Lord of the Rings...It's changed!

[Freaky Ed]

Lord of the Rings was a book that was belived only to have been read by geeks. Now, due to the recent films, it has gained a wider range of reader. How has this affected you?

[incka]

I haven't read it yet, surprisingly, I hope to read it soon.

Did you know in some schools there are after-school classes where people can learn elvish?

[Freaky Ed]

I am suprised! You're a super geek! :lol:

[incka]

I suppose I must be to set up my own forums 8)

[Freaky Ed]

I suppose so. cough**snooty freak**cough

[MarkD]

I like the books :)

But I must admit I only read them after seeing the films.

[Anonymous]

I liked the first and second books... but then I got bored. Happened with the films as well! I have a short attention span.

[zveozdi]

I read the books before the movies were released and I really enjoyed them. The Hobbit was an obligatory lecture at high school, so it gave me the chance to know the prehistory of LOTR.
I went to the cinema to watch Mystic river, while LOTR was on too, and felt lots of people were watching it just because all the people were doing it. I'm a geek and I felt a lot of people were invasing my geek territory.
I hope this make sense to all of you, cause it makes sense to me...

[Mr Books]

I haven't read them, but they have increased popularity a great deal at the library since the movies...

[LOTR-Fan]

I've always been a big fan...

[Anonymous]

I think they added to the movies if you read them first, but I totally liked the books better then the movies. They are amazingly well written and make you feel like you have entered a whole other world. I love them.

[incka]

Tolkein never finnished them himself though, his son finnished fixing all the errors after he passed away...

[Kailana]

Yeah, but they are based on his ideas. It was his world that was created, his son just built on it.

[incka]

Yes. The problem is the books are going to be longer out of the public domain :(

[Freaky Ed]

Are you planning to copy the holy scriptures Sean!

[incka]

Yes.

[Freaky Ed]

Why?

[incka]

Because people like to read them online. Alot of people need them for homework, etc. too.

[Idioteque]

I have to admit I even never had heard of Tolkien before The Fellowship Of The Ring was released in theathers. This may seem very stupid but basically I never really cared about the fantasy genre and I still don't except for LOTR because after I saw the movie I immediately went to the library and got the trilogy which I read in about a week. LOTR is one of my all time favourites since then but maybe that's just because I thought the movies were great. I'm not sure about it but i tend to assume it since I don't care about other fantasybooks. I guess it has something to do with my limited imagination in that literary genre. The movies helped me a lot to visualize the entire world.

[Freaky Ed]

I have to admit I even never had heard of Tolkien before The Fellowship Of The Ring was released in theathers. This may seem very stupid but basically I never really cared about the fantasy genre and I still don't except for LOTR because after I saw the movie I immediately went to the library and got the trilogy which I read in about a week. LOTR is one of my all time favourites since then but maybe that's just because I thought the movies were great. I'm not sure about it but i tend to assume it since I don't care about other fantasybooks. I guess it has something to do with my limited imagination in that literary genre. The movies helped me a lot to visualize the entire world.

My step-grandmother is compleately the opposite. She doesn't want to see the film because it would spoil the image of the characters and places she has in her mind.

[Anonymous]

The book's boring: easy there, good 'ol JRR's a wonderful guy and all, but, LOTR is boring. Plain and simple. Not BAD, just fall asleep. He's a very good poet, though.
I've known lord of the rings since I was a little kid. I did go see the films, with one person poking me the entire time, asking what a Balrog was... But even before the movies, it was popular... Several different versions of an animated film, some with the classic 'battle of the dots'...
If you liked LOTR, though, try http://www.stupidring.com

[Freaky Ed]

Yeah those animated movies were daft. But Lord of the Rings isn't boring! It's only boring to those who don't have a good imagination.

[Anonymous]

Pft, it's boring because he describes too much. Let the reader have a bit more credit, I say!

[mishka]

I know people who would consider this heresy! :P

Truthfully, I can find the trilogy boring if I am not in the right space. It is very densely written.

As for Tolkien's son finishing the works for him, no that didn't happen (unless I misread the above post). Tolkien completed and in his lifetime published The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings. The additional materials such as Lost Tales etc. his son did collect and publish (Canadian fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay worked with him on this project).

I loved the first movie, intensely disliked the second movie, and was reconciled to the third---all because, you guessed it, Jackson did not present certain storylines in the books as I would have preferred.

Having said that I think he did a remarkable job and even Tolkien himself might have been swayed to reconsider his own view that the books never be made into a movie. In his opinion the viewer of a film would not be able to fully immerse into the secondary reality of his books---with today's technology I thinK Jackson was successfull in drawing his viewer's in.

