2 ms·

Why is that? Basically why you dislike Tolkien, as LotR and TWoE have different flavor so liking one over the other isn't strange.

pmoriarty 6y ago
It just always seemed super boring, generic, and unimaginative. The hobbits were also annoying for their one-dimensional, unimaginative, middle-class goodness. Yes, I know that one of the reason Tolkien's work seems so cliche today is that so much has been influenced by it. Maybe if I'd read it in the 40's or 50's I would have been more impressed, but as I read it in the 80's, by then it already seemed way too generic. By the way, I am a fan of much older literature than Tolkien, and consider the works that Tolkien himself was probably inspired by to be much more lively, authentic, imaginative, and well written than anything Tolkien himself ever wrote. Things like, say, Apulius' The Golden Ass, a Roman fantasy written in 1 AD. Or virtually any of ETA Hoffmann's work -- written in the 1700's. Or Poe (1800's), or Blackwood (early 1900's), or the French Decadents (1890's), etc.. Or the Mahabarate (400 BC or even earlier). Or The Count of Monte Cristo (1800's). Etc, etc, etc.. These works were all far more complex, three-dimensional, interesting, and insightful than the "good guys team up to defeat the big baddie" that LoTR brought.. not that that in itself had to doom Tolkien's work, if he had any profound insight in to the world or the human condition, or maybe had some interesting characters, but he had none. To me Tolkien has always just seemed as nothing more than a mediocre writer who'd have been long forgotten if there was any justice in world of literature, but instead he's gotten massively overrated.
- tomgp 6y ago
  You should check out Le Guin’s appreciation of LOTR in ‘a wave in the mind’. Both Le Guin (esp Earthsea) and Tolkien really work well being read aloud and reading her breakdown of the rhythms of the opening sections of LOTR was a revelation to me.

pmoriarty 6y ago

It just always seemed super boring, generic, and unimaginative. The hobbits were also annoying for their one-dimensional, unimaginative, middle-class goodness. Yes, I know that one of the reason Tolkien's work seems so cliche today is that so much has been influenced by it. Maybe if I'd read it in the 40's or 50's I would have been more impressed, but as I read it in the 80's, by then it already seemed way too generic. By the way, I am a fan of much older literature than Tolkien, and consider the works that Tolkien himself was probably inspired by to be much more lively, authentic, imaginative, and well written than anything Tolkien himself ever wrote. Things like, say, Apulius' The Golden Ass, a Roman fantasy written in 1 AD. Or virtually any of ETA Hoffmann's work -- written in the 1700's. Or Poe (1800's), or Blackwood (early 1900's), or the French Decadents (1890's), etc.. Or the Mahabarate (400 BC or even earlier). Or The Count of Monte Cristo (1800's). Etc, etc, etc.. These works were all far more complex, three-dimensional, interesting, and insightful than the "good guys team up to defeat the big baddie" that LoTR brought.. not that that in itself had to doom Tolkien's work, if he had any profound insight in to the world or the human condition, or maybe had some interesting characters, but he had none. To me Tolkien has always just seemed as nothing more than a mediocre writer who'd have been long forgotten if there was any justice in world of literature, but instead he's gotten massively overrated.

tomgp 6y ago
You should check out Le Guin’s appreciation of LOTR in ‘a wave in the mind’. Both Le Guin (esp Earthsea) and Tolkien really work well being read aloud and reading her breakdown of the rhythms of the opening sections of LOTR was a revelation to me.