Ain't it grand?

[Numion]

LotR is athe best book evar. I've read it 6 times, IIRC.

But I can't read it anymore!

And thats somehow related to the movies.

I just get sooooo bored after the moria chapter at the latest. This didn't happen before 2001 and the movies.

 

[KenM]

I just get sooooo bored after the moria chapter at the latest. This didn't happen before 2001 and the movies.

You made it that far? Better then me. I'm just glad I never got into Wheel of Time, I heard nothing has happened to advance the plot in the last 2 books of that series, Jordan does not know how to finish it. Jordan must have taken his style from JRRT.

 

[Umbran]

i would never call this an attention span problem.
i also have read all THREE THOUSAND pages thus far of A Song of Ice and Fire.
and numerous other series of varying levels of quality.

Ah, but length isn't the only determiner here. One measure of "attention span" is how long you can pay attention to a thing between notable events. Martin's work is chock full of plot. There's always something relevant happening, so the amount of time you have to wait for "something interesting to happen" is nearly zero. That's not a demonstration of patience. It doesn't show you are able and willing to wait.

 

[EricNoah]

Peeps, do I have to remind you folks that opinions aren't right or wrong, they are just what they are? It's extremely silly to get too worked up over this.

***

Now, I've read the books a number of times, from childhood through adulthood, and I enjoyed them each time. However, the first couple of times there were sections that I would routinely skip as they did get pretty dense. The author was shooting for a particular style; he was trying to emulate a sort of anglo-saxon type of style in some of the chapters that chiefly dealt with the world of men. In later reads, however, I did plow through those sections and found them to be rewarding.

The best thing about the movies, in my opinion, is that they did draw me back to do more thorough reads of the Faramir sections in TTT and RotK, which even as an adult I skipped through rather quickly. I feel like I know those sections really well now because I read them very carefully to prep myself for TTT last year, to see where the differences would be. And recently I read Book VI a lot more carefully than I had in the past, to get ready for next month. The other great thing about the movies, of course, is getting to see Middle Earth and the people and places I'd only read about.

I'm a middle school librarian, and over the past couple of years I have hardly been able to keep our couple-three copies of LotR on the shelves. The kids are reading it, or at least some are. And fantasy reading seems more "in" recently, probably also due to Harry Potter and Artemis Fowl and maybe Lemony Snickett as well.

As an aside -- as a result of some standardized testing we do at our school, our students receive a "lexile" score that gives them an idea of what their reading comprehension abilities might be, and at www.lexile.com you can look up books and compare scores to see if you're reading something that's higher or lower than your lexile score. Let's just say I have issues with this. In particular, I noted that Harry Potter was ranked as "harder" than FotR. That's just not right!

 

[stevelabny]

Umbran, I'm very confused.
What are you trying to say?
That Tolkein padding his page count with wanna-be-poetic descriptions of the scenery and some truly terrible "songs" with no bearing on the story at all are good things because they teach us to persevere?
Since when is waiting for no reason a GOOD THING?
Do you go to amusement parks for the rides or the lines?

Or are you being so snidely sarcastic "In my day, we used to have read books that sucked" that I'm losing your meaning through the internet?

baffled,
steve

 

[Umbran]

What are you trying to say?
That Tolkein padding his page count...

Dude, Tolkien wasn't a message board poster, for whome postcount mattered. I don't think you'll find any evidence that he purposefully added material merely for the purpose on increasing the number of pages. Just because you don't think those pages don't mean anything, doesn't mean they didn't mean anything to the author, or readers of the time.

with wanna-be-poetic descriptions of the scenery and some truly terrible "songs" with no bearing on the story at all are good things because they teach us to persevere?

I don't think they teach us to persevere. I think they reveal how narrow a focus the modern fantasy reader has. Trained like good Pavlovian subjects to soundbites and modern Hollywood pacing, we don't care for anything that isn't fast-paced, moving, and directly relevant to "the plot".

Do you go to amusement parks for the rides or the lines?

Aha! You see, I reject the idea that a book must be an musement park in order to be good. That's rather the problem - folks are only interested in flashy amusement parks. When there are so many books that are fine things, more akin to museums, more for absorbing and thinking than for thrills.

