Re: OT: Tolkein Non-Fanism

On Thu, 2 Aug 2001, Amanda Babcock wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 11:29:04PM -0400, Yoon Ha Lee wrote:
>
> > I'm here, and I've read the Hobbit, the LotR, and the Silmarillion; I
> > have to confesst he Silmarillion was the only one I enjoyed parts
> > of.  I just couldn't relate to the characters.
>
> I doubt I could read them and enjoy them today.  My window for being able
> to read LoTR was basically from 6th grade through 8th grade; after that I
> just couldn't get absorbed by the books anymore.  They were no longer
> complex enough.
>
> So I am a Tolkien fan, but only because I read them at the right time.
>
I read the books (all of them, including most of the posthumous ones)
between 16 and 20, and then I thought I couldn't read them anymore. No
interesting women, and having seen everything from the books repeated
to death in derivative fantasy - and I thought they were plainly too
long.

However, A month or so I tried Lord of the Rings again - and I was
captivated. I finished all three parts in two weeks of spare-time
reading (evidently I've become better, at least faster, at reading
English), and I noticed so many nuances, so many threads and so much
complex interaction between the characters that I was astonished. Even
seen without the persona of Tolkien, the conlanger, behind the book,
it is a great work of literature.

Of course, it is totally and absorbingly English - as English as the
Hong Lou Meng is Chinese, and it takes the same amount of work to 'get
into' the surrounding literary world as it does getting into pre-modern
Chinese prose (given mastery of the language).

As for the hobbit, I'm reading the Dutch translation to my children,
and they are absorbed by it. Playing dwarves and hobbit and replaced
playing quidditch ;-).


Boudewijn Rempt  | http://www.valdyas.org

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