Tolkien, Overrated?

[Madara XIII]

We all have our dislikes, but you still should acknowledge major figures. Tolkien was practically the father of modern fantasy stories, just like how Shakespeare was for theatre or Freud was for psychology. You may think their works are crap, but you can't deny their influence.

Ooooo /thread.

Without Tolkien, we'd have no elves at all! And maybe even less!

And is that a good thing? trolololo.

But on the Tolkien matter, I think techniclly that he gave us D&D...and I think everyone loves D&D.
Of course D&D has evolved alot but D&D always takes things from LOTR....

If you're asking me if having no elves is a good thing, I should really add that I'm saying without Tolkien, we'd lose a lot of good stuff.

Especially the Lesbian Elves....NOOOOOOO we needs the precious they is good!!

 

[Ironic Pirate]

Agreed. He had good concepts (non-dorky elves, for one thing) but his writing was atrocious. I've seen less purple prose in fan-fiction. Twilight fan-fiction.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

I'm not a big fan of Tolkien, but I'm glad he was around to write the stories.

My vote for overrated author goes to Charles Dickens. To this day, Great Expectations easily maintains the honor of being the most excruciating piece of literature I've ever had the misfortune of reading.

 

[Darth_Dude]

Tolkien's writing may have felt drawn out, but that's how writing was 80 years ago.

 

[Death God]

I'm not one who loves Tolkien but she's just as popular as Rowling. It's all about preferences.

Please tell me you are trolling and you don't actually think Tolkien is a woman.

Sorry to say, I have no clue what gender Tolkien is. I've never been a fan of "his" books and I only liked the very last part of the last movie. Other than that, I haven't the foggiest what he wrote about.

 

[VanityGirl]

He's pretty good. I can understand him drawing out certain things, but I don't think he's overrated.

 

[Anomynous 167]

Tolkien's writing may have felt drawn out, but that's how writing was 80 years ago.

I don't think it was the style at the time, so much as that no one knew the disadvantages of the style of excrutiating detail because few practiced the "Show. Don't Tell." philosophy of writing back then. Meaning the flaws might of been less noticable.

But who am I to judge? I haven't read any of it.

 

[Fusioncode9]

I'm a pretty big fan of fantasy yet I hate the Lord of the Rings books and most of Tolkien's other books. To many of my friends who are also fantasy fans this is like blaspheme and I have on quite a few occasions had to defend my opinion in heated argument form.

My problem with Tolkien is I feel that he draws things out, especially descriptions. Also he has gone so in much detail that it kind of ruins the experience for me. It's one thing to develop you're world but there is such a thing as over developing it. It makes it so the reader is less involved in the telling of the story, you can't even think about what the rock looks because he has already spent half a page describing it.

How do you feel about Tolkien? What other writers do you feel are overrated and why?

Edit: I'm not refuting Tolkien's contribution to fantasy as a genre In fact I have admitted that he was a major influence to many of the best authors of our time.

THIS IS BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Seriously though, I'm not the biggest biggest book worm out there but the LOTR trilogy is one of my favorite book series of all time and my favorite movies.

 

[Macgyvercas]

DEMS FIGHTIN WORDS BOY!!!
OT:I absolutely adore Tolkien I've read everything by him and The Silmarillion is absolutely my favorite piece of literature.Everything about his world and what he's done with it just fascinates me.

I'm with you. Any attack on Tolkien or his works is a cutting offense.

 

[WorldCritic]

My views on Tolkien, I recognize that he was influential and that fantasy would not be the same without him, but when it comes to the actual stuff he wrote I'm not a huge fan. I watched the movies and I wasn't particularly interested by them, and then I tried reading the Hobbit, I get about forty pages in and then I fall asleep. I got really bored.

 

[Socius]

You said WHAT? Listen here you twat, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien has been, and still is, considered by the literare society the outmost best author of all time, only set equal to minds such as Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan, Clive Staples Lewis and the writers of the freaking bible.

