Your thoughts on the Lord of the Rings series

[pinball1970]

A conversation on "great one liners from pf members" prompted me to start this thread.

How were you introduced to the books?
What impact did the books have on you? what age?
What is special about them?
How do they stand against other works of 20thC literature?

and....what did you think of the film?

The Silmarillion is included if you went there as are his Letters.

For me they are unparalleled, although plenty of attempts have been made to emulate them.

 

[BWV]

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged.One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

(Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009])

Was seriously obsessed, read the series every few years from 4th grade until the movies came out. Liked the movies, but not the bloated The Hobbit trilogy

 

[pinball1970]

Was seriously obsessed, read the series every few years from 4th grade until the movies came out. Liked the movies, but not the bloated The Hobbit trilogy

I tried the Hobbit when I was 11 and found it too childish and silly. Luckily I became friends with a guy in secondary school who practically ordered me to read it.
Then it was LOTR.
I became lost with the geography because my book from the library did not have a map, hard to keep track!
Lord knows how many times I read it between 1980 and Uni.
Obsessed is a great word!
Magical is another.
I owned a lot of copies that got beat up over the years and I gave my son my last remaining readable copy.
Not read it for a long time, getting a copy this weekend from Waterstones.

 

[DaveC426913]

Introduced to them at the tender age of 16. Loved them. Learned to read and write Elvish (Common. High Elvish was much harder.) Can still read Elvish today.

Reread them every couple of decades.

I found the movies to be everything they needed to be to meet the high standards of the books.

Still pretty much the only High Fantasy (i.e. swords and sorcery) I'm interested in. (In general, Fantasy is too loosey-goosey for me; give me the constraining physics of sci-fi any day).

(Want to feel old? A young colleague of mine: "What? The movies were adapted from a book?? I thought they were just movies...")

 

[pinball1970]

Introduced to them at the tender age of 16. Loved them. Learned to read and write Elvish (Common. High Elvish was much harder.) Can still read Elvish today

Impressive. The only Elvish word I know is "melon."
Without checking.
I realised I could name all the chapters in order at one point, probably when I should have been knuckling down studying!

When I watched the film I was badly disappointed because the Guardian did a press release and said the film was accurate to the book.
Like the 1978 cartoon it missed out Tom Bombadil, a chapter I struggled with initially, it seemed a little trippy compared to the previous chapters. I missed the significance of parts of the chapter.
Frustratingly they also put Legolas in the place of Glorfindel in the race from the Nazgul.
The worst part was all that stuff with Arwen. Anyway the film series is still great. One has to forget the books to enjoy it properly.

 

[PeroK]

Introduced to them at the tender age of 16. Loved them. Learned to read and write Elvish (Common. High Elvish was much harder.) Can still read Elvish today.

Don't tell me you can also converse in Klingon?

 

[Hornbein]

A conversation on "great one liners from pf members" prompted me to start this thread.

How were you introduced to the books?
What impact did the books have on you? what age?
What is special about them?
How do they stand against other works of 20thC literature?

and....what did you think of the film?

The Silmarillion is included if you went there as are his Letters.

For me they are unparalleled, although plenty of attempts have been made to emulate them.

I first saw the book at an arts summer camp in 1965. It didn't have any special impact. I read lots of books.

Excellent in many ways. His mastery of language is the most outstanding. He creates a very strong mediaeval atmosphere.

Of the over a thousand books I've read, it's one of only about three that I've ever read twice. I got more out of it the second time.

The whole thing is based on the Nibelungen ring saga. Barad Dur is Borobodur in Java. Tom Bombadil is The Green Man.

The movie was OK. I only watch movies during airplane journeys and even then avoid Hollywood.

 

[pinball1970]

The whole thing is based on the Nibelungen ring saga. Barad Dur is Borobodur in Java. Tom Bombadil is The Green Man.