[Freaky Ed]

We're on about books here Mishka. Why don't you go to a film forum?

[incka]

There is no need to be nasty Edward.

[mazarane]

Re the film: I'd read the books beforehand, so the sudden popularization of them hasn't really affected me all that much. I really enjoyed all the films- there were bits which were quite wildly different from the book which I didn't think worked all that well, but the vast majority of it was superb.


As far as the books go, I prefer the Silmarillion to the LOTR trilogy; I think because it has a more 'epic' quality to it.

[nycteris]

I had to read the Hobbit in sixth grade, and i liked it a lot but it impressed me as a very dark-toned book. When i found out it was written during WWII, it seemed to explain a lot of the elements i did'nt like in it. I think it's an excellent book, but because of my initial response to it, it just seems too depressive to me.

The trology i read a year before i found out they were making a movie of it, and i loved all three. Tolkien put such a huge importance on language and the flow of words, and also on making seem an authentic 'history', that he really impressed me as a master of the art.

As to the movies, i thought TFotR was great, TTT was stupid, and that with TRotK Jackson took way too much license. If he made changes, they ought to have been for the good, and in my opinion they failed at that, effectively pulling apart a good deal of what had really made Tolkien's work a "real myth".

In response to whomever mentioned the elvish course, on the off chance anyone's interested in something of the sort:
there's a downloadable Quenya course at a site called called 'ardalambion'; also, theonering.net used to have a live one on wednesday evenings.
(i'm not an obsessive fan, but there's one in my house, so i end up hearing about these things anyway)

[mazarane]

When i found out it was written during WWII, it seemed to explain a lot of the elements i did'nt like in it.

I'd not thought of that- I need to consider it next time I read it (though I like it anyway).


As to the movies, i thought TFotR was great, TTT was stupid, and that with TRotK Jackson took way too much license. If he made changes, they ought to have been for the good, and in my opinion they failed at that, effectively pulling apart a good deal of what had really made Tolkien's work a "real myth".

I really enjoyed them, and found the spectacle tended to override more disquiet due to some of the changes. I only really noticed this at the end of The Return of The King, with Saruman being left a loose end and the return to the Shire being completely changed- it meant they came back after a long war and nothing had really altered, in great contrast to Tolkien's display of the effects of the war on far-off places. [/quote]

[mishka]

Tolkein never finnished them himself though, his son finnished fixing all the errors after he passed away...

just a note: Tolkien did finish and publish in complete format The Hobbit and LOTR in th 1950s. He died in the 1970s. What Tolkien's son worked on as I understand it was on the extra materials--Lost Tales etc.

[Freaky Ed]

Tolkein never finnished them himself though, his son finnished fixing all the errors after he passed away...

just a note: Tolkien did finish and publish in complete format The Hobbit and LOTR in th 1950s. He died in the 1970s. What Tolkien's son worked on as I understand it was on the extra materials--Lost Tales etc.


If you two know each other, get him to write more! :roll:

[Sean's Wicked Uncle]

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody has moved onto a discussion about the gay thread that runs right through the LOTR trilogy :roll:







TKM

[marie]

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody has moved onto a discussion about the gay thread that runs right through the LOTR trilogy :roll:


…sorry?!?…

[Sean's Wicked Uncle]

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody has moved onto a discussion about the gay thread that runs right through the LOTR trilogy :roll:


…sorry?!?…



No need to apologize. This topic is not only running to over two pages of complete nonsense and drivel, it is at a peurile level.

I was trying to stimulate a bit more discussion about the subject. It deserves to move a higher level.

Although you may argue with some justification that my effort may have the reverse effect.









TKM

[marie]

No need to apologize. This topic is not only running to over two pages of complete nonsense and drivel, it is at a peurile level.
I was trying to stimulate a bit more discussion about the subject. It deserves to move a higher level.
Although you may argue with some justification that my effort may have the reverse effect.
TKM


puuh, i just got a little shock! i only read and saw it in english and now i was desperate about my bad english cause i haven´t seen the "gay thread"… :wink:

…

[Brent]

For me, i think the movies have taken some of the fun out of the books.. It's hard to think about the characters in the book without thinking about the actors i see everywhere. I like being able to have my own vision of the characters in books.

[orenzi]

i read the books way before the movie.. but the movies were still fun.. i don't have that much of an imagination so the way they made the places to look was amazing..