The lord of the rings are now the third most read books on planet earth, only beaten by Harry Potter and the bible. May I inform you that the bible has been around for, oh lets say: 223 AD. Tolkien practically invented the entire genre of fantasy, elves, dwarves, dragons and even hobbits may be tracked to all sorts of mythology but never, sir, NEVER, have they had any information in depth like this. No modern view on mythological beings would be the same if not for Sir Tolkien. The LOTR are not even his masterpiece, read Quenta Silmarillion, his true Mona Lisa.

The guy invented close to 15 langues, 2 witch he created with a fully competable grammar system. so sir, watch your tounge, I do respect your opinion, but i decent it because objectively, rational and logically there is no possible way to critisise Tolkien without the intent of starting a flame war and you got to be a troll or simply one with a very unique perspective at literature.

All this said with the outmost respect, of course.

 

[Tdc2182]

Well, I got read the Hobbit to me when I was young. I absolutely adored it. Ended up reading it by myself at a very early age.

Next came the Lord of the Rings.

To this date I have not been able to get into it. No matter how hard I try.

Edit: May be the fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the movies.

 

[Tdc2182]

You said WHAT? Listen here you twat, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien has been, and still is, considered by the literare society the outmost best author of all time, only set equal to minds such as Agatha Christie, Sir Arthur Conan, Clive Staples Lewis and the writers of the freaking bible.

The lord of the rings are now the third most read books on planet earth, only beaten by Harry Potter and the bible. May I inform you that the bible has been around for, oh lets say: 223 AD. Tolkien practically invented the entire genre of fantasy, elves, dwarves, dragons and even hobbits may be tracked to all sorts of mythology but never, sir, NEVER, have they had any information in depth like this. No modern view on mythological beings would be the same if not for Sir Tolkien. The LOTR are not even his masterpiece, read Quenta Silmarillion, his true Mona Lisa.

The guy invented close to 15 langues, 2 witch he created with a fully competable grammar system. so sir, watch your tounge, I do respect your opinion, but i decent it because objectively, rational and logically there is no possible way to critisise Tolkien without the intent of starting a flame war and you got to be a troll or simply one with a very unique perspective at literature.

All this said with the outmost respect, of course.

Good comment right here.

Even though I didn't particularly enjoy some of his writing, he is the one to thank (or blame) for basically every fantasy ... thing in the world.

World of Warcraft, Dungeons and Dragons, probably even Harry Potter.

Whatever your taste may be, he formed a good deal of Modern entertainment culture.

 

[Chal]

Woah, there. Lotta responses claiming his writing to be subpar, and I think someone here even applied that to Verne!

To the posters advising to keep time context in mind: thank you! This is really something that a contemporary audience neglects all too frequently. Imagination has been spoiled for some. Oh, and extra props to the guy that brought up Dostoevsky, just 'cause he's awesome too.

More to the point: I think elaborate descriptions are really a hallmark of intelligent writing. Seeing them as something that "slows the pace" is a hallmark of being on a site full of 21st century gamers.

From children's tales like Treasure Island to more advanced works like Seven Pillars of Wisdom, you're going to find vivid passages in the classics.

I appreciate all of Tolkien's work, even his lesser known works like the Legend of Sigurd & Gudrun. I value writing from educated authors, and Tolkien was indisputably a genius.

I'm tempted to spew out some hatred for authors that are truly overrated nowadays, but I'll hold my tongue and stay on topic this time.

IMHO, Tolkien is miles above modern fantasy. I acknowledge his greatness for his actual talent, not his contributions to the genre. I also acknowledge that I'm probably coming off as a raging fanboy, but I'm a bibliophile at heart. I can't really deny that.

 

[Shapsters]

Its funny I had a short discussion about this with my English teacher a couple weeks ago, she said exactly the same thing.

I find the over description helps me get into the story more and makes the imagery amazingly clear in my mind. Sometimes you really have to concentrate to follow what you are reading but its not that difficult and the images are just so clear in my head.