Never heard that, he said Elvish was based on Welsh (I think)
People and places feature from Birmingham and also from WW1 trenches (the dead marshes)
I love his writing not because it was wonderfully creative and unparalleled in terms of interweaving plot, complex politics, characters, millennium plus history, language and culture, (all true)
His ability to build up and create a feeling of suspense and dread but also relief, joy and celebration I have never read since.
The films did not capture that, not enough anyway.

 

[DaveC426913]

Don't tell me you can also converse in Klingon?

I cannot. But my friend can.

 

[Mondayman]

Got a hundred or so pages in in sixth grade and moved on to a different book. Fantasy isn't generally my thing.

The original trilogy was quite good and I enjoyed it. The Hobbit trilogy was garbage in my opinion. Basically just a bunch of CGI and predictable dialog and plot. No suspense. Acting was meh.

 

[Janus]

Never heard that, he said Elvish was based on Welsh (I think)
People and places feature from Birmingham and also from WW1 trenches (the dead marshes)
I love his writing not because it was wonderfully creative and unparalleled in terms of interweaving plot, complex politics, characters, millennium plus history, language and culture, (all true)
His ability to build up and create a feeling of suspense and dread but also relief, joy and celebration I have never read since.
The films did not capture that, not enough anyway.

High Elvish was inspired by Finnish. There are even a few words that are the almost the same and a couple that are the same:
Quenya/Finnish - meaning
Anta/antaa - give
et/et-een - forth, out
kul/kulta - gold
lap,lapse/lapsi - child
rauta/rauta - metal
ruska/ruska,ruskea - brown
tie/tie - path
tul/tulla - come
pan/panna - place(set)

 

[pinball1970]

High Elvish was inspired by Finnish. There are even a few words that are the almost the same and a couple that are the same:
Quenya/Finnish - meaning
Anta/antaa - give
et/et-een - forth, out
kul/kulta - gold
lap,lapse/lapsi - child
rauta/rauta - metal
ruska/ruska,ruskea - brown
tie/tie - path
tul/tulla - come
pan/panna - place(set)

His letters were hard going from memory, 1990s. I'll check sources and feedback.
Did you like the books?

 

[pinball1970]

Got a hundred or so pages in in sixth grade and moved on to a different book. Fantasy isn't generally my thing.

The original trilogy was quite good and I enjoyed it. The Hobbit trilogy was garbage in my opinion. Basically just a bunch of CGI and predictable dialog and plot. No suspense. Acting was meh.

Still not seen the Hobbit films. Just parts of the first.

 

[hutchphd]

Harvard Lampoon "Bored of the Rings" sort of took the wonder out of it for me. But then again who can forget Goodgulf the wizard and the dreaded Narcs from the hills.

 

[DennisN]

How were you introduced to the books?
What impact did the books have on you? what age?
What is special about them?
How do they stand against other works of 20thC literature?

and....what did you think of the film?

1. My neighbor of the same age as me handed me The Hobbit and told me to read it.

2. I was about 15 years old. It had a big impact on me, it introduced me to fantasy literature and soon afterwards I read The Lord of the Rings too, of course. That same friend also recommended Watership Down, which I also loved (the story about rabbits, with some flavors of fantasy too).

3. Well... what is not special about them? :)
The work of Tolkien is pretty much unique (at least at first, now there are loads of fantasy literature).

Tolkien wasn't the very first fantasy author, but his immense talent for in-depth world building, race (elf, dwarf etc.) building, language building etc. along with compelling storytelling made a huge impact on our culture and propelled the fantasy genre into widespread popularity in a modern age.

4. Pretty good, I think. And as I said above, Tolkien was pretty unique, and hugely influential.

5. I liked the films. My favorite is the first one. I thought there was an extra touch of wonder and fairy tale magic to the first film. I rank it as a 5++ on a scale from 1 to 5.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Thoughts?

How do we know that Sauron was evil? We actually see very little of him. We have only Gandalf's word - and he's hardly a disinterested party - for it. Sure, Sauron lived in Mordor - but does living in a slum make you evil? In fact, he tried to move to an upscale neighborhood, Dol Guldur. Adn who chased him out? Gandalf.

