LOTR Or The Hobbit II?

[Boromir88]

If we're talking about the tone of LOTR and the difference in the tone of The Hobbit, I think some might find the "narrator's voice" enlightening to to the topic.

As John Rateliff illuminates in The History of the Hobbit, Tolkien never really liked the "Narrator's voice" in The Hobbit, feeling it talked down to the audience:

The narrator's importance to the story is usually slighted by critics who would prefer The Hobbit to conform to and resemble its sequel in every possible detail. In later years Tolkien came to regard the tone of the intrusive narrator's remarks as condescending, feeling that it marked the book as targeted for children, and said over and over again in letters that he regretted this, considering it an error on his part and a severe flaw in the book.~History of the Hobbit Part 1; Bladorthin script

Rateliff however, appears to be a proponent of the Narrator's voice:

Finally, there is the voice of the narrator, an essential element in establishing the overall tone of the story and hence of the book's success.

Well, I suppose there is no denying that it was an "essential element" of the book, and Tolkien didn't seem happy with it even thinking it was condescending and a "severe flaw."

Personally, I always rather liked the Narrator, and the tone the voice establishes in The Hobbit. As the story continues, the Narrator gets used less and less as the book changes from light-hearted to a more serious tone. However, I don't think it's good or bad writing, just a matter of personal taste. Something the reader will probably either love or dislike (not much middle-ground ). I would have been most disappointed if a book of LOTR's magnitude and darkness used the Narrator's voice. But for The Hobbit I quite like it.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Boromir88

Personally, I always rather liked the Narrator, and the tone the voice establishes in The Hobbit. As the story continues, the Narrator gets used less and less as the book changes from light-hearted to a more serious tone. However, I don't think it's good or bad writing, just a matter of personal taste. Something the reader will probably either love or dislike (not much middle-ground ). I would have been most disappointed if a book of LOTR's magnitude and darkness used the Narrator's voice. But for The Hobbit I quite like it.

Yes, it's not at all an essentially 'bad' thing. It's something you find in children's books even now, though more often in stories aimed at younger kids. If you read a lot of children's lit from a hundred years ago or more, you find it used quite often. It's not that Tolkien wrote 'badly', he wrote in a perfectly acceptable tone for a children's book, especially one of his era. Even JK Rowling starts the Harry Potter series with a more authorial tone which she lost rapidly as the books kept coming.

Tolkien did indeed dislike it - Verlyn Flieger brought it up in a lecture at Birmingham 2005 where she highlighted that it was a prime example of the 'pigwiggenry' Tolkien deplored so much in On Fairy Stories.