[follow_me_around]

there's always a difference between movie and book version (american Psyco, fight club, one flew over the cuckoos nest, etc)..so what happened to LOTR is not a special thing, some prefer book version some prefer the movie ones...personally the book of LOTRs have deeper meanings than the movies..

Cheers

[starrynights48]

I myself do not dabble much in that realm of writing. Sci-fi/fantasy has never been my favorite and I was satisfied with having seen the movie but my boyfriend, a huge LotR fan, told me I might enjoy the books better. I also joined literaryguild.com and had the opportunity of getting the LotR omnibus for mere change. I'm about halfway through Two Towers, but I haven't picked it up in weeks due to having other novels to read.

[MacLaren]

I don't think that comparing the LOTR books and movies is ever going to produce anything contstructive. Of course Jackson had to change the storyline. These are movies, not books. If you wanted a carbon copy of the books, why not just re-read them?
A movie has to be idiotproof. There are always people who wont get something, so think that a complicated storyline is a bad storyline. And, to be honest, Tolkien's structure is lacking. He divides every part of his trilogy into two seperate books; the Aragorn thread, and the Frodo thread. This is a bad way to do things, and it definitely would not work in a movie.
Uh...
The homoeroticism that runs through TLOTR is, I think, overstated by some people. Tolkien believed in 'fellowship'; deep male bonds. His heterosexuality wasn't so fragile that he was afraid to have male characters declaring love for each other.
Either that, or he harboured repressed feelings of hot man love for all his friends.

[superlovezapper]

In case you want to hear more about Tolkien's love life, his wife, his Freudian relationship with his mom: I recommend the biography of J.R.R. Tolkien from the Critical Lives series. It was written by Michael White. I found it to be quite an intresting insight into how the Lord of the Rings developed, and what in Tolkien's life led to certain elements in the book. For example: The Fellowship might be based on the men's club the Inklings(my conclusion). And it even includes Tolkien's opinion on C.S.Lewis, in other words his total distaste toward the Narnia series. So for the die hard fans, it might be a good read.

[Simmy]

Tolkein never finnished them himself though, his son finnished fixing all the errors after he passed away...

I never knew that... I thought it was just The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales his son completed. (???)

[Simmy]

I'm a bit disappointed that nobody has moved onto a discussion about the gay thread that runs right through the LOTR trilogy :roll:

TKM

I wasn't aware of a "gay thread" running through LOTR, although now I have an idea of where all the ridiculous slash fanfiction orginates from. :roll:

[Anonymous]

Christopher Tolkien didn't add anything to Unfinished Tale or the History of Middle Earth. He just edited it, cut it into little pieces that people were interested in, and had it published.

[Høi]

Although I have to admit that I saw the movies first, I enjoyed the books with upmost delight. It is one of (if not the) most epic adventures ever written. Bless Tolkien for having such a fantasy.

[NaderiaBonita]

I saw the movies first, although I had always wanted to read the books. Seeing the first movie was just the push I needed. I think those three movies are some of the best films ever made. No one can argue with eleven Academy Awards! Anyway... this isn't a movie forum! lol

I think Tolkein was a genius, pure and simple. Those books are amazing, and there is so much to be had from them. I have not read The Silmarillion, but it's on my list of things to do. Ah! there is so much to be said about LotR!!!

As for the gay thread, yeah. It's there for those who care to see it. But it's not overwhelming. I loved it! lol.

[Azrael26]

I know this is quite an old thread but if anyone is interested this is a little review I made some time ago about the first book of the trilogy. More to come if you express any interest (but not more than two reviews, of course :D )

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.

"There are too many characters in that story, it is much too long to read, are you crazy ?"
Way back in time, in 1972 exactly, when The Lords of the Ring was published in France for the first time, nearly twenty years after its first English edition, that was a friend of mine's reaction when I told him about the book...
Unfortunately for its initial literary career in France, it was published by a very "bleeding edge" publishing company, known for its radical line of publication : Burroughs, Lenin, Marx and Engels, but also DAF de Sade, and Pauline Réage (Story of O)...

So, it remained hidden, just like the famous Ring that was at the centre of its plot.. Until one day ...It was published in paperback series.

Did you know that the very famous hard rock group Led Zeppelin was a Tolkien fan and that in two of their songs there are references to the Lord of the Rings ?
In Ramble on Gollum and Mordor are alluded to.
In The Battle of Evermore, the Dark Lord and the Ringwraiths are also named...

So The Fellowship of the Ring is the first novel of the trilogy.
What is so fascinating about a story whose heroes are "Halflings" and in which all the adults are either crazy, bound by their vows or utterly nasty ?
Purity, the kind of innocence that can only be found in very young children, or Hobbits who stands for all these notions in the saga. They avoid men whenever they can, they prefer to live in a kind of eternal and very dull society, in which change is feared and looked down upon.

