tolkien as an intro...

[Orryn Emrys]

THE HOBBIT pretty much got me started... in the 3rd grade... folowed quickly by the rest of the books, but I've never really expected other gamers to have a Tolkien background (though I have frequently suggested the books to D&D players). Mostly, I imagine, because many of my friends back then weren't serious readers... much less into material as heavy as LOTR. And though many D&D players are intellectuals and read a great deal, many good players don't seem to enjoy tearing through literature the way I do.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, C.S. Lewis and Lloyd Alexander got me started in fantasy literature in elementary school, and consequentially heavily influenced my "baseline" perceptions of the genre... but my players frequently site (quite accurately, and sometimes with very strong language) Robert Jordan, Terry Goodkind, Melanie Rawn and Guy Gavriel Kay as heavy influences on my campaigns.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

For those of you who have complained about LotR and its slowness, try reading it aloud to someone... The man's words work very well in a spoken form. In fact, his dialogue, which at times looks clunky on the page, IMO is some of the best dialogue I have ever read aloud. If you can't do that, do yourself the favor of getting the books on tape and listening to it.

Tried it. Doesn't work, possibly because I never found the dialogue clunky. I rather liked the dialogue, whether spoken or read. It's the narrative that bludgeons people into unconsciousness. And it's only bad in Fellowship (specifically, most of it up until the Council of Elrond). The other two books are paced much better and manage to be interesting (even enthralling) throughout. But Fellowship almost seems designed to weed people out. Like Organic Chem for pre-med/pre-vet students. It serves very little purpose other than to scare off those that aren't really serious about moving on. My eyes achieved the same glazed-over effect while reading the journey from Hobbitton to Rivendell that they achieved while reading crystal-field theory. I got the impression that Tolkien was trying to determine exactly how far he could wander from the actual story and get away with it (so that's where Jordan got it from!). The last third of that book and the vast majority of the other two are stunning. It's almost hard to believe they were written by the same author. There's a sudden segue from textbook to page-turner. The Two Towers and The Return of the King are both in my top 10 books of all time. Fellowship barely makes the top 30, and that entirely on the back of the Moria sections. Jordan started with a bang, and then definitely went thorough a dropping off period. Tolkien started with a prolonged whimper, and then builds to one of the more impressive crescendos I've ever read.

Can anyone actually mount a defense of the narrative structure of Fellowship? Particularly of the entire Bombadil sequence? The only defenses I've ever heard were always undermined by the fact that people felt the need to preface them with "Mind you, I was REALLY stoned at the time..."

 

[Storm Raven]

Can anyone actually mount a defense of the narrative structure of Fellowship? Particularly of the entire Bombadil sequence? The only defenses I've ever heard were always undermined by the fact that people felt the need to preface them with "Mind you, I was REALLY stoned at the time..."

The book starts slow because it is "normal life". It contrasts with the hectic pace and desperate nature of events that take place later. Most of the early book describes characters doing things that are unusual, but that are not immediately apparent as being dangerous or scary.

The early part of FotR establishes the fundamental nature of hobbits as staid, rustic, homespun individuals. To jump directly into exciting action-adventure stuff would have weakened the theme that the hobbits were really quite ordinary people who turned out to have extraordinary reserves of character and strength when called upon to help save the world.

Tom Bombadil shows how parochial the hobbits truly are. Fewer than twenty miles outside their borders is an individual with indescribable power and knowledge dating back to the beginnings of life, and yet most hobbits don't even know he exists.

 

[barsoomcore]

Can anyone actually mount a defense of the narrative structure of Fellowship? Particularly of the entire Bombadil sequence? The only defenses I've ever heard were always undermined by the fact that people felt the need to preface them with "Mind you, I was REALLY stoned at the time..."

Here's one:

I've only ever encountered one person who felt the same way you do-- It took him nearly 3 weeks to read FotR up to Rivendell, and he finished the rest of FotR and TTT and RotK in the space of a week. So I've been left with time to ponder why.

FotR is my favorite of the trilogy. In large measure because of Boromir's tragedy, but not the only reason by any means.

