>tfw have to read The Hobbit/entire LOTR trilogy for class this semester
As someone who mostly just likes classics and dislikes Harry Potter, what am I in for? Is the plot/prose intriguing enough to keep me entertained?
>>7639366
>comparing Tolkien to J.K. Rowling
If this is bait then im afraid its got me on the line
>>7639366
Well he created his world on the back of scholasticism. Attention to history, geography, lingustics, cultural development, poetry and folklore, it's all clearly written by someone who spent years in academia studying these sort of things and applying them in a fictional environment. And as such it almost sometimes occasionally has the "found document" feel that someone like Borges comes across. However this staggers off in the second and third books. And his prose is over-quaint and occasionally irritating, his dialogue in particular is horrendous like some public domain translation from the 19th century. And besides The Hobbit, which is just a straightforward adventure novel, he has some serious pacing problems. His world and particularly how he develops it is interesting but other than that I have no idea why it would be assigned reading.
>>7639459
The course is all about fantasy epics, if they have real literary merit, and why or why not. I also have to read Game of Thrones and I believe a Harry Potter book.
We've already read an essay by Tolkien as well as an article about him and the unexpected popularity he experienced, and it seems like he was an extremely intelligent and intellectual author, so the first half of what you said makes sense. Which book of the series would you say is your favorite?
>>7639486
>fantasy epics
>course
jesus fuck man I hope you're not paying tuition for this shit
>>7639486
>The course is all about fantasy epics
well then you pretty much knew what you were getting yourself in to, didn't you, you fucking chucklehead?
>expecting to be able to discuss whether or not they have merit without reading them.
get. the fuck. out.
>>7639486
I guess maybe Fellowship was my favorite but not by much as it was bogged down by lots of bombadillo fillerino. It's just that Two Towers has really bad "I have no idea how to pace two concurrent narratives" problems and takes a nosedive in characterization, and Return of the King was decent but it was all about tying up inevitable plot ends. props for all the man cuddling tho. Who knows, maybe I'm just an autist that'll prefer the goddamn Silmarillion.
Still Tolkien is miles above GoT and Harry Potter. Fantasy has the tendency of being near universally shit, all stemming from misconceptions of what made Tolkien work. Or just from aping Tolkien in general. Fantasy didn't start with him after all.
Tolkien is just the naruto of literature. The writing is real good at first then your knee deep in filler garbage a second later refusing to believe there's been a quality drop
>>7639551
>Tolkien is just the naruto of literature.
we've really hit rock bottom, haven't we?
It’s been nearly a decade since I read LotR, but I’ve read – or rather, reread – The Children of Húrin more recently, and enjoyed it greatly, although I am of the opinion that one must read the earlier parts of The Silmarillion to appreciate it, at the very least the story of Húrin. It’s an interesting reimagining of the story of Kullervo from the Kalevala. I sometimes feel like rereading Tolkien, but I haven’t ended up doing it; I loved LotR as a kid, but I’m not sure how well it holds up.
>>7639551
>LOTR is a gateway literature of the worst kind.
If you're interested in Old English texts like Beowulf or Anglo Saxon culture you might like it. Most of it is rooted in (or pretty much just ripped off of) that type of shit
>>7639700
Children of Hurin is Tolkien's best.
>>7640113
>tfw you'll never read Húrin in verse
>>7639459
There's no way stopping Tolkien train. He has become a classic.
Major teases have been written about him and his work. LOTR is considered a proper literature now, Silmarilion a major work, and Children of Hurin are following in it's steps.
Once Christopher Tolkien drops it, and scholars get their hands on his work, and properly organize and annotated the stuff in The History of Middle-earth, things will blow out.
>>7640421
Uh... Ever head of The Lay of the Children of Húrin?
Lo! the golden dragon of the God of Hell,
the gloom of the woods of the world now gone,
the woes of Men, and weeping of Elves
fading faintly down forest pathways,
is now to tell, and the name most tearful
of Níniel the sorrowful, and the name most sad
of Thalion's son Túrin o'erthrown by fate.
>>7639486
Here's what to expect
>Lord of the Rings is good, it sometimes seems like a book from a religion that doesn't really exist
>Game of Thrones is better than people here say it is, it's like historical fiction books but with the events made up.
>Harry Potter are a pretty average children's books, nothing special despite the way it blew up.
>>7640512
I've heard of it but it's unfinished, no?
>>7640589
Offcourse. You can still read it tough.
>>7640540
Lotr is above the other two. For one, It's compete work that shows no influence of author becoming rich and popular as the work progressed. They both aren't all that bad. Potter is hardly an epic, but more a collection of stories, while Game has above average quality in the first three volumes. It goes all to shit latter, but if anyone isn't all that obsessed with completing whole series, it's still a recommended fantasy read.