Change. This is the other key notion of the saga. Iron will rust and children will grow. They will in the process undergo a series of transformations that will alter their initial state . And there will not be any coming back. Ever. Change is brought along by time.

Time. Always there is a lack of time in the saga. "The question is, Gandalf tells Frodo, what will you do with the time that is left to you ?" The Elves themselves, who are eternal beings, flee to their last havens, because time is now the winner over myth. Myth is eternal, it lives in men's memory, thus Elves cannot live alongside Men any longer.

The Fellowship of the Ring is about an artificial aggregation of different races that cannot live with one another and pretend they can, all along the time.
They distrust each other, their motives are rather selfish, they each want to survive at the expense of the others. Orcs and goblins and other trolls are not the most frightening "people" in that saga : Men are, and Tolkien perhaps intended that.

Men are shown deprived of any virtues, they can't agree, they pursue only glory, in short they are, as usual, the real predators in this universe. No wonder this mock fellowship splits out at the very moment it is most needed : when Frodo really needs someone to help him get along through the most dangerous part of his journey. At first, he wants to go alone, and why not ?

It is quite symptomatic of the author's state of mind that the fellowship becomes a trio, and that the guide is Gollum, himself a distorted figure of a Hobbit. Should we say a Hobbit of the future, after having felt men's influence ? At least, he has developped a split personality, he is a kind of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde version of a hobbit, being part-time Smeagol (good hobbit) and part-time Gollum (baaad hobbit)...

If you want the job done, do it yourself ! That could be the conclusion of the first book of the trilogy.

[ArthurDent]

I read the books before the films, although, as I am a late reader (Only got into it at age 25~), the news of these films being made driven my decision to read them:)

[Ygraine]

If you read Beowulf and the other Anglo-Saxon and Norse myths on which Tolkien based LOTR you'll see that the "gay" overtones are not about homosexuality but, as has already been suggested, about the bonds of male fellowship which are forged between men who risk their lives together

[TariNumenesse]

I think the movies have spurred a lot of people into reading the books. However, there is no doubt that they are finding it difficult to complete the books because of the differences between them and the movies. Also, the length puts a lot of people off.
As for me, I read Fellowship before seeing the movie, and finished The Two Towers and The Return of the King within two months of seeing it. I like the books better. I think they are well written, and the description is wonderful!
Just to clear it up - Christopher Tolkien edited The Silmarillion, The Lost Tales, The Unfinished Tales etc, not The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. I think someone was getting confused back there. :)

[Cparker]

i was driven to read them as i heard they were making movies of them and wanted to read them before seeing the movie, which i did. and im glad i did and i love both, books and movies.

[madcap77]

I loved the books, I read them when I had a terrible flu for a few weeks. Id heard the movie was to be released but at the time my mother thought it would be too scary... A little over protective i guess, i was 13... But she gave me the books to read while I was sick and I got through the first faster than any books ive ever read, just ate it! After i finished that i found it so moreish and exciting i read through the second one before i finally got to see the movie. Have to say i was a little dissapointed, but i think people might feel the same if theyre particularly imaginative, creative and bookish... and the movies are a fast paced illustration that though it was pretty exciting, they didnt really give the book credit. I love how in depth the books were, it felt like an entire world, and I especially loved the elves... When I wrote a school project speech thing I had even memorized an elvish poem which i recited. Probably came across as a little wierd, but luckilly everyone was into the movies so it went unnoticed. Im kindof glad the movies came out coz it does get alot more people to read the books... but like I said i dont really think they gave the books credit.

[TariNumenesse]

I agree; the movies didn't go into as much detail as the books do. Their depth is fantastic! But movies always go for pacing over depth.

[Deus]

Its a bit of a slogging read, but overall enjoyable. Personally, I think The Hobbit was better and is quite possibly the best for fun adventure story ever written. No child should grow without having The Hobbit read to them or reading it themselves.

[majestic62]

Its a bit of a slogging read, but overall enjoyable. Personally, I think The Hobbit was better and is quite possibly the best for fun adventure story ever written. No child should grow without having The Hobbit read to them or reading it themselves.
:D I completely agree! I think the Hobbit is a must-read for children and adults. Havent read LOR yet, but its on my waiting list. And the LOR movie is my best movie of all time, so I cant wait to finally read the book, im sure Ill enjoy it!

