Problems with non LOTR readers...

[Rivendell_librarian]

Look at any reader review website (e.g. Library Thing or Goodreads) and you see a wide range of star ratings for most books.
There's no accounting for taste.

 

[Halasían]

So what are some other common excuses for people not wanting to read this novel that you guys have heard?

"I dont like reading."
"I don't know how to read."

 

[Velotor]

I think it`s also the lack of interest of some people.I have seen many people being mildly interested when the topic came up, but after that not caring about it at all. Though I read it in German, which tbh i think makes the english version a bit more complex + more pages, I found it quite readable and was fascinated by Tolkien`s way of writing. I have also seen some people, who have only watched the movies and haven`t felt the necessity to read the books, which is a pity, because the film is based off of the book and there are so many events and details that were left out in the movies.(Though the movies, in my opinion are quite good too ). The statement about the length shouldn`t scare people away from lotr, because you can just divide it in three fairly-readable-large books (part |, || and |||). Maybe to some people a few passages became "boring", which I think were passages, where Tolkien describes the landscape and the feelings of the scene for some pages, which is always followed by some big event. All in all I would always recommend it and encourage people to read it, also with help if needed. But after all high-fantasy is not for everyone...

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

True enough -- though fantasy seems to be a lot more "mainstream" today than it once was.

And welcome to the forum, Velotor! Don't forget our New Members thread, if you'd like to introduce yourself, and say something about your particular interests:

https://thetolkien.forum/forums/new-members.58/

BTW, have you also read LOTR in English? I'd be interested in hearing how you compare versions. In fact, you might like to compare notes with Olorgando, who's read both.

 

[Miguel]

True enough -- though fantasy seems to be a lot more "mainstream" today than it once was.

A quick observation: I rarely watch tv, only the news; but every time i saw my brother or my sister watching a new show on stream (don't know what they were watching) i noticed the sound scores/effects and overall mood in them were incredibly depressing. I wouldn't mention it if it was just the case of one show or two but it was every time i saw them watching something in their laptops, I find this very odd.

 

[Sir Eowyn]

Yes, I think he... takes him a bit at the start, a bit much even for me. I mean, 17 years after Bilbo's party, then six months leaving the Shire, etc. The writing, line by line, is great, but structurally it IS a bit flabby. However...

The first half of Return of the King, the chapters "Minas Tirith" through "The Black Gate Opens," is some of the most concise and brilliant, superbly evocative writing I have ever read in my life. Every chapter's gold, they fit together perfectly, and... whoa. As I said, it all gathers steam. It's funny to me how Fellowship, the slightest of the books, makes by far the greatest film, and Return of the King, the opposite.

 

[Goldilocks Gamgee]

A quick observation: I rarely watch tv, only the news; but every time i saw my brother or my sister watching a new show on stream (don't know what they were watching) i noticed the sound scores/effects and overall mood in them were incredibly depressing. I wouldn't mention it if it was just the case of one show or two but it was every time i saw them watching something in their laptops, I find this very odd.

I never watch TV or the news, but my both my grandfather and the oldest of my brothers do. And - comparing them - I think it depends on how a person consumes the information they receive. My grandfather sees it as an interesting, though sometimes boring, way to receive information. He takes it in quickly (he is known to be reading the news, listening to news, and explaining news at the same time), but does not care for it, not deeply.

My brother, on the other hand, sits before the laptop endlessly. He looks up news about everything, and knows a lot about what's happening in this world. But he looks utterly depressed while doing so, as he takes it deeply.

 

[Sir Eowyn]

I never watch TV or the news, but my both my grandfather and the oldest of my brothers do. And - comparing them - I think it depends on how a person consumes the information they receive. My grandfather sees it as an interesting, though sometimes boring, way to receive information. He takes it in quickly (he is known to be reading the news, listening to news, and explaining news at the same time), but does not care for it, not deeply.

My brother, on the other hand, sits before the laptop endlessly. He looks up news about everything, and knows a lot about what's happening in this world. But he looks utterly depressed while doing so, as he takes it deeply.

Yes, hum dinger, ain't it? It would be unwise to completely bury our heads in the sand... having said that, our whole modern fetish of constantly raking and poring over what goes on, well, does us no good. Isn't natural... it makes us live all over the place, anywhere but our actual spot.

Just read a quote from D. H. Lawrence, about those who go for politics: "Trying to talk to them is like trying for human relationships with the x in an algebraic equation."

