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I've finally finished Lord of the Rings.  All 1008 pages (my edition).

I feel like it's wrong to say I like the movies more, because (a) you're not supposed to like movies more than books, (b) you're not supposed to like adaptations more than originals.  After all, what's put forth in the book was what Tolkien intended.  The movie is Jackson's (and Walsh's and Boyens') interpretation of the book.  I guess I will say this: I understand when fans of the book criticize the movies.  I don't understand when fans of the book also love the movies, or think that they're a good interpretation of the book.  Because I feel like they aren't even telling the same story.  

I maintain that Return of the King should have been called Return of the Gandalf.  And I didn't like Gandalf.  At all.  So you can imagine what that was like for me.  I just wanted him to shut up and go away, go sit in the woods and smoke or something, but he had his fingers in every pie.  He says everything important.  He makes all important decisions.  He determines where everyone else goes and what everyone else does.  I finally gave up when during the coronation Aragorn requests that Frodo crown him, so Frodo takes the crown out of the box, and gives it to Gandalf, who actually crowns him.  I was like "Get Frodo a frakking stool!"  Anyway.  Reading about him and the humans he spends most of his time with made me really sympathetic to pro-Mordor Russian remakes. 

Though I'm not so sure about the most famous attacks on LOTR written by other fantasy writers. 
  • Michael Moorcock's "Epic Pooh": I don't think Tolkien forces a happy ending on his readers at all, seeing as how it ends with poor beleaguered Frodo getting some assisted suicide to cure his PTSD while hobbits that had it easier go gallivanting around the Shire claiming all the glory.  Downright bitter ending if you ask me, made even worse if you then read "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen" in the appendices.  But I wonder - I'm pretty sure that I'm supposed to like Merry and Pippin, and I'm supposed to find the Grey Havens to be a soothing reward, but I don't, so I might be reading the ending to be more depressing than Tolkien intended it to be.  The idealization of the Shire also didn't feel as problematic to me as it did to Moorcock.  The Shire isn't portrayed with nearly as much hyperbole as Gondor and the Numenoreans.
  • Richard Morgan's "The Real Fantastic Stuff": I don't even get this essay, because I thought Frodo and Sam and Gollum, as a trio, were a great representation of the human reality of war, down in the trenches.  While I too enjoyed the orcs' perspective, I think Morgan's being unfair to the former three characters.  This little article actually makes me wonder if Morgan just doesn't believe in the possibility of characters that are not rough and "hardcore."  I haven't read Morgan so I wouldn't know.  But I wouldn't call the good guys in LOTR "irritatingly radiant."  I just wished they didn't all sound the same, i.e., like Gandalf (except if they're hobbits). 
I think Tolkien's pacing is really terrible.  And pacing isn't even a big thing for me.  Maybe I just didn't want to read about what he clearly wanted to write about.  The climactic ring-into-the-fire scene?  One page, my edition.  One out of 1008.  But something like ten pages straight devoted to Eowyn and Faramir talking to each other.  Or Tolkien would spend so much time describing something like going down a cliff with magic ropes, but then a battle would be like "and slew many orcs," period.  It was just weird.  It felt off to me.  Like the kinds of things Tolkien actually enjoyed describing in detail were not the kinds of things he made the story revolve around. 

And as I said earlier/before, Tolkien's characterization is a little too weak for me.  There are glimmers of interesting people - like the scene where Merry describes Eowyn as a suicidal soldier, that was like, "whoa."  But her shining moment goes by very fast (and after doing a good job with ominous build-up re: the ringwraiths and their fell beasts, was pretty anti-climactic, as usual), and then she's all "okay, no more fighting for me," so, uhh.  I couldn't tell most of the human men apart.  They all have the same values and thought processes and no visible inner life at all.  Tolkien does give an inner life to the hobbits, probably because they represent English people, but it makes the human men look like cardboard.  Really, really skilled cardboard.  Gimli and Legolas are one-note wonders.  Bill the pony is more of a three-dimensional character than these guys. 

The exception: Denethor.  He gets a much fairer shake in the book than he gets in the movie.

