The Lord of the Rings- J.R.R. Tolkien

I enjoy reading the books. Yes there are long and also some boring to read parts but in general the books grabbed me and even changed my life in a way I can't explain. After reading it I felt like I had been on a very long holiday.
 
Hello Narniafan. As you can tell we already have topics about LOTR so I guess this thread might be merged with the others ;) But to answer your question; there are parts you have to wrestle yourself through but it is really worth it. It will get better and better. I'm a huge LotR freak and I love the books more than the movies. But just continue reading and you will find out yourself ;)
 
I have found that, after reading The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings and the Silmarillion, each time the book level advances upward (for me) the book takes longer to get going. You kinda have to struggle through the begining of Lord of the Rings (in my opinion) but after that its all action and adventure, and alot more! Though some parts when the action goes down to get a little long, but it always keeps going.;)

Don't give up if you're only on page 74 though, it DOES get better. The action really starts heating up a little before they get to Bree.;)
 
Defender of Aslan said:
Love the movies, have only read less than 50 pages of The Hobbit. The books are for me more work than enjoyment and give me a headache.
Click to expand...

Tolkien must grow on you, thy age will signifcantly impact if you can endure the dull moments and extract the brillance. If thou are young, I would suggest waiting tell your nineteen to twenty to read LOTR. If you are already that age or older then prehaps you need some assistance in dissecting the tales, something to motivate you to keep reading even when it is uninteresting.

For myself I cherished The Hobbit, LOTR, and The Sil. However, there were moments when the text was difficult to enjoy. For instance The Council of Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring is quite lengthy. I nearly collapse from mental exhaustion after reading the chapter. It was very insightful, contained much lore that was relevent to the plot, but it was challenging nonetheless to get through it. I find that what you must do is focus on detail, meditate on something you did find intriguing and interesting. For example when Gandalf gives his long monolouge of Sauron The Deciever, I enjoyed the part about Dol Guldur, about Sauron's attempt to decieve the Maiar, the Eldar (elves), and Edain (Men). However, some of the other lore was rather boring or redundant and I had to simply gime and bare it.

Sometimes Tolkien doesn't captivate you right away, you find nothing is resonating. However, if you give it time and you wade through the chapters you'll find gems and journey that will as Nessa said change your life. :)
 
The series definitely grows on you. To me, The Hobbit has always been something of a cutesy book, while Rings is the real story. Silmarillion is good background, but not easy reading unless you're into Norse-style mythology.
 
Narniafan: I completely understand. My first time through Fellowship of the Ring was before the movies ever came out and I was struggling through this very slow moving book only because it had been so highly recommended by a neighbor of mine, a Presbyterian pastor, who told me that if I thought there was Christian symbolism in the Chronicles of Narnia, I needed to read LOTR to see some even deeper and more profound symbolism. It was her recommendation that started me reading the books, but I have to say I had almost quit when on a plane ride to San Diego I had taken the book with me in one last attempt to learn to love it or else give it up, when a stewardess on Southwest Airlines saw what I was reading and looked me right in the eye and quoted from memory word for word:

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.​

She looked at me very intensely and told me she absolutely loved those books and then left and went on serving orange juice. It was because of her that I finished Fellowship for the first time... I felt if a complete stranger would make a connection that intensely with me just because of a book I was carrying around, I ought to find out what it was all about. I felt that Fellowship picked up a bit toward the end, but I still wasn't deeply into the books until about halfway through The Two Towers. It became much easier to read after that, I had begun to care about the characters and by the end of Return of the King, I was aching for more. I read all the appendices Tolkien has left with detail about each character's epilogue, and cried when I was finally done.

I'm sure there are those who don't love LOTR even after reading the books. But if my experience is of any value, it's well worth the read. I have read them many times since and Fellowship is a fantastic read, now that I understand the whole story and already love the characters.