After watching my friend, I think the biggest reason he disliked it (he claimed it was due to the writing style) is that we don't get all the information until we reach the Council. He tends to like novels (like Eddings, for instance) where the information is presented early on to the reader, even if the characters aren't aware of it.

FotR keeps the reader at the same knowledge level as the main characters (Frodo and the other hobbits) throughout the tale. We never learn more than they do. We don't know (for example) that Gandalf will return until we see him in the Two Towers.

The real quest starts when the Fellowship sets out from Rivendell. That is when the epic truly begins. Everything prior to that point is prologue.

So the crux of the matter seems to be that you don't like the prologue. Or at least the style in which it is presented. Yet it is an essential part of the story. Frodo's acceptance of the burden wouldn't be so stirring if we didn't understand his previous adventure. He merely worked to get to the land of Rivendell, so that others can take care of the Ring-- and so that the Shire can be safe.

We learn about the innocence of the Shire, and its idealistic world during the beginning of the book-- we learn about the parts of Middle-Earth that are worth saving. We learn about all that is beautiful in the world, and get a taste of the danger in it as well. The later parts would have less meaning without this previous experience.

It's one thing to try to describe it to the reader while in the midst of the epic, but it's quite another (and more succesful approach, if you ask me) to show the reader beforehand what makes the Quest so important. We grow with the hobbits. We learn as they learn, and our understanding of Middle-Earth grows as well. We learn in part, the setting in which this tale is taking place, and of the larger history of the wars against Sauron and Morgoth in which LotR is merely one chapter.

It's that opportunity for growth and the path from innocence to experience that is such a part of mythic tales that Tolkien is trying to capture, among other mythic elements.

Hence we have the unknown elements of the Black Riders-- we don't learn what they are until the Council. The small adventures of the Old Forest, Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs along the way. The unknown element of Strider-- is he really the good guy he claims to be? We see the hobbit's courage in the face of the unknown, and how they handle the later difficulties of Mordor.

In short, the early parts of the Fellowship provide meaning to everything that happens after. You wouldn't feel quite the same way about the later portions without the 'textbook' bit at the beginning.

Thanks to Inferno over at theonering.net for that explication.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. It's opened my eyes a little on the utility of those parts of the story, but I still feel like it was forced. I think that both the movie and The Hobbit proved all those points about Hobbits without boring people to tears.

The dialogue between the hobbits and the entire character of Samwise screamed "parochial." If Bombadil was only there to drive that point home once again, a decent editor might have said, "Haven't we beat that point into the ground?"

And the hobbits did a number of things that were dangerous, scary, and significantly more than unusual (barrow-downs, nearly getting eaten by trees, etc.) but they were all COMPLETELY unrelated to the main plot and had no sense of urgency. Furthermore, the entire section of the book made the Black Riders somewhat laughable. They were real scary once they got close, but for such great trackers, it sure took them a long time to figure out where the hobbits were. Especially considering the lazy pace they were setting.

barsoomcore- I get the picture, but again, the movie did the same job in a tenth the time and with ten times the intensity. In the book, getting to Bree was nothing more than a LONG and largely boring walk through the park. In the movie, it was tense and exciting. In the book, the journey from Bree to Rivendell was slightly scarier, thanks entirely to the scene on Weathertop, perhaps they had upgraded from a suburban park to Central Park, NY. In the movie, the hobbits actually had a tough time of it, especially Frodo.

If I were Frodo, after the events in the book leading up to the Council of Elrond, I would have been ready to keep going. If what he'd seen to that point was indicative of what Sauron had to throw at him, he could probably walk right across Mordor, stopping for 5 or 6 meals a day with a big sign reading "Ringbearer HERE) strapped to his back. Whereas after the same time period in the movie, I'd have been ready to shoot myself in the foot to avoid the draft.

Also, are we suggesting that Tolkien didn't intend the reader to KNOW that Frodo was going to hold onto the ring past Rivendell? If so, I think my intelligence has been insulted. Tolkien may have been somewhat cynical, but I don't think he gave his audience THAT little credit.

EDIT: I also think that if the point of those sequences was to develop the character of the hobbits, it gave a BAD impression: "You're carrying around a powerful evil artifact, and you're stopping for HOW MANY meals a day?! &#@$!!! I've got belly button lint smarter than that! Get your furry little feet moving!"