Who are the good guys here? And are you sure?

 

[Bandersnatch]

Saruman's project of uplifting the wretched was quashed by reactionary racist violence.
For more hot takes tune in to Middle Earth Tonight with Grima Wormtongue at eleven.

 

[Hornbein]

Never heard that, he said Elvish was based on Welsh (I think)
People and places feature from Birmingham and also from WW1 trenches (the dead marshes)
I love his writing not because it was wonderfully creative and unparalleled in terms of interweaving plot, complex politics, characters, millennium plus history, language and culture, (all true)
His ability to build up and create a feeling of suspense and dread but also relief, joy and celebration I have never read since.
The films did not capture that, not enough anyway.

Birmingham! Do tell us more.

 

[Vanadium 50]

And why did Aragon get to be the King of Men? He's descended from elves. He married an elf. Should not Men follow their own destiny, out from the thumb of the elves? And who decides?

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses!

 

[DaveC426913]

Not sure why everyone's down on the Hobbit Trilogy. Is it by comparison to the book?

I mean, were the three films in-and-of-themselves bad?

 

[DaveC426913]

Harvard Lampoon "Bored of the Rings" sort of took the wonder out of it for me. But then again who can forget Goodgulf the wizard and the dreaded Narcs from the hills.

Yes. Oh my God. One of the funniest things I had ever read in my then short and tender life.

Can't even write Bilbo's name here without it getting censored.

 

[Bandersnatch]

I first read LotR in translation. Hobbit and Silmarilion too. That they were all lovely in their slightly different ways goes without saying.
At some point a new edition of LotR came out, helmed by a different translator who had somewhat radical ideas on how to improve on the predecessor (and boy, do some translators have ideas).
The geeks nearly rioted in the streets over the new renditions of 'dwarves', 'Strider', or Frodo's surname. For a good few years after one could earn a hefty amount of brownie points in the nerdsphere by loudly espousing the perceived superiority of one over the other.
I got to reading the original much later, and found the writing very... quaint. Stuffy and overwrought with linguistic flair. With not much care given to being the easy read I remembered.

 

[DaveC426913]

I first read LotR in translation. Hobbit and Silmarilion too. That they were all lovely in their slightly different ways goes without saying.
At some point a new edition of LotR came out, helmed by a different translator who had somewhat radical ideas on how to improve on the predecessor (and boy, do some translators have ideas).
The geeks nearly rioted in the streets over the new renditions of 'dwarves', 'Strider', or Frodo's surname. For a good few years after one could earn a hefty amount of brownie points in the nerdsphere by loudly espousing the perceived superiority of one over the other.
I got to reading the original much later, and found the writing very... quaint. Stuffy and overwrought with linguistic flair. With not much care given to being the easy read I remembered.

What? Interpreting LoTR? That's gotta be blasphemy.
What language did you first read it in?

 

[Bandersnatch]

Polish.

And why did Aragon get to be the King of Men? He's descended from elves. He married an elf. Should not Men follow their own destiny, out from the thumb of the elves? And who decides?

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses!

If strange women distributing swords can in fact be a basis for a system of government, then why squint at a homeless man with a dodgy past disturbing a graveyard?

 

[BWV]

What? Interpreting LoTR? That's gotta be blasphemy.
What language did you first read it in?

Need to read it in the original Elvish version

 

[Mondayman]

I mean, were the three films in-and-of-themselves bad?

Some may disagree. Some people are entertained by CGI fight scenes. I've seen far worse movies for sure.

I found it to be bland and predictable. You just know what's going to happen next. The acting wasn't good from what I remember. And it was just so long to sit through.

 

[BWV]

Not sure why everyone's down on the Hobbit Trilogy. Is it by comparison to the book?

I mean, were the three films in-and-of-themselves bad?

watchable, but not up to the standard of LOTR. Too much non-Tolkien filler material. Also ridiculously unbelievable CGI stunts (not that this was not also an issue with LOTR)

 

[Klystron]

Don't tell me you can also converse in Klingon?

