a bit eccentric, as he'd be the first to admit.

I now see someone else has made some armored bears, but I'll post them in the Games forum -- I think I've gone OT enough here.😁

 

[Olorgando]

A quote from the first link that made me chuckle, so I'm sharing it here:

(Speaking of implicit stuff… does Pullman really need a blow-by-blow account to understand that Faramir and Eowyn are in a sexual relationship, or what Aragorn and Arwen do on their Wedding Night, or that Sam Gamgee bangs Rosie Cotton?).

Regarding that last item, I just have to turn to Appendix C "Family Trees" {Baggins, Took, Brandybuck, Sam}, "The Longfather-Tree of Master Samwise".
Sam and Rose's descendants go wall-to-wall in landscape format, 13 in all (passing the Old Took by one), from Elanor the Fair in 1421 SR to Tolman (Tom) in 1442, at which time Sam was 62 and Rose 58. What does this tell us about one of their favorite hobbies?

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

As the "bad" side is associated with winter and sterility, the "good" side is associated with spring and fertility.

 

[Ealdwyn]

Regarding that last item, I just have to turn to Appendix C "Family Trees" {Baggins, Took, Brandybuck, Sam}, "The Longfather-Tree of Master Samwise".
Sam and Rose's descendants go wall-to-wall in landscape format, 13 in all (passing the Old Took by one), from Elanor the Fair in 1421 SR to Tolman (Tom) in 1442, at which time Sam was 62 and Rose 58. What does this tell us about one of their favorite hobbies?

As I've said before, there's not a lot else to do in the Shire of an evening.

 

[Olorgando]

As I've said before, there's not a lot else to do in the Shire of an evening.

I dunno ... they seem to have plenty of pubs ...

 

[Ealdwyn]

I dunno ... they seem to have plenty of pubs ...

But what do you do after the pubs close?

 

[Olorgando]

But what do you do after the pubs close?

Point made - for the British Isles, which had something like an 11 PM curfew for a long time. Though in my early-1990's vacation in Ireland, I noticed that there were endless possibilities of circumvention. And here in Germany, there were some few pubs that stayed open way after midnight - serving, IIRC, some of the people who did duty in the other pubs, many of which also stayed open well after midnight (one of which a couple of my buddies and I have fond, if somewhat dim memories of).

 

[Goldilocks Gamgee]

that there are 'no strong women characters'.

Wait seriously? He says that? Like, what about Eowyn, Idril, Luthien, Arwen? Rosie Cotton - even! Eowyn literally kills the creature no man can kill. Idril leads many people through dangerous tunnels. Luthien faces off the Lord of Evil! Arwen is a homemaker (why aren't they considered strong?). Rosie openly defies Saruman in the last chapters of LotR.