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> Perhaps, one can say that Tolkien is 20th century‘s Shakespeare Hmm, I doubt it. The Hobbit is fun, but many adults returning to LOTR think "gosh, this is lo

by dash2 6y ago

> Perhaps, one can say that Tolkien is 20th century‘s Shakespeare Hmm, I doubt it. The Hobbit is fun, but many adults returning to LOTR think "gosh, this is long, dull and badly written". Here's an example, which is also a more interesting review than the unherd one: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n22/jenny-turner/reasons-for-liking-tolkien https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v23/n22/jenny-turner/reasons...

jfengel 6y ago
It's not uncommon for great literature to also seem long, dull, and badly written. And everybody is entitled to their taste. I don't like lots of great literature. But Tolkien is uncannily like Shakespeare in that it appeals both to people who come looking for Dungeons and Dragons, and also to academic literary scholars. There are academic conferences, and one literature professor has been doing a close reading of Lord of the Rings as a podcast for five years... and has only made it to the Council of Elrond. (https://mythgard.org/lotro/exlotr/ https://mythgard.org/lotro/exlotr/) For that matter, many people find Shakespeare long, dull, and badly written. I think Tolkien has a chance of being remembered as long as Shakespeare, and revisited in every generation the same way. We've already come a long way from the hippies seeing psychedelia in The Hobbit (which annoyed Tolkien no end). I don't believe Tolkien is quite so flexible as Shakespeare, but his work was consciously written to harken to very long traditions of English literature (going back to Anglo Saxon), and that could give it durability. That is, by the way, an excellent and insightful review. Thanks.
- amyjess 6y ago
  Finding out that hippies in the '60s were into The Hobbit was a huge headtrip. For example, Leonard Nimoy sung a ballad about it in 1967, with a music video full of dancing hippies. It's a lot of fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg
BolexNOLA 6y ago
Wow that was a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing it, I’ve never seen a take quite like it.
aikinai 6y ago
It is long, dull, and badly written, but there’s clearly some magic there; why else would millions of children and adults take to the books so deeply despite those flaws? And this was true even before it had the movies to drive marketing. My mom picked them up at a yard sale when I was nine or so, and without even knowing they were famous, I devoured them and then bought every other Tolkien book I could find. Now I can’t imagine how I made it through them at that age, but something was captivating. I couldn’t, by the way, make it though any of the other books, so my appetite for long and poorly written books only went so far.
- Kye 6y ago
  I think it's the novelty of it. Friends with kids report losing their minds after sitting through the nth replay of a Disney movie. To the kid, everything in it is new and they enjoy seeing new details each time. The adult can guess their way through any new Disney movie because they all stick close to a formula anyone with a passing interest in writing can recite. I did the same rewatching all the Star Treks, Stargates, and other '90s sci-fi TV several times. Now it's kind of...dull. It's all too familiar. Now I'm more impressed with newer scifi that tries to evolve the genre without being too different. Like: The Expanse, Farscape, Dark Matter, Another Life.
macleginn 6y ago
Well, we will have to wait for several centuries to check if the comparison really holds up. As the linked text points out, LOTR has many obvious problems, and it can be easily construed as pompous nonsense, but it is still massive, in a league of its own, etc. (As an aside, Mervyn Peake’s trilogy is 100% better literature, but who cares, basically.)
gambiting 6y ago
So this is a weird question, but I am actually serious.... Isn't all "good" literature meant to be "long dull and badly written[to the untrained eye]"? The more I think about what you said, the more I realize that the image of "nobel winning" literature that I have in my mind is by definition long, boring, impossibly allegorical and it must feel like you have to be superhuman to read it and understand it. Equally, in my mind anything that's easy and pleasant to read must be trash(because anything I have ever read that was enjoyable was dismissed later as easy-reading garbage). My only experience with "great works of literature" is of that by Polish writers since that's where I grew up, anything by Sienkiewicz or Mickiewicz is considered almost sacred, literature with the "big L" as they say, those are big names with international renown, yet their books are the most soul destroying thing I have ever read, it's just so dull. Hell, Władysław Reymont won a nobel prize(!) for his novel "Chłopi"("Peasants") yet I'd rather stab myself with a fork that try reading that again. Same with more modern authors, Umberto Eco is impossible to read unless I'm actively trying to sleep, and he's considered a "good" author. So my immediate thought after reading Lord of The Rings was....wow, it must be good(because it's so dull to read). It's almost like pavlov's instinct at this point, years of education has trained me to think dull book = great work of art.
- Kye 6y ago
  The thing about contests/awards is they're judged by people at the peaks of their careers who have seen and/or done basically everything. It's hard to impress them. So the easy stuff is cool and fun to both see and make, but also doesn't surprise the judges. Example: photography contests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk The cool, pretty, easy to access photos aren't surprising to someone who's seen it all. Anyone with enough money and time can take those photos, just as anyone with enough time and little concern for popularity can sit there and write something that surprises the people who give out writing awards.
- dash2 6y ago
  I think the problem is that LOTR is long, dull and badly written to the trained eye. (As a kid, I read it five times... including the appendices.)

