Start with A Game of Thrones. It's not a series that you can read out of order particularly because major events happen in every book and so you can observe the changes the characters got through.BlindMessiah94 said:
Tolkien, Overrated?
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Correction: He essentially created the genre to which we currently refer as "fantasy".GrimTuesday said:
Also, the reason people like Tolkein is because his world is enormous and consistent. I can't name another author for whom those two labels apply simultaneously. If you have a question about Tolkein's world, you can find the answer in his books. No need to speculate.
The fact that he only wrote the books as a world for his fictional languages (which come complete with grammatical rules, idioms, and phoenetic rules) to inhabit only makes him more of a nerd hero. That's the kind of thing that the kid who smells like spoiled buttermilk in the back of the class did in high school, except good.
He is brilliant. I do enjoy his style. To be fair he was writing a good while ago. H G Wells' stlye is not exactly easy compared to some contemporary authors.
In short. No.
In short. No.
Also, No. Elves were well established as part of Norse and English folklore along with trolls and many other faerie. See Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword and influences (the Eddas, Völsungasaga etc).Canid117 said:
He stated specifically that he borrowed it from Old English, in which it was spelled with a c. You know, like Beowulf, as in from a time before what we call "German" was a uniform, codified language. Besides, the use of the continental spelling "orke" wasn't seen until about 600 years after its use in Beowulf, in which, again, it was spelled with a c.Anomynous 167 said:
But I'm sure your scorn causes him to turn over in his grave in agony.
I agree so heartily. It fills me with happiness to know that I'm not the only one who feels this way. Whenever I've tried to read it (I've gotten halfway through RotK about four times and never managed to finish it), I've always had the feeling that the majority of LoTR is just people sitting around campfires not talking or discussing completely unimportant things. Throw in a ten page description of the campfire and you've lost me. I'm all for descriptive writing, but I feel like he tends to go overboard and put a lot of effort into describing completely inconsequential things that don't even really add to the mood or setting. It seems to lack a lot of control. Worst of all, he has absolutely no ability to write action scenes. Remember how awesome Helm's Deep was in the films? Go back and find it in the book, it's like two pages.
That said, I think the stories and the world are absolutely great (especially his languages). As others have said, The Hobbit is wonderful too given that it avoids the stupidly long campfire periods. This is why adaptations like the films tend to go so well: he set up a great story and world and in the hands of a better storyteller, you can really see the strengths of his writing much better.
It's probably worth remembering that he didn't even set out to write a good story as his primary goal - he just wanted to create a historical and social context for his languages (he makes this clear in several of his letters).
Also, I highly recommend the Silmarillion. The awesome story and setting are there in a more mythological setting with considerably less obfuscating description. Definitely my favourite Tolkien work.
That said, I think the stories and the world are absolutely great (especially his languages). As others have said, The Hobbit is wonderful too given that it avoids the stupidly long campfire periods. This is why adaptations like the films tend to go so well: he set up a great story and world and in the hands of a better storyteller, you can really see the strengths of his writing much better.
It's probably worth remembering that he didn't even set out to write a good story as his primary goal - he just wanted to create a historical and social context for his languages (he makes this clear in several of his letters).
Also, I highly recommend the Silmarillion. The awesome story and setting are there in a more mythological setting with considerably less obfuscating description. Definitely my favourite Tolkien work.
Are people REALLY arguing that the historical (and foreign!) spelling of a word is the "right" one? Am I wrong if I write "tsar" because it should really be царь? Actually, perhaps the "right" spelling is the one in glagolitic (I can't type in glagolitic). To make matters even worse, you're arguing that the historical spelling is the right one when the historical spelling was regional, dialectal, and to some extent idiolectal.PhiMed said:
It's like a whole new crazy form of the etymological fallacy.
See, you have to look at what Tolkien was trying to accomplish with his work. When you consider that he was trying to write something that was a representation of his studies in Anglo-Saxon literature and linguistic structures, the story does that fabulously. I've never seen any other set of stories that gives the feel of AS literature (I.E. Beowulf) like Tolkien's novels. That said, that is a bit of a downfall, because AS literature was never meant to be read, but always supposed to be listened to. That style isn't quite as engaging when you read it off the page and the style of writing has changed and become a lot more concise than it used to be, so there's a lot that doesn't match up with our idea of good writing today.
Ultimately, whether or not you like Tolkien's work comes down to just that; whether or not you like it. On it's own merits, it was really good, accomplishing everything the author intended to and still being an interesting and entertaining story. It's not perfect, no, but nothing ever is.
Ultimately, whether or not you like Tolkien's work comes down to just that; whether or not you like it. On it's own merits, it was really good, accomplishing everything the author intended to and still being an interesting and entertaining story. It's not perfect, no, but nothing ever is.
Personally I loved Tolkien's work in LOTR and The Hobbit, I have yet to read any other of his work.
I dont really plan to read any of his other books as of yet because I cant stop reading the Song of Ice and Fire series by George. R. R. Martin. Its very different to Tolkien so i would recommend it if you do or dont like tolkien
I dont really plan to read any of his other books as of yet because I cant stop reading the Song of Ice and Fire series by George. R. R. Martin. Its very different to Tolkien so i would recommend it if you do or dont like tolkien