 

[MC K-Mac]

The thing about Tolkien and LotR was that he wasn't so much interested in *writing a novel* as he was interested in *creating a mythology*. He always felt that England lacked a mythology of its own (the Anglo-Saxon mythology of Britain's earlier years was lost after the Norman invasion). So, Tolkien set about creating one, borrowing heavily from Norse and Finnish mythology (which is what Anglo-Saxon mythology was, more or less). This is why there are so many songs and legends and stories in the book that don't really have anything to do with what's currently going on - because Tolkien was trying to create a world with its own myths, songs and legends. Obviously, brevity was not his goal.

For me, this is what makes the books so enjoyable. All the action plays out against this rich, incredibly detailed backdrop that makes everything believable. And the fact that Tokien was a professor of linguistics makes all the names and languages *realistic* - something which most fantasy authors utterly fail at (seriously, pick up a random fantasy book and read some of the place and character names out loud. If you can keep a straight face, I'll buy you a beer).

I don't think Tokien is a Great Novelist, but in terms of creating a fantasy world, he is without peer. Every fantasy author since is a pale shadow in that regard.

 

[ENKC]

To be honest I think that the Lord of the Rings films have contributed to Tolkein's books being approached from a less literary angle than it should be as it is a book and one that was written 70 years ago. It is fine to not enjoy any piece of work but to suggest that Tolkein was overrated because you do not enjoy his writing style is a ludicrous statement. Tolkein does not have "pacing" issues, he simply wrote in a very descriptive style that due to people seemingly having shorter attention span comes in for critisism that it should not.

I have read LotR and found it to be achingly disinteresting. I have read my share of long books in my time, but none which I considered so dull. Perhaps I just found it hard to be impressed by ZOMG HELMS DEEP when I liked to read about the battles of Alexander and Hannibal. They defeated more dudes in single battles than Sauron did in his lifetime.

Yes, I know the battling was only one aspect. I'm just saying that for me I found it hard to consider the scale of the stories as truly 'epic' by comparison to actual history.

Just checking because I am confused, are you saying that a book's "epic-ness" is judged by how many people are killed in it?

Of course not. I had thought I even spelled that out. It's a matter of scale. LotR is supposed to be a breathtaking epic, and yet I found little in it that approached real events from history in that regard.

Despite the fact that the scale of events in LotR surpasses the nearest historical equivalent (medieval era) in almost every way.

Please justify that, as I happen to think that statement is incorrect.

 

[Giest4life]

Drawn out? Perhaps. But that takes a lesser role for me when I consider that some of the most moving moments for me--while reading--occurred when I was reading The Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, and his lesser known, Similarion.

To each his own.

 

[Nouw]

We all have our dislikes, but you still should acknowledge major figures. Tolkien was practically the father of modern fantasy stories, just like how Shakespeare was for theatre or Freud was for psychology. You may think their works are crap, but you can't deny their influence.

Ooooo /thread.

Without Tolkien, we'd have no elves at all! And maybe even less!

And is that a good thing? trolololo.

But on the Tolkien matter, I think techniclly that he gave us D&D...and I think everyone loves D&D.
Of course D&D has evolved alot but D&D always takes things from LOTR....

If you're asking me if having no elves is a good thing, I should really add that I'm saying without Tolkien, we'd lose a lot of good stuff.

Naaah, I love Tolkien, I just don't like elves. ^^

Then I guess you'll like orks right?

 

[BlindMessiah94]

What other writers do you feel are overrated and why?

Terry. Fucking. Pratchett.
Why?
Because I have read his books and didn't enjoy them. Also every freaking fangirl out there just starts to squeal when you mention him and its getting old.

:O but... he has a space sword.
And I thought I was going to get flamed, you're in for a shitstorm of anger.

Yeah I'm ready for it. I'm always defending why I hate him. People are always recommending me books too and I've just had enough. I don't like him, and I shouldn't have to defend that anymore than you do for not liking Tolkien.