 

[Miguel]

I never watch TV or the news, but my both my grandfather and the oldest of my brothers do. And - comparing them - I think it depends on how a person consumes the information they receive. My grandfather sees it as an interesting, though sometimes boring, way to receive information. He takes it in quickly (he is known to be reading the news, listening to news, and explaining news at the same time), but does not care for it, not deeply.

My brother, on the other hand, sits before the laptop endlessly. He looks up news about everything, and knows a lot about what's happening in this world. But he looks utterly depressed while doing so, as he takes it deeply.

Yes, hum dinger, ain't it? It would be unwise to completely bury our heads in the sand... having said that, our whole modern fetish of constantly raking and poring over what goes on, well, does us no good. Isn't natural... it makes us live all over the place, anywhere but our actual spot.

Just read a quote from D. H. Lawrence, about those who go for politics: "Trying to talk to them is like trying for human relationships with the x in an algebraic equation."

Yes. There are much more interesting things to do

 

[tomthehobbit]

I can remember trying to get my ex GF to read the books. All i would get is, "im not into that wierd stuff".
Im sure you can guess why she is an ex now...

 

[Akhôrahil]

I can remember trying to get my ex GF to read the books. All i would get is, "im not into that wierd stuff".
Im sure you can guess why she is an ex now...

You mean she did not call you "My precioussssss!" ;-)

 

[Aukwrist]

In talking with those accustomed to such things as Harry Potter and the Peter Jackson movies, a repeated argument I have heard is that the Lord of the Rings just isn't magical or exciting enough. Doubtless untrue, but the fact that Gandalf doesn't up and burn up the Orc armies with some magical blue flame or mutter dangerous spells at every predicament is just too much of a thrill-killer for many apparently, even when an attempt is made to explain why he doesn't do that.

Thanks,

ArnorianRanger

It may be significant that one of the main reasons that the Phantom Menace is unloved by many admirers of the Star Wars films, is, that it has a lot of council scenes. What this amounts to is, that people want lots of action scenes. They are not interested in ideas, and clearly do not find ideas important.

I think Westerners in particular are so used to a strongly visual culture, full of motion, sensation, and change, that reading a book that does not cater to these sensations can be difficult and unwelcome, perhaps even alien. And for younger readers, there may be a culture shock.

What I've encountered way too many times are these three things:

- It's too long/I don't have the time.​

- the language is too complicated.​

- too long-winded and dramatic.​

Makes me mad, these reasons! I do think there can be no excuse to not reading the literature written by the father of fantasy.

If “the language is too complicated”, then almost all English literature from “Sumer is a-cumen in” to Tolkien will be a closed book to them.

And they will never learn that LOTR is *not* a novel or an allegory.

 

[ArnorianRanger]

It may be significant that one of the main reasons that the Phantom Menace is unloved by many admirers of the Star Wars films, is, that it has a lot of council scenes. What this amounts to is, that people want lots of action scenes. They are not interested in ideas, and clearly do not find ideas important.

I think Westerners in particular are so used to a strongly visual culture, full of motion, sensation, and change, that reading a book that does not cater to these sensations can be difficult and unwelcome, perhaps even alien. And for younger readers, there may be a culture shock.

Perhaps. I have not seen that film in probably a decade, though I do know much of the criticism that was leveled at that movie was aimed at how the story was gone about in of itself. Another film where there is a very healthy amount of dialogue is Avengers: Endgame (which mayn't be a fair comparison), and insofar I have heard not heard any weighty criticisms against it even though there is more talking than one might be used to in such a movie (compare to, say Black Widow, Black Panther, or Thor: Ragnarok), and I suspect this is because the story was gone about much more masterfully than with any of the Star Wars prequel movies.

I do agree with you however; it seems so often special effects have trumped plot and the means necessary to advance the plot, which are so often conversations, which is quite sad.

Thanks,

ArnorianRanger

 

[Aukwrist]

In talking with those accustomed to such things as Harry Potter and the Peter Jackson movies, a repeated argument I have heard is that the Lord of the Rings just isn't magical or exciting enough. Doubtless untrue, but the fact that Gandalf doesn't up and burn up the Orc armies with some magical blue flame or mutter dangerous spells at every predicament is just too much of a thrill-killer for many apparently, even when an attempt is made to explain why he doesn't do that.

Thanks,

ArnorianRanger

I liked Harry Potter, when I tried it the second time. JKR is very skilful with her plotting. Something she doesn't have, or at least does not show, is Tolkien's endless facility with language.

