Does anyone else find the LOTR books a hard read?
 

Been trying to get through these books, onto the last one. All 3 have been hard to read. I haven't found them too exciting and I feel there's a lot in the books that doesn't help the story.
A lot of people have said that these books are the best. Personally I found Stephen Kings Dark Tower series much better. What am I missing?

Yes, these books can be a difficult read.

There are lots of characters and places that are checked off, complex family histories and general historis, often with little explanation, and occasionally things have more than one name. It's easy to get lost in the text.

I would strongly suggest anyone interested in the books see the movies first -- at least the first two, since they can help a reader get a "visual" and a general sense of the story.

Also, there are a couple of good guides available. My personal favorite is The Complete Guide to Middle Earth by Robert Foster. It's not illustrated, but it provides a good reference book for names and places, with everything listed from A to Z.

I think I got through about 120 pages, and now the collected LOTR paperback just sits in my backseat.

It's odd; I like them, but I don't like reading them. The story is great, and some of the writing (the characters, events, dialogue, etc...) is really very engrossing, but I tell ya what, the last third or so of Fellowship just about kicked my ass. One of these days, I'll finally pick it back up and give The Two Towers a go.

The first time I read it ... once I got through Fellowship I had smooth sailing. Now I love them all. :)

It takes a while to get into them. It is one of those books you have to reread to appreciate.

I had a hard time reading them too. It took me over a year to read them. I have only read them once, but when I go back to re-read a certain scene (to compare to the movie) I have found it much easier thanks to PJ's movies.

The first 100-200 pages are a little tough, but I couldn't put it down after that.

Read 'em all. Hated 'em all. The Hobbit's worse.

I had a hard time when I first read them in 6th grade. Hobbit was fine, Fellowship was fine, but after that...TTT & ROTK were very hard reads

Revisited in H.S. they were much easier to read.

Revisisted in 1st year of college in '97, a bit easier.

Last revisited before TTT came into theaters...absorbed them just fine.


So I found they got easier to read as time went on.

I didn't read them until after the seeing the movies. I just didn't (and still don't) find the whole D&D (wizards, elves, ect) genre very interesting. But I loved the movies, so I gave them ago and found them a good read. A little awkward or slow at parts, but not particularly difficult.

Seeing the movies probably helped, but I also didn't try to follow every passage when Tolkien reveled in minutia. There are enough characters in the story that I would have gotten extremely bogged down trying to figure out all that lineage junk. I read every word of the story, but I zoned out during some parts. I barely looked at the indexes either.

When they break into song in the books, I totally skip those parts. I do want to finish the third book, but it might be a challange. I even tried reading it on a long flight, but still couldn't do it. Maybe I'll get those audio books where I can just listen to it.

I read them in high school. Read Hobbit first, and I really enjoyed it. Read Fellowship and it slowed down a bit, but I still liked it. Two Towers was very hard for me to read. It seemed so slow. After I got through that, Return of the King was a little better. I'll agree the LOTR books are a hard read, but I loved them. Even read the Silmarillion.

Tolkien can be similar to Proust in that he can dedicate an entire page to describing a room or a piece of clothing. For most people, Fellowship is the most difficult part of the books to get through, as it is the slowest paced. However, for those who have attempted to read it and put it down, please give it another go. It is one of the most rewarding books I have ever read and certainly my favorite.

I started on the Hobbit (an easier read) and then read the series as a young teen.

I didn't have a problem and enjoyed them immensely.

The LOTR books are so-so, if you want a really hard read try Ulysses or Atlas Shrugged.

I don't think Atlas Shrugged is a hard read at all. But then, it probably helps that I agree with the underlying philosophy so much and I like the way Rand gets it in.

As for LotR, I first read it (before I read The Hobbit) in the summer of 1966 before my sophomore year in college and before everyone else discovered it a year or two later. I didn't find it at all difficult (and I loved it). But in those days we weren't used to being bombarded with slam bang action instant gratification stuff so much.

Now, I never did get through The Silmarillion. :lol:

Despite its length, "Atlas Shrugged," is a fairly breezy read. Ayn does have a tendency to get preachy and speechy, though, and that can become tedious after a while.