Interestingly enough, the Presbyterian pastor who first challenged me to read those books (although I'm still not sure I agree with her assessment of which of the series has a deeper Christ-symbolism) passed away in New York earlier this month and her influence on my young life many years ago has been much on my mind.
 
The only reason that I started reading the books was because I wanted to see the movies. :p My family has a rule that we have to read the book before we can see the movie.

The Fellowship was really slow for me at first, and finally got interesting near the end. The Two Towers took a while, but I didn't really dislike it. When I finally started Return of the King, I had seen the first two movies, and was truly interested in LotR. The book was AMAZING. I really got interested in what I was reading, and forgot to be bothered by the small print and difficult writing. I almost cried at the end.

The truth is that I never really enjoyed the first two books until I had the full picture, and read them again. Now I can appreciate them so much more.
 
I merged the thread with another already established one which exists for all Rings related discussions.

I wholeheartedly agree: Lord of the Rings picks up after the first half of Fellowship, and is well worth the perseverance.
 
GSM, did you not find Christian symbolism in the books? I think there is lots, and I like that Tolkien made no bones about it ... and that he chided CSL for making his Narnia symbolism so blatant!
 
I do not understand why people struggle reading Tolkien. He writes almost the same as Lewis. But even if he didn't, his books are a great read, and the words just flow like nothing else I've read in literature. Once I figured out his style of writing and what the story was about, I just could not put it down. The sentence I was on always seemed better than the previous one and I could not read it fast enough to get to the next one.

I can't explain it either, but it was one of the best stories ever. I was transported to another world, another dimension, and was shown it in every exquisite detail by a master tour guide who always had a surprise at the next stop, around the next bend. and who never seemed to tire of the tour.

And English is my second language.
 
Last wednesday I got into discussion in my Brit Lit class about Tithonus by Tennyson. I connected it with the Silmarillion and we had delightful discussion about The Eldar and Edain. One of my peers, a charming fellow has read The Sil, but not Tolkien's other works! I hath never met someone who has only read The Sil. In conclusion, my teacher made confession, that he had not read The Sil, so I went to my local bookstore and bought him a paperback copy. :)
 
Sir Godfrey said:
Last wednesday I got into discussion in my Brit Lit class about Tithonus by Tennyson. I connected it with the Silmarillion and we had delightful discussion about The Eldar and Edain. One of my peers, a charming fellow has read The Sil, but not Tolkien's other works! I hath never met someone who has only read The Sil. In conclusion, my teacher made confession, that he had not read The Sil, so I went to my local bookstore and bought him a paperback copy. :)
Click to expand...

Someone who's only read the Silmarillian?:eek: That's so backwards!
 
fernshirehobbit said:
Haha that sounds like an awesome rule to have as a parent
Click to expand...

It really is. :D I used to think it was frustrating when I was a small child and it took me a long time to finish a book or have it read to me. But now I think it's a good rule, and I'll definitely adhere to it if I have children. :rolleyes:

With LotR, it's especially important. If i hadn't read the books before I saw the movie, then I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. xD I'm blond enough as it is when it comes to understanding what's going on in a movie, so I don't even want to think about how confusing it would have been if I hadn't already known the storyline.
 
MissReepicheep said:
It really is. :D I used to think it was frustrating when I was a small child and it took me a long time to finish a book or have it read to me. But now I think it's a good rule, and I'll definitely adhere to it if I have children. :rolleyes:

With LotR, it's especially important. If i hadn't read the books before I saw the movie, then I wouldn't have had a clue what was going on. xD I'm blond enough as it is when it comes to understanding what's going on in a movie, so I don't even want to think about how confusing it would have been if I hadn't already known the storyline.
Click to expand...

I had listened to the lotr book on tape and watched the cartoon before I saw the movie. In a way, I am glad that I had watched the fellowship before I read the books (though I read all three of them in the next two days) because I think that it helped me to like the movie so much despite first before loving the books as much as I do.
 
Back
Top