[Nanoitsu Shuam]

It seems that there has also been some change toward better appreciation of Tolkien's literary work in the university world (his philological work has always been valued highly). The Lord of the Rings may be considered a classic of world literature one day...

Also, a few miscellaneous things came to my mind as I was skimming through this thread...

Tolkien fought in the first World War. All his friends that he had known died there. According to Tolkien himself, something like that had, understandably, at least as much effect on a young man as the second Wolrd War did for a man in his late middle-age, who didn't have to participate directly...

Tolkien also states in his foreword to The Lord of the Rings that the story is not an allegory of any sort, and that he despises allegories deeply and altogether (read his Tree and Leaf for his definitions, etc.).

Tolkien indeed quite finished The Lord of the Rings during his life-time, as others have corrected; and he also got to suffer from and at times enjoy the fame for some 15 years.

Tolkien's son, Christopher, made a great job of selecting and comprising The Silmarillion from the various tales that Tolkien had begun to write during the first World War. Christopher didn't add any text of his own.

Tolkien considered The Lord of the Rings to be a sideline in his work with The Silmarillion, which in turn was technically a hobby as well, since Tolkien worked full-time as a professor of philology in Oxford until his retirement in 1959 (the last volume of The Lord of the Rings was published in 1955). After the retirement, he had plenty of time, though, but his ideas concerning what The Silmarillion should become were, I think, too megalomaniac for him ever to set to methodical work and finish it; instead, he often used hours and hours every day replying to the sea of fan-mail he was receiving at the time.

Tolkien also considered re-writing The Hobbit at one point, because he thought it was too much a children's book as it stood, and wanted to make it compatible and comparable with The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings is a single work, one novel, divided by Tolkien into six "books", and published for practical purposes in three seperate volumes. The novel was divided into three volumes only at the stage of publication; Tolkien never intended it to be conceived as a trilogy, and he never wrote it as such (i.e. he didn't first write the first part and then decide to add a sequel, but wrote it like any other single novel: he wrote chunks of the last third before many middle parts, etc.).

I recommend Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien biography (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0618057021/qid=1128008719/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1199040-2985430?v=glance&s=books) as a good introduction to the man and his work.

[Scheherazade]

I haven't read LOTR because I feel overwhelmed with the movies and all the attention it is getting. I watched only the first movie even though we have the whole DVD collection at home. I know sometime I will pick up the books and read them and probably enjoy them like any average Joe does but at the moment I cannot bring myself to do that. I guess it is true that one can get too much of a good thing as well!

[majestic62]

...Oh and just a random fact for you. Did you know that J.R.R Tolkien was in fact born in a town here in South Africa called Boksburg, which is only 30 minutes away from my house! :D

[JECompton]

man majestic, I'm jealous! That's so cool. Do they have any special museum or something about Tolkien there you can see?

[majestic62]

No unfortunately not, now that I think of it they should have something! I have never heard of anything! Maybe its time they do do something! :)

[~*~Inwë Mithrandír~*~]

Actually, I was glad that the LOTR stories were finally known by a large public! It made me seem less like a geek, 'cause I read the books long before the movies came out. At least now I could talk to other people about it as well!! :) And... when the movies came out, I automatically started re-reading the books. LOTR has become one of my passions since, while before it was "just one of those great stories".

[mazarane]

I agree with you on that one- while reading may seem a solitary passion, it's nice to be able to talk about things with other people (our presence here hints at that!) - and them having heard of the subject is fairly essential.

As film adaptations go, I thought these were done very well- my only real quibble would be with the ending, which was a bit of a fairytale compared to the changes in the Shire in the book.

[~*~Inwë Mithrandír~*~]

What you say about the ending is true; I completely agree with you. All in all I also have to say that the movies were very good. Nevertheless, as usually, the books will remain better! There are descriptions of landscapes, characters and emotions that just cannot be brought to life in a movie, no matter how hard they try! But still, they were able to pick out the most important things and they did a good (and no doubt also a very difficult) job in filming all of that!

[Watson]

If Lord of the Rings isn't my favourite book then it's certainly up there. There are many things which make it good, interesting and varied characters, a penchant for the grandiose, the best wizard ever penned and the best of david and goliath feeling. The thing that sets apart for me though is sheer immersiveness, Einstein said imagination encircles the world, Tolkien's created one. I struggle to comprehend a mind that can conceive a world in such detail and at the same time I can't help but feel sad that the published portion is just a fraction of his creation. Anyone that enjoyed reading Lord of the Rings and hasn't read the Silmarillion should strongly consider doing so, reading Lord of the Rings again afterwards is a whole new experience to spot the references and relationship between the two.

