Re: OT: Super OT: Re: CHAT: JRRT

Staving David J Peterson:


>The rest of the story is his actual writing.  His writing does not do
>anything for me at all.  It just seems like writing from the era and
>place.  Like Lord Dunsany (well, different era, but the same kind of
>thing).  I place no personal value at all on his writing.  And, I've
>already said that plot isn't going to do it for me (plus, I'm at turns
>bored by the content of, for example, the Lord of the Rings, or
>embarrassed by it, or offended by it).  Plus, since I can get all the
>content in a visual format now, with the movies (which many have said were
>as accurate as they could be [and I heard that the many scenes that didn't
>appear were actually filmed and reserved for the DVD's...?]), why would I
>bother reading the books?  It literally is, to me, a waste of time, and
>not at all worth reading, by any stretch of the imagination.  Does this
>mean they're of no value to anyone else?  No.  They're of value to anyone
>who deems them to have value.  Does this mean I'll recommend the books to
>someone else?  Maybe as a punishment.  Or to someone who I think would
>actually get something out of them.  But, in general, no.  Because when
>someone asks you what you recommend, they're asking for your opinion.  And
>*hopefully*, when you give your opinion, it'll be understood to *be* and
>opinion, and not a statement of fact.
>
Try as he might, Peter Jackson couldn't get everything from the books into
the films. There are occasions where the bits that have been cut out are
the bits that explain what's going on and why. There are other bits where
Jackson misrepresents Tolkien - at the Pass of Calenardhon, events that
reed as deeply sinister in the book turn out comical on screen. And while I
would enjoy the line "Nobody tosses a dwarf!" in a Pratchett book, it
doesn't belong in Lord of the Rings.
I actually read LOTR for the first time after seeing the first film, and I
think that the book is better. No disrespect to Peter Jackson here - he did
a good job of filming it, but the best bits of book are often unfilmable.
Tolkien had a good epic story, he makes important moral points by basing
his plot around them, so that they do not appear forced, and while his
prose style is a bit OTT at times, it genuinely works for his material -
the Battle of the Pelenor Fields does not lend itself to understatement.

Mind you, I have a healthy distrust for the recieved idea of "high
literature". The worst book I ever read had won a Nobel Prize.

Pete