by dash2 6y ago

jfengel 6y ago

It's not uncommon for great literature to also seem long, dull, and badly written. And everybody is entitled to their taste. I don't like lots of great literature. But Tolkien is uncannily like Shakespeare in that it appeals both to people who come looking for Dungeons and Dragons, and also to academic literary scholars. There are academic conferences, and one literature professor has been doing a close reading of Lord of the Rings as a podcast for five years... and has only made it to the Council of Elrond. (https://mythgard.org/lotro/exlotr/ https://mythgard.org/lotro/exlotr/) For that matter, many people find Shakespeare long, dull, and badly written. I think Tolkien has a chance of being remembered as long as Shakespeare, and revisited in every generation the same way. We've already come a long way from the hippies seeing psychedelia in The Hobbit (which annoyed Tolkien no end). I don't believe Tolkien is quite so flexible as Shakespeare, but his work was consciously written to harken to very long traditions of English literature (going back to Anglo Saxon), and that could give it durability. That is, by the way, an excellent and insightful review. Thanks.

amyjess 6y ago
Finding out that hippies in the '60s were into The Hobbit was a huge headtrip. For example, Leonard Nimoy sung a ballad about it in 1967, with a music video full of dancing hippies. It's a lot of fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC35cQKHwzg

BolexNOLA 6y ago

Wow that was a fascinating read. Thanks for sharing it, I’ve never seen a take quite like it.

aikinai 6y ago

It is long, dull, and badly written, but there’s clearly some magic there; why else would millions of children and adults take to the books so deeply despite those flaws? And this was true even before it had the movies to drive marketing. My mom picked them up at a yard sale when I was nine or so, and without even knowing they were famous, I devoured them and then bought every other Tolkien book I could find. Now I can’t imagine how I made it through them at that age, but something was captivating. I couldn’t, by the way, make it though any of the other books, so my appetite for long and poorly written books only went so far.

Kye 6y ago
I think it's the novelty of it. Friends with kids report losing their minds after sitting through the nth replay of a Disney movie. To the kid, everything in it is new and they enjoy seeing new details each time. The adult can guess their way through any new Disney movie because they all stick close to a formula anyone with a passing interest in writing can recite. I did the same rewatching all the Star Treks, Stargates, and other '90s sci-fi TV several times. Now it's kind of...dull. It's all too familiar. Now I'm more impressed with newer scifi that tries to evolve the genre without being too different. Like: The Expanse, Farscape, Dark Matter, Another Life.

macleginn 6y ago

Well, we will have to wait for several centuries to check if the comparison really holds up. As the linked text points out, LOTR has many obvious problems, and it can be easily construed as pompous nonsense, but it is still massive, in a league of its own, etc. (As an aside, Mervyn Peake’s trilogy is 100% better literature, but who cares, basically.)

gambiting 6y ago

So this is a weird question, but I am actually serious.... Isn't all "good" literature meant to be "long dull and badly written[to the untrained eye]"? The more I think about what you said, the more I realize that the image of "nobel winning" literature that I have in my mind is by definition long, boring, impossibly allegorical and it must feel like you have to be superhuman to read it and understand it. Equally, in my mind anything that's easy and pleasant to read must be trash(because anything I have ever read that was enjoyable was dismissed later as easy-reading garbage). My only experience with "great works of literature" is of that by Polish writers since that's where I grew up, anything by Sienkiewicz or Mickiewicz is considered almost sacred, literature with the "big L" as they say, those are big names with international renown, yet their books are the most soul destroying thing I have ever read, it's just so dull. Hell, Władysław Reymont won a nobel prize(!) for his novel "Chłopi"("Peasants") yet I'd rather stab myself with a fork that try reading that again. Same with more modern authors, Umberto Eco is impossible to read unless I'm actively trying to sleep, and he's considered a "good" author. So my immediate thought after reading Lord of The Rings was....wow, it must be good(because it's so dull to read). It's almost like pavlov's instinct at this point, years of education has trained me to think dull book = great work of art.

Kye 6y ago
The thing about contests/awards is they're judged by people at the peaks of their careers who have seen and/or done basically everything. It's hard to impress them. So the easy stuff is cool and fun to both see and make, but also doesn't surprise the judges. Example: photography contests. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcxcGBbLIwk The cool, pretty, easy to access photos aren't surprising to someone who's seen it all. Anyone with enough money and time can take those photos, just as anyone with enough time and little concern for popularity can sit there and write something that surprises the people who give out writing awards.
dash2 6y ago
I think the problem is that LOTR is long, dull and badly written to the trained eye. (As a kid, I read it five times... including the appendices.)