Lord of the Rings boring books

[Lotrelf]

I do not mean to be pestering to anyone, but I'm curious to know (since my questions have been buried within for months and months) why are their arguments that JRRT wasn't a very good writer?

I wouldn't pretend to know much about writing since I truly don't. I have had my own reasons and standards to see which book I like and will read and which ones I won't or can't, and the only book I have read and found impossibly horrible is Gone Girl (ugh, it still makes me cringe!).

Professor Tolkien comes off as an ideal writer who has explored everything in his works, and apart from him I absolutely love Charles Dickens.

Just one question, if it can be answered.

[Kuruharan]

Originally Posted by Lotrelf

I do not mean to be pestering to anyone, but I'm curious to know (since my questions have been buried within for months and months) why are their arguments that JRRT wasn't a very good writer?

It varies from person to person. Good writing is in many respects in the eye of the beholder.

That being said, a common complaint about The Lord of the Rings is that it is slow to get going. That is hard to disagree with. It just comes down to whether the individual likes that or not.

People also complain that Tolkien is too descriptive of a writer. That too is a matter of taste (although I think those people are objectively on some powerful, brain-addling drug).

[Nerwen]

Bumping because I had a few more comments-

Remember, these things aren't static. Until a few years ago you'd hard put to find any but the most backhanded "praise" of Tolkien's writing in the online SF&F fan community. Used to be the general view, in many areas of the net, that he was "a decent worldbuilder but a terrible writer" whose unreadable work had been heroically salvaged by Peter Jackson and whose contribution (if any) had been to come up with the crude beginnings of the genre later perfected by real writers (like Jordan or G.R.R.M). And that's when they were being nice...

Now that has changed quite a bit in recent years, I think. You still see people bashing away, as described by Lotrelf, but it seems more like individual opinion rather than general consensus- a definite improvement. Could it be we actually have "The Hobbit" film trilogy to thank for this?

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

You still see people bashing away, as described by Lotrelf, but it seems more like individual opinion rather than general consensus- a definite improvement. Could it be we actually have "The Hobbit" film trilogy to thank for this?

Really? How would the Hobbit films have made a more favorable impression? Though I still haven't seen them, I thought the general consensus was that they were inferior to the LOTR movies. Is that opinion largely confined to book fans, or does The Hobbit trilogy just give the casual movie-fans more of what they liked in PJ's earlier adaptations?

[Zigûr]

I wonder if the "good world-builder, bad 'writer' " arguments tend to come from readers of Fantasy who are used to less considered (and at times less challenging) prose produced for a mass market.

For some reason this has always stood out to me as a piece of "beautiful" writing in The Lord of the Rings, from Book IV Chapter 1:

Clear sky was growing in the East once more. The skirts of the storm were lifting, ragged and wet, and the main battle had passed to spread its great wings over the Emyn Muil; upon which the dark thought of Sauron brooded for a while. Thence it turned, smiting the Vale of Anduin with hail and lightning, and casting its shadow upon Minas Tirith with threat of war. Then, lowering in the mountains, and gathering its great spires, it rolled on slowly over Gondor and the skirts of Rohan, until far away the Riders on the plain saw its black towers moving behind the sun, as they rode into the West. But here, over the desert and the reeking marshes the deep blue sky of evening opened once more, and a few pallid stars appeared, like small white holes in the canopy above the crescent moon.

It's perhaps not "sophisticated" prose in, say, the Modernist sense (although I doubt many critics would be making that comparison) but I find this kind of expression very evocative, and that's just describing the weather.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Zigûr

I wonder if the "good world-builder, bad 'writer' " arguments tend to come from readers of Fantasy who are used to less considered (and at times less challenging) prose produced for a mass market.

You know, Tolkien knew he was writing for a "mass market", the people who had made The Hobbit a success. Yet, he could not allow himself to alter his prose to be more in line with other "fairy stories" and fantasy of the period.
He retained his own inimitable writing style, and still managed to produce something both critically and commercially successful. That's seemingly an accomplishment beyond the ability of modern writers as a whole.

[Zigûr]

"Mass market" was probably a poor choice of words on my part; I was meaning to compare his writing to the kind of thing that is written to be easily digestible in a cynical attempt to have a wide appeal. By contrast I would argue that The Lord of the Rings had that appeal more naturally. Yet I think critics might find Professor Tolkien's style to be a bit too far outside their comfort zones.

[Nerwen]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Really? How would the Hobbit films have made a more favorable impression? Though I still haven't seen them, I thought the general consensus was that they were inferior to the LOTR movies. Is that opinion largely confined to book fans, or does The Hobbit trilogy just give the casual movie-fans more of what they liked in PJ's earlier adaptations?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I mean that Jackson, perhaps, no longer looks quite so much like the Messiah of Middle-earth.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Nerwen

Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I mean that Jackson, perhaps, no longer looks quite so much like the Messiah of Middle-earth.

One would hope not. He hasn't exactly brought about universal harmony and eternal peace among Tolkienites, has he?