I didn't have too many problems with "The Silmarillion." I think it's probably easier to get into if you've familiarized yourself with Tolkien's mythology. It's definitely not a good starting place for JRRT. But it reads like an incomplete work at best.

I'm ashamed to say this, but I've never even attempted to read "Ulysses." I know it's reputation, and it's just never sounded that interesting.

I thought FOTR was pretty boring up until At the Sign of the Prancing Pony, then it picked up and I flew through the rest up of the books until the end.

I found The Silmarillion to be the easiest of them to read. Well actually the Hobbit was the easiest and The Silmarillion was second. By the time I got to it I had read all the rest and was very much into Middle Earth and absorbed the book easily.

One thing I have found true about Fantasy books is you will either fly through them or they will drag on forever. It just depends on whether or not you get absorbed into the world the writer is trying to create. This is true of Tolkien, Brooks, Anthony, Goodkind or whoever. I read the new Brooks Shannara novel Tanequil in one day. Not because it was a great Fantasy novel (it wasn't bad though) but because I'm very familiar with the Shannara world and its characters and I ease into the stories very quickly.

Other stories like Newcombs The Chronicles of Blood and Stone series and even the Dragonriders of Pern series bored me to tears. Try as I might I could not get more than a chapter at a time before putting the books down and I never finished the first books of the series.

Tolkien could have left a few passages out, but overall he wrote and effective story.
I read the books back in H.S. and have picked them up from time to time over the years, particulalry around the time the movies came out. The movies and films are two totally different mediums, and each has its strengths and weaknesses.

Same here, after that I was ready for a smooth read,sometimes the poem and songs really distracted me.

As someone whose favorite genre is epic fantasy, I've been called a blasphemer when I say I dislike the books the Hobbit and the LOTR. Don't get me wrong - the basic story and the characters are fantastic, but boy oh boy do I hate the writing style. I never felt involved in the story, and it never felt engaging. That's why I was thrilled when they decided to make the films so well - all of the story, none of the filler that I find so boring. If you watch the extended editions, most of the story points are made, but no matter what version, the visuals are stunning. IMO the films accomplish what the books do not - they draw me in.

This is the only instance I can point to of a film being superior to a book (or series of books). Every once in a while I think I'll reread the trilogy, but I just can't force myself to slog through all of the minutiae to get to the good stuff. Most of the time it seemed more like a history tome than a set of novels, which is to say that the writing is so focused on lineage and development of a language that the story gets lost in the shuffle.

You're not the only one who didn't care for the writing, rest assured. :)

This is, of course, by design.

Remember, Tolkien's primary motivation in writing LOTR was to explore linguistics and mythology (both of which he was fascinated by), and how they intertwine.The result is a story that's not exactly standard, often with difficult (and sometimes difficultly similar) character and place names and lots of side material that exists only to fit and build the mythology.

Some people do find that harder to read. It's not what you're used to - nonstandard storytelling, in many places. The fact that it's so different is what attracts a lot of others, though. Tolkien didn't set out to write a set of novels. He set out to write a mythology - a fictional history. That's what he wanted.

Let's make sure you're clear on one thing - the traditional "high fantasy" genre was all but invented by Tolkien. Be careful calling it the D&D genre - D&D is entirely derivitive of Tolkien. D&D is a game built around many of Tolkien's ideas. To give it credit for the genre would be a tremendous injustice.

I'm sure you're already aware of this, but just in case you're not. (note for the record that I'm NOT a high fantasy fanboy - I find 99% of it to be utter crap).

Actually I didn't know that, so thanks for telling me! :) Frankly I'm not surprised, as the style is so different from a normal narrative storytelling perspective that I should have guessed that that was the case. Taken in that light, I can see myself rereading them to explore the connections as opposed to the story, which is why I read them to begin with.

I'm not a big fan of the songs either--in the past I've also skipped them, but when I re-read the books earlier this year, I made myself read them. I probably won't do that again.