But, if I do go to an amusement park, I accept that there are going to be some lines, especially if I go on a busy midsummer weekend. If I find myself on a line, I make the best of it. I admire the scenery - if Tolkien is akin to any amusement park, it's to Disney or some other that has put a lot of effort into making the atmosphere while on line interesting. I chat with others about what else has happened that day, and otherwise make some use of the time.

If I go to an amusement park, the one thing I don't do is become one of those annoying, loud people who keeps on declaiming how horribly long the lines are. Dude, everybody else can see the line. They are standing in it, or they work there and are more aware of the mechanics of lines than you are. You aren't telling anyone anything they didn't know. Sure, if I find the lines too long I leave, but I don't make myself a public annoyance.

That last bit isn't targetted at any specific individual here. Voicing an opinion is fair. But hammering away at it in the middle of a separate discussion isn't exactly nice.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

I have to say that some of my FAVORITE parts of the books are Tolkien's songs and "useless background" information. I never found any of it boring, and I've plowed through those books(including The Silmarilian and The Hobbit) once every year since I was 13(only 4 years now...but still!).

 

[Wombat]

I've read LotR about six times in my life. I've also read War & Peace three times and the entire Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin series twice through. Oh, and the non-modernized English form of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur once (twice with "corrected" English). Then there was Genji Monogatari and Iliad (translations -- didn't care to learn new languages just to get through them).

Long books? Not a problem. Fast reads? Nope, but all the more important for that. These are books with more than just plot -- they have substance and deal with issues other than just gore, mayhem, and running.

People complain about slow plotting in books. Personally I complain about "busy plotting", the notion that there must be boom, boom, boom action on every page. The parts of LotR where time is taken to tell ancient stories regarding a stretch of land is what makes Middle Earth actually come alive in my heart. When there are poems, I actually read them, because there, too, is part of the soul of Middle Earth.

The plot of LotR could have been done in probably one book, tops.

If that had been the case, no one would still be reading it today. It survives because there is so much more to it than just simple plot.

 

[Null Boundry]

To make myself clear from the start I can't stand the books but they are one step ahead of the films. I feel the text is overly flowery (personal opinion I know) and alot of the ideas are derivative (thanks to what these days would be considered a classical education).

I don't believe that there has been any change in attention span as such but more a change in the media available. If we wish to read a history book then we can simply read a history book, the same goes for travel guides and biographies. It was not that long ago that many books were more of a mixture of styles and intents. The books of Lawrence of Arabia are a good example and going back even further there are transcripts from classical Rome that mix mythology and travel guides.

Part of the increase in sales for the works of Tolien might be thanks to the BBC. They have been running a poll for the greatest book which has provided a major sales boost for many books.

 

[Null Boundry]

I've read LotR about six times in my life. I've also read War & Peace three times and the entire Patrick O'Brian Aubrey-Maturin series twice through. Oh, and the non-modernized English form of Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur once (twice with "corrected" English). Then there was Genji Monogatari and Iliad (translations -- didn't care to learn new languages just to get through them).

So you couldn't be bothered to learn new languages but Malory didn't cause you any problems? Stange.

By the way it is definately worth the effort to learn a langauge for texts you love.

Long books? Not a problem. Fast reads? Nope, but all the more important for that. These are books with more than just plot -- they have substance and deal with issues other than just gore, mayhem, and running.

People complain about slow plotting in books. Personally I complain about "busy plotting", the notion that there must be boom, boom, boom action on every page. The parts of LotR where time is taken to tell ancient stories regarding a stretch of land is what makes Middle Earth actually come alive in my heart. When there are poems, I actually read them, because there, too, is part of the soul of Middle Earth.

Fair enough with the poems, personally I have a major problem with poetry thanks to the way it was taught in school. There was too much detail on the mechanics not the overall effect, to me it seemed to be like learning about Titian by teaching DIY. After all when it comes down to it it is only a matter of applying paint.

I do however feel that at times the addition of history can distract from the pacing. Who would want Didos death from the Aenid to involve a thesis of Carthaginain burial techniques?

The plot of LotR could have been done in probably one book, tops.

If that had been the case, no one would still be reading it today. It survives because there is so much more to it than just simple plot.

Survives? Its only been what 65-70 years tops. Look at the wealth of literary history out there and then talk about surviving. Come back in 6,000 years that you can talk about how well it has lasted.