So, I don't know.  Not having read it at a younger age, and not having a stake in the way the fantasy genre bends, I don't have an extreme reaction to LOTR either way.  I do think that people like Morgan, who loved it at 14 and is now apparently allergic to it, hate on LOTR more than it deserves because they consider themselves to have "grown out of it" (he says in the comments:  "I’m a lot different now than I was at fourteen. What does surprise me is that other readers haven’t gone through that same transitional process.").  This kind of reaction is especially ironic to me because this is exactly the kind of thing that gets fantasy fans so angry when non-fantasy types say it ("geez, haven't you transitioned to grown-up literature yet", etc.).  But that sort of passive-aggressive condescension is alive and well within the genre.  Christ.  We all want to be more grown-up than somebody, I guess.  Also, I didn't grow out of what I liked at age 14, so neener-neener.  

In the end, I don't think that Tolkien was trying to do what a lot of his critics seem to want him to do.  To some extent that includes me.  As to what he was trying to do - well, I'd guess, telling a moralistic story and trying to salvage some good and nobility out of what he considered a corrupted world, creating a sort of creation-myth for the British Isles, and giving a platform for lots and lots of poetry.  I think to some extent he succeeded at this, since like I said my mother thinks LOTR was written in the 1500s (she continued to think this even after I corrected her).  He was definitely not trying to become king of epic fantasy.  He was not trying to be realistic either.  I similarly doubt he cared much about compelling, unique characters.  I actually appreciate that Tolkien was actually trying to write about morality and goodness (and evil, to a lesser extent...).  I don't particularly like the results, but I think a significant reason for that is my issues with the way LOTR is written (the characters, the pacing, the Gandalf).  And with his obsession on royalty and noble blood lines and all that squicky stuff (I actually think that this, more than anything else, is where Tolkien and I split ways).  But it's crazy to me that anyone thinks LOTR is written for children.  I actually think the best readership for it might be old people. 

Date: 2011-06-21 08:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
Really enjoyed your thoughts on this, especially what you say in the last paragraph.

It's one that didn't age well for me, but I do have other things that I liked at fourteen that I still like, so it's not a matter of "growing up." And I still like it fine if I read it with the right mind--but it's hard for me to adopt the right mind.



Date: 2011-06-22 03:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
Thanks. It's funny, because I started off thinking about all the things I didn't like, but then when I was reading the famous criticisms of LOTR I actually wound up feeling like I needed to defend it.

Date: 2011-06-22 03:09 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
I think your point about recognizing what it's trying to do and not trying to do was a good one.

Date: 2011-06-21 08:04 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com
It's important for fantasists to kill their father. Tribe and totem and whatnot.

Date: 2011-06-22 03:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
Do sci fi writers need to do the same thing? Asimov still seems to be highly-esteemed, but maybe I'm not looking in the right places.

Date: 2011-06-22 03:02 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nihilistic-kid.livejournal.com
Nah. There it's more like actual science, or at least how science is imagined. Build on previous results and whatnot.

Date: 2011-06-22 03:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
Ah, how appropriate.

Date: 2011-06-21 08:22 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wendigomountain.livejournal.com
This is probably one of the best essays I've read on the subject. I've read some others which span from the criticism of Tolkien's racist stereotypes to his intent of creating a written oral tradition and inventing languages and how flights of angels leap into the skies from his anus.

You nailed it with the pacing, the characters, and the fixation with minutiae that daunted me as a reader at the age of 14. I liked the books, and see why they've been used as a template for probably better writers who have come after to tell pretty much the same tale. But looking back, I've read MUCH better since then. And a lot less pedantic.

I remember one part, probably when Gimli is showing off some caves to his BFF, Legolas and the descriptions that never, never quit, and then after so long, being immersed in these details, I realized it had been around 50 pages since anyone had an actual conversation. When it happened, I nearly lost my shit. Quotation marks! Hooray!

Honestly, I like the movies better too. Especially since they omitted that Tom Bombadil damage.

Date: 2011-06-22 02:59 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
Damn, thanks! I think that it's been used as a template for worse writers to tell the same basic story as well.

Yeah, Tom Bombadil... I actually started dreading anybody mentioning him.

Date: 2011-06-22 04:10 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wendigomountain.livejournal.com
Why? What's there to fear from a man in a world that hasn't figured out gunpowder that wears yellow rainboots and has a wife so far out of his league that if her league was to explode, his wouldn't hear it for two weeks? Also, the ring has absolutely no effect on the bastard.