I do love the books, but there is one thing about Tolkien's writing style that drives me crazy--he will devote page after page describing in excrutiating detail every twig and stone the Fellowship walks past, yet when it comes to a big event in the story (like Gandalf's vs Balrog) he spends literally 2 short paragraphs describing that. Not much of a "reward" for slogging thru the slower parts.

I read them after seeing the movies and I must admit it was like reading the Bible. It wasn't easy. However, I may read them again

The Hobbit was the easiest for me.

I read them when I was little, then reread them after the movies, and I have to admit I think the films enhanced my enjoyment this time around. There is a lot of stuff I think the movies got right that I didn't care for in the book (Like giving most of the Tom Bombadil theme to Treebeard/Gandalf. I'm of the opinion that the Bombadil character/thread is the most distracting in the book.). And, no matter how much Tolkein denied the story is any sort of allegory for the real world, the parallels are applicable to us (as in most any good adventure yarn).

I read the Hobbit & liked it. Read Fellowship & it was okay. Started Two Towers & got bogged down in the history of the tree creatures and finally had to give up. I simply couldn't take any more! Thank goodness for movies! And I've never abandoned a book in preference to a film version before.

That's about what happened to me, too, except I've always thought I should try them again. I bought a nice new set when Jackson was filming... I hope I can start in a few weeks. (I've had no free time at home for the past several months, reading the trilogy has been the "light at the end of the tunnel" for this project...)

I did recently listen to the 13 hour BBC radio-drama version (1981) and loved it... Coincidentally, Ian Holm (Bilbo in the movies) voices Frodo in the radio show... Now I'm listening to the audiobooks as a precursor to reading them myself... (All of these are available from the usual retail and non-retail computer sources...)

I read these suckers in 6th grade and don't remember it being a hard read then... I read them again about a year later... I've always loved things though like history...and to me I think part of what I liked was the big complicated world with it's own detailed history and all that other stuff and made me like it that much more. I think my favorite part from what I remember was reading the history timeline at the end of ROTK. My wife read it last year after getting into the movies..and she hates reading..and she breezed through it.

I'll admit it is a tough read compared to most modern novels. Its taken many many years of re-reading and seeing Peter Jackson's vision to really appreciate Tokiens world. And like many others, it has been one of the most rewarding books I've ever read and I go back to it constantly.

It really is one of those books I can open anywhere and get reabsorbed all over again. I discover new things every time I reread it.

I also can't recommend the word for word Audio-CD/tape of LOTR read by Rob Inglis more highly; for commited LOTR fans and those who are having a hard time getting through the book. Go to the public library and see if you they have any copies. If not try to get it. Its worth every penny. In many ways it is better than reading LOTR on your own and watching the movies.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/boo...4&fmt=AU&itm=3

I enjoyed reading them the second time more than the first. Particularly because I understood it all alot better.

It's a bit hard to get into at the start, what with all the names, locations and maps, but once I got past The Council of Elrond it was smooth sailing until the end. An incredible piece of work.

Fellowship is a bit rough at the beginning mainly because Tolkien had NO idea where he was going with the story - it is more like The Hobbit (i.e. written for kids). But it picks up fairly quickly. I thought RotK was by far the best book (or books - since there are six total that just happen to be bound in three volumes).

My girlfreind said she had problems because Tolkien kept describing sleep, and it made her fall asleep.

I always thought that was kind of funny.

I couldnt read them fast enough they were like candy for my mind.

Like most people, once I read the poems and everything once, I kind of skipped over those parts. I also tend to skip over the Bible-ish parts (x, son of xx, son of xxx, who was married to x-1, etc). It can be a long read, especially when trying to figure out where everything and everyone belongs in the grand scheme of things.

Other than those parts, I really enjoy the stories. I'll read them about every 5 years or so, and is almost a rite of passage with my family. We have a set that has been passed between pretty much everybody: aunts, uncles, grandparents. I hope to pass them on to my children someday, once I have one or two.

I've read the series 3 or 4 times, through out middle and HS. I never had any problems with reading them. In fact I would go through them pretty fast. Of course I caught on pretty early, and liked the fact that Tolkien was writting these books more has a history book for the middle earth, then as a novel.