I read the book after seeing the first film, having never really had the inclination to do so before and I was hooked and read it in two or three days. Don't want to talk too much about the films but I always feel it's worth remembering that different mediums will never be entirely consistent. My biggest gripe with the films was Legolas being a superman figure, which I felt was entirely against the spirit of the story. Also thought Gandalf got a slightly poor representation in the third film but I still enjoyed the fillms a great deal.

[Nesonatalm]

I didn't want to read LOTR at first, but, after seeing part of the first movie, I was curious enough to read, and loved the books better than the movies.

[Bandini]

Although I really enjoyed the films, I'm so glad that they were not out when I was a kid! I read The Hobbit when I was 10 and quickly followed up with Lord of the Rings. The rich, fantasy world that I created would have probably been overwhelmed by the film version if it was out then. I feel a little sorry for kids (or, indeed, anybody reading them for the first time) who will not be able to get lost in that fantasy world in the same way.

[Nesonatalm]

Although I really enjoyed the films, I'm so glad that they were not out when I was a kid! I read The Hobbit when I was 10 and quickly followed up with Lord of the Rings. The rich, fantasy world that I created would have probably been overwhelmed by the film version if it was out then. I feel a little sorry for kids (or, indeed, anybody reading them for the first time) who will not be able to get lost in that fantasy world in the same way.
Are you telling me to get lost (into your fantasy)?

Actually, me lord, twas a goodie point. Twer! :mad:


[There's about 24 if you count to 50!]

[Nesonatalm]

Interestingly enough, though I watched the first two movies before reading any of the LOTR books, when I did finally read Fellowship of the Ring, I could see everything as vividly in the parts not expressed in the movie, as I could see the parts that were. Independant of one another, my brother and I saw the forest in which the Hobbits meet Tom Bombadil as one with a particular location neither of us had been through more than once or twice in our whole lives thus far. I find that every line - even the simplest and most economic - perfectly places a particular scene before my eyes. This cannot be attributed to over-description when it is but a phrase that introduces me to a new turn or clearing in the landscape. It is as if a particular scenery lines the few words, which open the world within up as something truly conveyed.

In reading the books, the writing eclipsed the movie images, which were my first of two impressions, and I had no problem seeing Tom Bombadil now as essential to the whole story, nor was my vision of the characters based anymore upon the actors in the movie. I saw a completely different Arwen, for example.

[Adriana]

I just loved all the books from the Trilogy, but the ones which called my attention were The Hobbit and, of course, Silmarillion, a very poetic and more philosophic book. It's an obligation for the readers of the Lord of the Rings, there you understand the songs and poems written in the saga, and you can also see the influences of the religion and mythology in the works of Tolkien.

[Jabberwock]

While I will easily admit that LotR is way more popular now than it ever has been, I don't know that I would say it was a geek bible beforehand. Amazon.com did a big poll a few years before the movies came out in which over 200000 people voted and LotR came out on top as the best book ever written, if I remember correctly. So, either every geek on earth came out for the vote (which is possible), or it was rather well read and like back then. Either way, I think the movies are great and only did the books a good service.

[minnie111]

I finished the third book, a few days before the first movie came out lol
I really loved them!! My mum has an edition from 1974 or something, all three books in a box, they are quite pink.......
I bought the hobbit on e-bay then, from the same year lol

[Tamora]

LOTR simply is a "classic"! It's one of those books you can read over and over again - and still be fascinated by it!!

[Lizzie Brookes]

I read both the Hobbit and the whole of the Lord of the Rings before watchimg the films and the book was fantastic - the films are also superb and have been done really well.

[Rachel]

It seems that there has also been some change toward better appreciation of Tolkien's literary work in the university world (his philological work has always been valued highly). The Lord of the Rings may be considered a classic of world literature one day...

Also, a few miscellaneous things came to my mind as I was skimming through this thread...

Tolkien fought in the first World War. All his friends that he had known died there. According to Tolkien himself, something like that had, understandably, at least as much effect on a young man as the second Wolrd War did for a man in his late middle-age, who didn't have to participate directly...

Tolkien also states in his foreword to The Lord of the Rings that the story is not an allegory of any sort, and that he despises allegories deeply and altogether (read his Tree and Leaf for his definitions, etc.).

Tolkien indeed quite finished The Lord of the Rings during his life-time, as others have corrected; and he also got to suffer from and at times enjoy the fame for some 15 years.

Tolkien's son, Christopher, made a great job of selecting and comprising The Silmarillion from the various tales that Tolkien had begun to write during the first World War. Christopher didn't add any text of his own.