My late mother and sister conversed in Klingon, spending enjoyable hours at my home town's StarTrek Experience, close to a favorite hotel. Klingons know how to party. entertain visitors.My first Tolkien age twelve, a new paperback titled "The Hobbitt: or Here...". I enjoyed Tolkiens writing style and tragic characters. Frodo button wearers, frantic LOTR fans, and literary references sufficed for me to follow T's essential storyline until watching the films, not to mention series inspired by his work.

Andy Serkis brings Gollum off the page, galloping and sneaking through several revisions. What appear to be hobbit detriments, such as small posture and large appetites, emerge as strengths on the road. The Hobbit movie series held true to carefully crafted characters even as the material journeyed far from its source.

 

[Janus]

His letters were hard going from memory, 1990s. I'll check sources and feedback.
Did you like the books?

From the wiki page on Quenya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quenya

Tolkien took an interest in the Finnish mythology of the Kalevala, then became acquainted with Finnish, which he found to provide an aesthetically pleasing inspiration for his High-elven language. Many years later, he wrote: "It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me."[T 2] Regarding the inspiration for Quenya, Tolkien wrote that:

The ingredients in Quenya are various, but worked out into a self-consistent character not precisely like any language that I know. Finnish, which I came across when I had first begun to construct a 'mythology' was a dominant influence, but that has been much reduced [now in late Quenya]. It survives in some features: such as the absence of any consonant combinations initially, the absence of the voiced stops b, d, g (except in mb, nd, ng, ld, rd, which are favoured) and the fondness for the ending -inen, -ainen, -oinen, also in some points of grammar, such as the inflexional endings -sse (rest at or in), -nna (movement to, towards), and -llo (movement from); the personal possessives are also expressed by suffixes; there is no gender.[T 3]

 

[pinball1970]

Harvard Lampoon "Bored of the Rings" sort of took the wonder out of it for me. But then again who can forget Goodgulf the wizard and the dreaded Narcs from the hills.

Its only a little book isnt it? I thought it was funny. Great title.

 

[pinball1970]

And why did Aragon get to be the King of Men? He's descended from elves. He married an elf. Should not Men follow their own destiny, out from the thumb of the elves? And who decides?

Because he is Aragorn son of Arathorn, also called Elessar the Elfstone, Dunadan. The heir of Isildur Elendil's son of Gondor. He holds the Sword that was Broken and is forged again.

 

[pinball1970]

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses!

.....not from some farcical aquatic ceremony

 

[pinball1970]

Birmingham! Do tell us more.

Nice article here

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/...n-original-shire-sarehole-birmingham-hobbiton

 

[Rive]

I tried the Hobbit when I was 11 and found it too childish and silly.

I can't recall when I got the chance to read it, but it was after both LOTR and Silmarillion.
Did not made an impact. I don't think I could finish it. I can't even recall if I did or not.

What I found funny about Silmarillion was that with all that compressed and dry storytelling the whole LOTR books got done in a few sentences.

 

[Hornbein]

And why did Aragon get to be the King of Men? He's descended from elves. He married an elf. Should not Men follow their own destiny, out from the thumb of the elves? And who decides?

Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses!

Foolish men! Bereft of the succor of Aragon Minas Tirith falls before the might of Sauron. Do you pine for a taste of that kettle o' fish?

 

[Hornbein]

From the wiki page on Quenya
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quenya

Tolkien took an interest in the Finnish mythology of the Kalevala, then became acquainted with Finnish, which he found to provide an aesthetically pleasing inspiration for his High-elven language. Many years later, he wrote: "It was like discovering a complete wine-cellar filled with bottles of an amazing wine of a kind and flavour never tasted before. It quite intoxicated me."[T 2] Regarding the inspiration for Quenya, Tolkien wrote that:

Finnish is a Mongolian language unrelated to Indo-European.

In Bali I had a Finnish neighbor. He moved out and left some Finnish books behind. I took them to an open library in a restaurant where I happened to spy a young lady who had the Mongolian cheekbones and blond hair of a Finn. Would you like to have these books? She was and she would.