Tolkien demonstrated what Philip Pullman tried to with his books. God being a higher being that wanted nothing more than to sit around all day with a supermodel whilst getting baked on Hobbit leaf.

Date: 2011-06-22 04:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
Haha, somehow I don't think that's what Tolkien was trying to do...

Date: 2011-06-21 09:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
Hey, it occurs to me: could your mom be thinking of the Ring of the Nibelungs, part of which was based on the twelfth-century Nibelungenlied?

ETA question mark!
Edited Date: 2011-06-21 09:00 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-06-22 02:44 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
I don't think so, although I guess it's possible (just because my mom is not well-versed in Western mythology, and she thought this after seeing the movies and reading The Hobbit with me as a kid).

Date: 2011-06-21 09:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cucumberseed.livejournal.com
I cannot think of anything in this with which I disagree, and several things that I hadn't thought to the extent that you have. Also, thank you for reminding me that I have a copy of The Last Ringbearer. The first couple of chapters are fairly promising.

I suspect that many who claim to hate the things they loved at 14 got badly humiliated by someone reacting to their passions when they were 15.

I have no strong reaction to Tolkien, other than LotR was dense and slog and damned deadly arduous, and for all that a work with merits and faults which are really useful to observe as a fantasist, once I got over the fact that anybody who speaks English and writes fantasy is going to have to contend with his shadow.

Since I've been doing the Fantasyscapes articles, I've really begun to get a better appreciation of how big that shadow is. I've actually had a pretty difficult time coming up with significant locations/terrain that I can talk about, not mention Tolkien and not have the feeling that the first comment is going to contain it's corresponding location from LotR.

Date: 2011-06-22 02:47 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
I suspect that many who claim to hate the things they loved at 14 got badly humiliated by someone reacting to their passions when they were 15.

Good point. It's like a defensive/denial maneuver that becomes so strong it morphs into aggression.

Date: 2011-06-22 02:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cucumberseed.livejournal.com
It could also be me projecting so hard I could show PowerPoint slides, but a not insignificant portion of my experiences with others supports the trope as well.

Date: 2011-06-22 02:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
Oh, I went through that phase myself, with a certain manga, so I understand. But then I ended up circling back around and saying IDGAF - I couldn't deny its influence on me, after all. Credit goes where credit's due, etc.

Date: 2011-06-22 03:11 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] asakiyume.livejournal.com
bet I know the manga :D

Date: 2011-06-22 03:13 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
LOL you know you do!

Date: 2011-06-21 10:33 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] barry-king.livejournal.com
And with his obsession on royalty and noble blood lines and all that squicky stuff (I actually think that this, more than anything else, is where Tolkien and I split ways). ETA: typo.

This is the part that's gotten more difficult for me through the years, more so in The Silmarillion than in LotR, but still very present. I feel like I'm reading a textual equivalent of a mediaeval painting, where the nobles are writ far out of proportion to the other characters, and the good are just so very good and the evil are so very evil. 'Tis dull stuff at times.

But I still feel a strong affinity with his love of language, not just its use but its writing and syntax, and the modes of formal use. Some of that underlying culture is so intertwined to the story and the telling thereof that it isn't strictly noticeable. But, like a good composer returning to old themes, some of them are lurking right under the surface. It's a work of love, so although I can't disagree with a lot of what you say, I'm less inclined to deconstruct and critique that rambling old hedge of words. Though I admit it's largely because I don't really want a view of what's on the other side.
Edited Date: 2011-06-21 10:33 pm (UTC)

Date: 2011-06-22 02:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intertribal.livejournal.com
a textual equivalent of a mediaeval painting

I think this is a great way of putting it. Like those Unicorn Tapestries! And I sort of suspect Tolkien would be happy with that.

LOTR fans in my family feel that way. I think I got a sense of some of what you're talking about, but for whatever reason I couldn't quite get there.

Date: 2011-06-23 02:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] yamamanama.livejournal.com
I remember the stuff with Frodo, Sam, and Gollum/Smeagol distinctly but I barely remember the stuff with the rest of the Fellowship.

Fun fact: There's a bootleg of the second movie in which Gimli asks to be toasted.

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