Tolkien considered The Lord of the Rings to be a sideline in his work with The Silmarillion, which in turn was technically a hobby as well, since Tolkien worked full-time as a professor of philology in Oxford until his retirement in 1959 (the last volume of The Lord of the Rings was published in 1955). After the retirement, he had plenty of time, though, but his ideas concerning what The Silmarillion should become were, I think, too megalomaniac for him ever to set to methodical work and finish it; instead, he often used hours and hours every day replying to the sea of fan-mail he was receiving at the time.

Tolkien also considered re-writing The Hobbit at one point, because he thought it was too much a children's book as it stood, and wanted to make it compatible and comparable with The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings is a single work, one novel, divided by Tolkien into six "books", and published for practical purposes in three seperate volumes. The novel was divided into three volumes only at the stage of publication; Tolkien never intended it to be conceived as a trilogy, and he never wrote it as such (i.e. he didn't first write the first part and then decide to add a sequel, but wrote it like any other single novel: he wrote chunks of the last third before many middle parts, etc.).

I recommend Humphrey Carpenter's Tolkien biography (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0618057021/qid=1128008719/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-1199040-2985430?v=glance&s=books) as a good introduction to the man and his work.


Yes I do agree. His work was by and large scoffed at by his fellows during his tenure at universities. But such is the way of the fleeting public. They do not now nor ever will mold how I think. I like , no admire and love his work. The Unfinished Tales and Silmarillion are my favorite for deeply spiritual reasons, but all the rest are stellar in my eyes and each time I read them I see so much new and interesting thought and idea and it really nourishes.
The new compilation that is coming out through his son Christopher, a fifteen year effort will be sold out I am quite sure in days.If any are interested, I don't have it off hand but if you google Arda you can get on to a site that has monthly literary essays on Middle earth and all of Tolkiens' works. They are very very well written and informative.The last essay was on the Black Breath I believe. wonderfull.
I take issue however with Peter Jackson's treatment of the made up hositilty between King Theoden of the Rohan and the Echthalian group from the White City. In reality the two kingdoms had a sacred pact between them and never lost fellowship.,the Rohirrim tried desperately to get to the final war on time but were hindered and came rather late, but not too late. Why on earth Peter did this is beyond me, silly and totally ruins the truth of the story. That is not to say I don't just love his movies, I do, for what they are worth. But I do get rather upset when they diverge to this extent. But that is just me.

[Idril]

I take issue however with Peter Jackson's treatment of the made up hositilty between King Theoden of the Rohan and the Echthalian group from the White City.

I take issue with a lot of things Jackson did. The movies were visually so impressive but story adaption wise they were a mess in so many ways. I try not to let myself get too upset about it but it's not easy. :rolleyes: I worry a little bit about what he would do with The Hobbit if he ever does get his hands on it. I'm worried he may make it darker in tone than it should be, it worked for LOTR because it is a much darker book but The Hobbit is an adventure story, a sweet, light adventure story. If he wants darkness, he should look to The Silmarillion...on second thought, no he shouldn't. :p

[buggy]

I'm extremely dissatisfied with LOTR. Maybe it's just me, but I see too many bad points to enumerate. Maybe someday I'll start a thread about it, but to me it isn't literature at all. Okay, if you want 'fantasy', Midsummer's Night Dream is as good as any.

[Nesonatalm]

I liked the first and second books... but then I got bored. Happened with the films as well! I have a short attention span.

That's too bad. Sorry, really!

[Prisca]

ugh..I still haven't read Lord of the Rings yet :( I'm probably the worst Tolkien fan out there! I've read The Hobbit and loved it...In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit <--- The line that started it all!
I've watched all three movies about 10 times...they're excellent really.
oh well, hopefully I'll read the book this summer :)

[Lochtain]

I'm a really big fan of The Lord Of The Rings, and the first time i "read" the books was when I was 6-8 years old, when my dad read them for me as night-time stories. (by that time I had finally got him to stop singing for me :P)

I really think that all the new-found interest in LoTR is very good, as the series is just one of those that everyone should have read, as it's such a great vision of the entire Fantasy Genre. If, for example, someone is not sure if they like fantasy, they should read LoTR, and thus get a pretty decent picture of what the genre is like.

What I don't think is good about the attention is all the people who get all Know-it-all-ish just because they've seen the movies, and who start arguing about the finer points of life in Middle Earth with the people who've actually read all Tolkien's books, and care deeply about his wonderfull creation.

On the subject of the movies I'd like to say that they are really good, and also that they are fair portraits of Middle Earth, and the original books. But they aren't perfect.

