Soo after the Gatsby thread- anyone care to convince me about LOTR?

Custardo and Vampireswalkin - you're not boys/nerds either, are you?

Kickassangel - I think those other, earlier types of fantasy are more like proto-fantasy. There's a difference between them and what follows Tolkien.

I think the significant thing that Tolkien does, and I think this is what's at the heart of his meme-appeal, is that he spends soooo much time on his alt-universe. The architecture of it (just take the whole elf thing, for example,) is just on a whole other level.

And I think that is the significant feature of Tolkien.

And I think it's one of the absolutely fascinating things about video games. I remember reading something in a cyber-punk novel, where the hero is in a VR world and experiences a sense of frustration when the edge of the imaginary world comes into view.

There's something of that in Tolkien; it offers this amazing virtual creation, which is a very highly-crafted, artificial pleasure (the pleasure of all reading perhaps, but taken to the nth degree,) and then there's this sense of loss when the edge of the world comes in sight.

(Hmmm - maybe some link here between the end of the book and the voyage of the elves?)

i did say a generalisation. i know fans of it would be willing to lay down their lives in defense of lotr, but is just isn't a very well written book. yes, it's a good story, and i quite like the films, but the book is not GREAT literature. it's interesting & has had some influence, but it's like saying that das capital or the bible or something is a good book - they are not great literature. they are important, but if someone tried to sit down & read it all the way through they would find it hard going.

kickassangel - My favourite expression of the sentiment you are expressing is "a thousand lemmings can't be wrong". Bit less incendiary than the old Nazism analogy.

Thing is, don't you want to find out why it's been so influential? Where's your curiosity?

Is TLOTR a boy/nerd thing? Am I an honorary boy/nerd?

also don't think that tolkein gave rise to fanatsy genre - similar stories have been around for centuries, he just wrote rather a long, turgid version of one.

it is typical 'male' writing - looong descriptions which slow things down too much. lotr, is more popular with men than women, women tend to focus on charactere & conversation, men more on description & action (massive generalisation, but about 60%true).

also allows blokes to read womething 'worthy' (long) whilst reverting to a 5 yo fantasy world.

lotr is amazingly fab, you really must finish the hobbit first - and get to love middle earth.

tolkien is a fucker for going on...and .....on.....and...on with descriptions - im like ' right, ffs, i get it...its dark and rocky ffs it didn't warrent 2 effing paages" (in my head)

however i can't say that outloud becuase its almost akin to blasphemy in this house to dis anything about lotr.

i agree with op, i know loads of people love lotr, but it is definitely lacking in style. yes, there is a huge fantasy genre, and it is a major part of that, and one of the more tolerable examples. however, he was a professor of anglo saxon studies, and it reads as an epic, like beowulf, more than a modern novel. that makes it difficult to read.

just because a load of others have been influenced by something doesn't make it good, eg nazi-ism was another major influence on the 20th C, but i would hate to say ti's good just because of that. (I am NOT saying that lotr & nazis are the same, just using a rather obvious eg ot back up my point)

Ha - I love all Tolkein. The writing and language is so majestic, and the stories have got this sense of here-and-now things going on, but it's all underpinned by an epic scope spanning the whole of creation. Lovely.

I have a standing bet with my wife that if she ever reads the Silmarillion then I'll give her a grand. My grand is safe.

Have you read The Hobbit first?

A lot of what happens in LOTR is inexplicable without knowing some of the background and characters that are introduced in The Hobbit.

Oooh - a challenge.

Well, there was a brilliant article in The London Review of Books a few years back when the film came out. I would list it's main points but I think that would be a spoiler - I'm dying to see what other people say.

So here's a starter, and I'll try to be provocative - LOTR is one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. It's given rise to a whole genre in literature, and the coming art form of the twenty-first century, video games, is hugely indebted to it.

It's worth reading just so you can take part in a really important bit of twetieth/twenty-first century culture.

It's another of those books that people feel compelled to write again and again and that's fascinating in and of itself.

Skip Tom Bombadil