 

[Hornbein]

With not much care given to being the easy read I remembered.

Easy!?! Forsooth!

 

[strangerep]

Impressive. The only Elvish word I know is "melon."

I actually composed music to many of the poems/songs. (Long before Howard Shore came along and mostly blew away my puny efforts.)

"Into the West" is one of my favorite songs of all time, even though the non-Tolkien lyrics are a bit clumsy compared to JRR. E.g., "And dream of the ones who came before" is a touch clumsy when sung with the music. Imho, "And dream of those who came before" would have been better.

Except for...

Ai! laurië lantar lassi súrinen,
yéni únótimë ve rámar aldaron!
[...]

For that, I still like my composition better than what was in the film, although mine is not really a Gregorian chant as Tolkien apparently intended.

Frustratingly they also put Legolas in the place of Glorfindel in the race from the Nazgul.

Huh? In the film, Arwen saves Frodo from the Nazgul, not Legolas. I didn't like that substitution initially, but now I don't mind it. The closeness of the horse chase was a bit implausible in places, but I absolutely loved that scene at the Ford of Bruinen with Arwen rampant, challenging the Nazgul.

The worst part was all that stuff with Arwen.

JRR once admitted that he always had difficulty with female characters. He tended to put them up on remote unobtainable pedestals, whereas Jackson's version is more of a "modern" woman.

I didn't mind the rest of the stuff with Arwen. Even now, when I re-read the Tale of Aragorn & Arwen it makes me feel quite sad at the end.

I almost hope they never make a film about the Tale of Beren & Luthien. The older I get, the more horrible it feels.

Anyway the film series is still great. One has to forget the books to enjoy it properly.

I just wish Cate Blanchett had actually studied the LoTR books properly beforehand. She doesn't really grok the true depths of Galadriel, imho. (See "Unfinished Tales" if you don't know what I mean.)

 

[strangerep]

And why did Aragon get to be the King of Men? He's descended from elves. He married an elf.

Sheesh. I hope you're just trolling, as usual.

Aragon and Arwen united the long-sundered lines of the half-elven, i.e., Elrond, and Elros (1st king of Numenor). Haven't you read the Silmarillion??

[Hmm, I'm almost embarassed by how much I know about LoTR.]

 

[pinball1970]

Huh? In the film, Arwen saves Frodo from the Nazgul, not Legolas. I didn't like that substitution initially, but now I don't mind it. The closeness of the horse chase was a bit implausible in places, but I absolutely loved that scene at the Ford of Bruinen with Arwen rampant, challenging the Nazgul.JRR once admitted that he always had difficulty with female characters. He tended to put them up on remote unobtainable pedestals, whereas Jackson's version is more of a "modern" woman.

1978 it was Legolas and Arwen in the film both missed Glorfindel revealing himself as an Elf lord.

The women are mainly secondary even though Galadriel is one of the most ancient and powerful elves in the story.
The mirror of Galadriel is her most significant part of the book probably, still smallish.
Arwen pretty insignificant and for me only Eowyn has a really significant part.

 

[pinball1970]

1. My neighbor of the same age as me handed me The Hobbit and told me to read it.

2. I was about 15 years old. It had a big impact on me, it introduced me to fantasy literature and soon afterwards I read The Lord of the Rings too, of course. That same friend also recommended Watership Down, which I also loved (the story about rabbits, with some flavors of fantasy too).

3. Well... what is not special about them? :)
The work of Tolkien is pretty much unique (at least at first, now there are loads of fantasy literature).

Tolkien wasn't the very first fantasy author, but his immense talent for in-depth world building, race (elf, dwarf etc.) building, language building etc. along with compelling storytelling made a huge impact on our culture and propelled the fantasy genre into widespread popularity in a modern age.

4. Pretty good, I think. And as I said above, Tolkien was pretty unique, and hugely influential.

5. I liked the films. My favorite is the first one. I thought there was an extra touch of wonder and fairy tale magic to the first film. I rank it as a 5++ on a scale from 1 to 5.