Of course, that's just my opinion...

 

[Buttercup]

So read it to them! Or will you spouse kill you for that? My wife has threatened death if I read that kind of "boy" stuff to my 2-yr-old daughter.

Hmmm. I assure you I'm female. And I've been reading fantasy & science fiction for almost 30 years. If I had stumbled upon it earlier, I would have been reading it for longer. You can tell your wife that reading LotR won't make your daughter grow different organs.

 

[Benben]

Re: tolkien as an intro... or not....

several folks in my game group seemed shocked when i revealed that i had never read any tolkien.

I'll raise my hand to this poll.

My earliest fantasy related reading involved Greek, Norse, and Egyptian mythology. By the end of the 4th grade I think I could have gotten a masters in Greek Mythology--if I could have prounced the names correctly. Mythology is still my first love and my home brew world shows it.

The other gateway media for me was comicbooks. Unfortunately when I was young I had terrible, terrible taste. But it expanded my imagination enough to enjoy a wide range of RPGs.

I finally got around to reading Lord of the Rings in college. I had tried to read the Hobbit in elementary, but it bored me to tears, and I was never emotionally involved with any of the characters. That put me off of Tolkien's writing style, and by the time I hit junior high I was ready for the host of fantasy that was the late 80s and early 90s market. When I did read LotR in college I hated it. As others have mentioned the pacing of FotR is terrible, and only instilled a dislike of hobbits. Borormir's death is the highlight of the book for me in it's tragic beauty. After that the only part I enjoyed was Mery and Pippin's interactions with the Ents and the Ent's seige of Isenguard. By the third book I was skipping any chapter that involved Frodo.

This thread, and the great movie, has made me determined to give it another chance though.

 

[mmadsen]

not enuf action, sgt rock (the comic) abd conan (the "novels" and the comic) had slaughter and intrigue left and right from very early in the works. the pace was what keptme in them, and the fantastic variety, haven't even taken a stab at jrrt since i was about 15, being as it has been 18 yrs now, i might wanna give it another go tho.

So you tried The Lord of the Rings, but it was too slow? I can see that, particularly if you were young. In rereading the trilogy last summer, I realized that the first and last 100 pages of the trilogy were very, very slow. I won't say they serve no purpose, but I think the trilogy would work better tightened up -- just like the movie, in fact.

 

[mmadsen]

Re: Re: tolkien as an intro... or not....

I had tried to read the Hobbit in elementary, but it bored me to tears, and I was never emotionally involved with any of the characters.

The Hobbit bored you to tears in elementary school? I ate The Hobbit right up. I loved it. Then I tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring. I simply couldn't get past the dragging intro. That was in third grade though. Years later it was merely slow, and I got to the good stuff.

 

[Mark Chance]

Grrr!

I started learning to read on the Hobbit and then quickly went to Lord or The Rings. When I was in elementary school I was a huge fantasy and mythology buff. Not the thing to be at a catholic school.

I cannot understand this (yet have encountered it to a certain extent). I teach at a Catholic school, and I am also enthralled by fantasy and mythology (and this is no secret). Tolkien himself was a devout Catholic, and LOTR cannot be correctly understood without recourse to New Testament theology.

Another oft-mentioned author in this thread, C. S. Lewis, while not Catholic, was also a very devout Christian who wrote extraordinary fantasy. Then there's L'Engle, also Catholic; Chesterton, who wrote a little fantasy/allegory (also Catholic). The list could go on, but I'm sure the point is made.

I took my 7th grade reading class to see LOTR last year. As a result, at least 3 of the students (out of about 20) read at least Fellowship.

As for my early influences, Tolkien wasn't really on the radar. What was included Burroughs, Lovecraft, Howard, Zelazny, Moorcock, the author of my first hefty novel entitled Dragonworld (forget the author's name), Bullfinch's Mythology, thousands of comic books, and a trunk-load of horror authors such as Stephen King, Peter Straub, Dean Koontz, et cetera.

Nowadays, however, about the only fiction I read is comic books.