I think it wrongs LOTR to compare it with later tales. There are some books that break they mould they set in, and it is one of them.

 

[Shadow]

When I was reading LOTR months ago someone said “still reading Harry Potter?” I rolled my eyes at the insulting and ignorant comparison.

 

[Olorgando]

I think it wrongs LOTR to compare it with later tales. There are some books that break they mould they set in, and it is one of them.

As far as quest stories go, they are among the oldest, if not the oldest writings in human history (after writing systems became more than documentation for bureaucrats). Homer's "Odyssey" (more so than the "Iliad"), and going much further back the Sumerian "Epic of Gilgamesh".
What JRRT did was to establish fantasy as a mass-market phenomenon (as C.S. Lewis wrote in a review of FoTR "like lightning from a clear sky"). And in doing this, he created a new mold. Like it or not, pretty much everything in fantasy since then cannot escape comparison with LoTR. Even with authors (say JRRM) who wanted to be as different from LoTR as they could, it is still the reference point. Perhaps, by now, no longer quite directly, but not far in the background.

 

[Ealdwyn]

What JRRT did was to establish fantasy as a mass-market phenomenon (as C.S. Lewis wrote in a review of FoTR "like lightning from a clear sky"). And in doing this, he created a new mold. Like it or not, pretty much everything in fantasy since then cannot escape comparison with LoTR. Even with authors (say JRRM) who wanted to be as different from LoTR as they could, it is still the reference point. Perhaps, by now, no longer quite directly, but not far in the background.

I'm not sure that he established fantasy as a "mass-market phenomenon", as such. There were many widely successful fantasy writers that pre-date Tolkien who did that: 19th century writers such as Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, R.L. Stephenson were mass-market, and also contemporaries of Tolkien, such as Mervyn Peake, whose Gormenghast trilogy was published around the same time as LotR.

What Tolkien did was to revive the classical hero quest format, and to cement specific heroic quest tropes into the genre. Although earlier fantasy novels had used one or more of these tropes, LotR became a popular template - a formula, almost - for subsequent authors.

 

[Olorgando]

I'm not sure that he established fantasy as a "mass-market phenomenon", as such. There were many widely successful fantasy writers that pre-date Tolkien who did that: 19th century writers such as Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, R.L. Stephenson were mass-market, and also contemporaries of Tolkien, such as Mervyn Peake, whose Gormenghast trilogy was published around the same time as LotR.

I doubt one can compare the 19th-century "mass market" - even that of the first half of the 20th century - with the post-WW II era.
Books were quite expensive in earlier times, most of them being hard-cover. Paperbacks, or perhaps more properly precursors of them, did appear in the 19th century, but printings running into tens or hundreds of thousands, let alone millions, seem to be a definite post-WW II phenomenon. Don't forget that LoTR was artificially divided into a faux "trilogy" by the cost and rationing of paper in the UK even in the mid-1950's.
And then education, and with it literacy, was certainly at a far more rudimentary stage in the 19th century; again, a watershed in both may be post-WW II.

 

[Ealdwyn]

I doubt one can compare the 19th-century "mass market" - even that of the first half of the 20th century - with the post-WW II era.
Books were quite expensive in earlier times, most of them being hard-cover. Paperbacks, or perhaps more properly precursors of them, did appear in the 19th century, but printings running into tens or hundreds of thousands, let alone millions, seem to be a definite post-WW II phenomenon. Don't forget that LoTR was artificially divided into a faux "trilogy" by the cost and rationing of paper in the UK even in the mid-1950's.
And then education, and with it literacy, was certainly at a far more rudimentary stage in the 19th century; again, a watershed in both may be post-WW II.

I agree with your comments about cost, literacy, etc, but whether a book has mass appeal is relative to the culture at the time, in other words it is comparative and not absolute. The authors I mentioned were immensely popular and had a huge influence. They had their works translated into multiple languages, which demonstates that (even given the higher relative cost of books) there was sufficient "mass market" appeal to make it commercially viable. The fact that authors like Jules Verne, for example, had his work adapted into stage plays and was the subject of serious literary study, demonstrates the wider cultural impact.

That's not to diminish Tolkien's influence, just that it's worth remembering that fantasy/sci-fi was very popular before TH/LotR was published. What Tolkien did was to popularise a very specific fantasy genre, and make it so popular that just about everything published since has been derivative.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

When I was reading LOTR months ago someone said “still reading Harry Potter?” I rolled my eyes at the insulting and ignorant comparison.