All my friends love The Lord of the Rings. Understandable. I’m an epic fantasy fan myself. The huge themes, epic conflicts, and landscape of The Lord of the Rings make it a fantasy classic. I do consider it one of the best books ever written; I just don’t like it.
I say that so you understand that I don’t “hate” LOTR, or that I think it’s terrible and people who like it are idiots; I hold it in very high regard, right next to Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton. And like Chaucer and Milton, I find it incredibly boring.
I have a regrettably short attention span. It’s been like that as long as I can remember. I didn’t enjoy long, tedious books as a child, and I don’t enjoy them as an adult. A book has to have either high action or interesting concepts that challenge my mind or spark my imagination in order for me to bother finishing it. LOTR has interesting concepts but layered under pages and pages of unnecessary facts. Or at least facts that I consider unnecessary. Who cares what sort of soup they were eating? It’s totally irrelevant!
I read up to the end of the Two Towers when I was in middle school, fully intending to read The Return of the King, but it never happened. Last year, I attempted to listen to The Fellowship of the Ring on audiobook so I could get the full story, but I simply lost patience. For the few who haven’t read the book, but have seen the movies, YEARS passed between Bilbo’s birthday party, and Frodo’s embarking on the quest. It was an entire week between Frodo’s departure from Bag End and the meeting at Bree. All covered in excruciating detail.
Now, this is not to say that I also dislike the movies; I love them, in fact. Truly. They have their weaknesses of course, but they have even greater strengths. The movies only cover the most salient facts of the books. There was a ton of stuff they cut out, and they still take several hours to watch! I do not mean to disrespect Tolkien; quite the contrary, the world that he created has defined fantasy for generations. I express a genuine love for the Silmarillion and the Children of Hurin. For some reason, I tend to prefer those. I suppose because they are several smaller stories wrapped up in a larger narrative; unlike LOTR, which is just one long story told in a ridiculous amount of detail. I want to like it, I do, but it’s just not my thing. But if you like LOTR, revel in it! Be an unashamed LOTR fanatic!
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AuthorI'm Ian Wilson; an eccentric comic artist, just telling a story.
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