[Moony]

I have become obsessed with LOTR again. I understand that there had to be changes and sacrifices to the movies, but I still believe that the film crew may have went a little overboard. :p Still it's something of a fun hobby to read the books and compare the movies. I try not to allow myself to get too upset by the changes.

A second perusal of the books leaves me feeling that Boromir needs to be added to my list of favorite characters. ;)

I'd really like to see the musical stage production, but I suppose that for now I must be content with listening to the soundtrack of it. *sighs*

[padmar]

Growing up I always avoided the book. There was such a powerful college uni sub culture around it. I never liked far out flats, weed, girls sitting crossed legged and guys who were called heads. The whole lot freaked me. So I came to the story as a man in my thirties. I just picked it up and read it all the way through. Yes I had done the Hobbit so I was on the right literary track. I never wanted to leave the Shire but Strider intrigued me and I set of to Mordor with the rest at thirty five and I must say I enjoyed it all. I would recommend anyone should read it. I still think it was high jacked by the weekend hippy scene in the seventies and I have no regrets about being a late developer.

[Moony]

I never wanted to leave the Shire but Strider intrigued me and I set of to Mordor.
Strider intrigued me as well when I was reading the book. I think he would be what I originally loved about LOTR when I was reading it for the first time.

[padmar]

It is the idea and challenge of adventure that he represents.

[Moony]

That must explain my attraction then. :) Is it an overestimation to say that Aragorn is the "perfect hero"?

[padmar]

Well as mortals go suppose so!

[skye]

I read it just before the films came out (because people were saying it won't be the same afterwards and all that :rolleyes:) and I loved it. Even though it is long you can read it fast.

It reminded me of adventure books I used to read when I was about 11-13. Sometimes I had the feeling that I was in the fifth grade again, setting off on a road full of adventures.

While I was reading it I remembered reading The Hobbit several years before that (I used to "eat" books, I wonder if that was so good, because I can sometimes barely remember reading some of them) and I remembered watching a very similar cartoon when I was a kid (and apparently there is a cartoon from the 70s based on the book).

I don't particularly like it when authors jump from one story-line to another in the next chapter, so that annoyed me sometimes once the party split up. I wanted to find out what happens with one group and then had to read about how the other one travelled around. (Yes, I looked ahead sometimes, but I went back to read the rest anyway, because things often don't make sense if you skip something in the middle and I always want to see how something happened.)

I'm surprised at how fast the films were forgotten. I liked them. They were quite similar to what I imagined to see and now I can't see the story in any other way any more. (I was surprised to see a picture of Legolas with brown hair once. :D).

[padmar]

Looking ahead is cheating skye I have never done that :rolleyes:

[skye]

Cheating? :confused: On whom or what? :D It doesn't harm anyone or? Is reading a review also cheating then? It usually gives away half of the story.

I usually don't look ahead, unless I'm really really interested in finding out something. Once I have a vague idea about it, I go back and read the rest in peace without wondering what is going to happen.

[padmar]

Okay Skye I give in I may have looked ahead. We could start a post modernist thread. These conventions only serve to make life tiresome. I also agree about all the secondary plots going off when you just start getting really excited about what the gang is up to. I think Gandalf’s habit of going missing was another source of frustration, perhaps they had six rings. Anyway the movie did a good job representing the structure of the book.

[skye]

I don't mind if people don't want to look ahead, I just don't see why I shouldn't sometimes. :)

[lanzeird]

really? its interesting...

[meteorit]

I'm a huge LOTR fan have been reading the trilogy regularly since first coming across them in my teens.

I have noticed that before the films if I told people I enjoyed LOTR they looked at me is if I had just said 'I enjoy morris dancing' (I don't!). The films, whatever you think of them, have made the books more mainstream — I feel like I've been re-admitted into normal society.

[Rachel]

I too am deeply devoted to the works of professor Tolkien, the Lord of the Rings speaks to me on many levels and has actually inspired me to stand al the stronger for what I believe in and to pour myself out for the releasing of people enslaved by others or beaten down.
Have you read the latest book out, compiled by Christopher Tolkien but written by his father. It is poetry at its finest.

[Snow Wolf]

I think the movies helped considerably to give a boom to Tolkien's works, introducing his mythological world to people who usually don't have a shred of interest in the "inexistent creatures" of Arda. Before the movies, Tolkien's universe became know only to those who were very fond of ancient north-european cultures, and therefore at some point came upon LoR, and thence to Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and so on. In regard to a comparison book-film, I reckon there's none. The movies are very good, but the books are outstanding.