The only fantasy I encountered before LOTR was CS Lewis, Narnia series and Roald Dahl.
There was a great series called, “Tim and hidden people,” quite dark for a children’s book but I loved it.
It was for 8 year olds or something but it was new in our library and I like the pictures on the cover!

“Watership Down” was great as was “Duncton Wood,” (I read as an adult) and “The Weirdstone of Brisingamen.”

The Hobbit seemed silly to me by the time I read it, same with books like Toad of Toad hall and Lewis Carrol, never got into those.
I tried again with some of those classics but could not read them, it was LOTR or horror from then on and horror fell by the wayside because we had to start reading proper English Literature by then.

As an Adult I tried David Eddings, Stephen Donaldson, Jim Abercrombie and others all ok in their own way.

Very rare I read fiction these days.

 

[Janus]

Finnish is a Mongolian language unrelated to Indo-European.

In Bali I had a Finnish neighbor. He moved out and left some Finnish books behind. I took them to an open library in a restaurant where I happened to spy a young lady who had the Mongolian cheekbones and blond hair of a Finn. Would you like to have these books? She was and she would.

Though Finnish myself ( born in US, but all my grandparents were born in Finland), I never learned the language growing up, even though my parents spoke it. (about the most I knew was, Jo and Ei for yes and no, and how to pronounce sauna properly.) This is something I've always regretted. It wasn't until a couple of years ago, when I finally found an app that covered it that I began to pick up some more.
Even without understanding the language, I remember that during the scene where Arwen cast her spell over the river, that her chant hit chords that reminded me of the Finnish I heard my parents conversing in.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Not sure why everyone's down on the Hobbit Trilogy. Is it by comparison to the book?

Those movies were doomed from the get-go.

• It is the rare prequel indeed that is as good as the original.
• Many of the stakeholders wantyed another Grand Epic, and that's npt really what the story is.
• There is about 25% as much source material for the same length of films.
• The source was really,.if not a children's story, at least a Youbng Adult story.

 

[BWV]

Finnish is a Mongolian language unrelated to Indo-European.

Dont think that is correct, Finnish is Uralic and cannot find any reference that states any relation to Mongolian languages

 

[Hornbein]

Dont think that is correct, Finnish is Uralic and cannot find any reference that states any relation to Mongolian languages
View attachment 329225

I thought Mongolian languages were Uralic. Maybe not. It was twenty years ago that I looked that this stuff. Anyway, not Indo-European.

 

[strangerep]

1978 it was Legolas [..]

Ah. I saw the animated film when it came out, but was very disappointed. I now remember very little of it, except how ridiculous was their depiction of the balrog.

 

[strangerep]

Very rare I read fiction these days.

I'd have said the same thing, except that I now read quite a few MOND papers, too much of which is crack(pot) fiction, imho.

 

[pinball1970]

Finnish is a Mongolian language unrelated to Indo-European.

In Bali I had a Finnish neighbor. He moved out and left some Finnish books behind. I took them to an open library in a restaurant where I happened to spy a young lady who had the Mongolian cheekbones and blond hair of a Finn. Would you like to have these books? She was and she would.

My ex was Hungarian and mentioned Finnish, same family or something.

 

[Hornbein]

Very rare I read fiction these days.

My ex was Hungarian and mentioned Finnish, same family or something.

They're both Uralic languages. They say it is difficult to cross over to Indo-European and vice versa.

Hungarian has a lot of the same ts sounds as Chinese, at least to my quite limited exposure.

 

[Vanadium 50]

united the long-sundered lines

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Divine right of kings, rolyal blood and all that.

The Royal House of Gondor mucked it up in Numenor, and then abandoned Gondor to go camping - for something like a thousand years. If you want a modern example, what would the reaction of His Majesty King Charles be to someone who comes in saying "Hi, Chucky-boy. I'm Billy Plantagenet and I think you're sitting in my chair. Off you go!"