I really like Tolkien but I am far from being an expert or the biggest enthusiastic... I get what you are saying. I really dont like the poems and music sections of the LotR books.

If you’re skipping entire pages you’re not actually reading the book. No shame in just putting something down you don’t like.

You're free not to like it; why would anyone here want to convince you otherwise?

What is so bad about the dialogue, in your opinion? Paste in a few examples.

What sorts of meaningless details does he include? An example or two would be interesting to talk about.

Tolkien's not a specialist in scintillating dialogue, but he's not bad at it either, in the archaic style he favors, and the "meaningless details" you so dislike are much of the substance of his work—one suspects, based on your description, that the problem here is more your attention span coupled with a general lack of exposure to classic English literature. Anyway if you want snappy dialogue read some Wodehouse.

As someone who loves Tolkien. It ain’t for everybody. Without an understanding of the lore that you get in the Silmarillion some of references in the songs won’t make much sense. For me that was part of the majesty of my first read of the book. Like I said tho. It’s not for everybody

[deleted]

Yeah, he sucked. But he gets better. My understanding is his son helped, but I may be wrong. If I recall correctly a conversation I once read his biggest issue is he was still thinking in terms of children's books. That may just be something I'm mis-remembering though. Wait until you get to Frodo and Sam walking through Mordor. Better get some coffee.

I'm with you on this one. I'm reading it as well. I'll tell you something, though. I read the Hobbit first about nine years ago. I "powered through it" at first and then found myself reading it. When it was over, I was little sad it was done.

I haven't found the same happening with LoTR.

The landscape, the history, the world building - it's all so full and alive. The writing is just unbelievably bland. This is, in fact, my third time trying to read the book. I'm not giving up on this time because I know it's a good book in the sense that its worth reading for what it offers story wise.

Honestly, I could do without frequency of the songs. It isn't the first time I've come across songs in a book, but the frequency is a bit much for me.

His work isn't going to be for everyone.

Tolkien's work embodies his expertise which is the study of languages. There is a formality and structure in his approach that would not be as easily accessed for modern readers. Think of it like Shakespearian language. Unfortunately, if you come from the movie, that would make the transition to the book even more jarring since the use of language is very much modernized in the movie.

This is an excellent point. Though I wouldn't say the transition would be as jarring, but it would certainly be an absolute difference.

​

Edited to modify good to excellent

Currently I'm finishing The Return of the King (huge fan of the movies too). I do sometimes find the prose lackluster but not in a literary sense - more like it's not in alignment with my expectations of fiction in the context of current times. I want to dive deeper into characters' psyche and emotions etc. But you have to read it with knowledge of it's original release date.

Also, because you have seen the movies, you know how expansive and immersive this world is. Now try writing about this amazing world, encapsulating one specific story within it. Or try writing about our world and capture all of its intricacies. Wouldn't be easy, right? I'm just happy Tolkien managed to somehow describe it, maybe not in the most easily available or modern way (for obvious reasons), but he put this world in our heads, where it kept expanding further on. That's another reason why it seems to lack something - seeing the movies, we have let our imagination run wild as if we already lived in this world. So when the author doesn't describe this exact feeling/ connection that we have with it, something seems off.

Also, I would argue that Tolkien's old-school grand/ melodic writing is the actual source of the Middle Earth's atmosphere and it was written like this completely on purpose. What you have seen in the movies, is the vision that Tolkien showed to it's producers, through these exact words. Author took his world seriously and so did the reader.

Ive started reading it too, but I actually love it so far and find it very immersive. If its not for you though, you shouldnt feel obligated to complete it.

You are reading an old(er) version of the language, that's why it sounds bad.

But the ideas are great. You just have to go through the language.

Try Silmarillion. It's about the making of the old world and the fight against the first Dark Lord, Sauron's master. The storyline is even better ... and the language even older-fashioned.

I tried reading Tolkien while in the hospital. It's written in a style I thought was cold and disengaging. I found myself wanting to skip the singing stanzas.

While I love the plots of Tolkien's books, I could never enjoy the delivery.

The only time besides Forrest Gump when I liked the movie better than the book.

Yes exactly, when I read the books for the first time I was amazed to discover how different Tolkien's priorities were in his writing than what I'm used to from more modern fantasy. And creating an atmosphere is definitely one of the things his approach does well! It's odd and takes time to put yourself into the right headspace of appreciating what he's doing, but it's worth paying attention to imo.

You're skipping pages? That's not reading the book though is it? Tolkien isn't for everyone but it's not boring and the dialogue is not bad. It's archaic and that's not your thing. I'd like to see some examples of the dialogue that led you to your conclusion though. I find these kinds of posts a little frustrating because there's never any examples to back up the critiques.

You have to take into account when it was written. These books are getting close to 100 years old. A focus on more realistic dialogue wasn’t nearly as present then as it is now. Heck, even in theatre, that movement was just beginning to take hold when Tolkien was writing, so it’s not surprising to see it hadn’t transitioned over to highly stylized fantasy.

But I’m in a similar position, I respect JRRT massively for how he pioneered modern fantasy, but I find the films much more enjoyable. The prose in the books just doesn’t grip me, because I prefer more character focused stories.

It’s only 11 years older than Dune and I didn’t feel this way about Herbert’s writing. I don’t think it’s just the age, this has never bothered me before. I think it’s purely stylistic, which maybe is a combination of age and culture; Tolkien was nearly 30 years older than Herbert, and grew up on a different continent.

I disagree - the ability to skip and skim is an important part of being a reader. I'd call it one of the most important skills that makes reading fun and useful.

There are parts of any work, fiction or nonfiction, that may not resonate with you or might be redundant to something you already read. There's no need to slog through them; skim over it and get to the parts that are good for you. It's not all-or-nothing!

I responded above to a similar comment: skipping and skimming is definitely part of being a good reader. No need to slog through every word if parts of a book don't resonate for whatever reason - you're the reader, you're in control.

I’m still reading it. I’ve maybe done this 4 times where I’m in a the middle of a third paragraph where I feel like he’s just dwelling on something that he has clearly already made his point; so I skip to the next paragraph, realize it’s about the same thing, skip to the next paragraph, realize he’s still prattling in about it, skip to the next paragraph… it STILL the same thing, so I skim everything to make sure I’m not missing new information, and I’m not… so by the time he’s moved on, I’ve skipped an entire page.

I don’t do this a lot when reading, but I do when I’m bored. Skipped through a good chunk of the beginning of The Stand doing this too, but you either pick up on the context clues later or the information eventually gets rehashed in a more concise way. If I miss a grand total of 4 pages out of 250, I’m still reading it

I answered in another comment, but it’s more that when I feel like he’s made his point and he goes on and on and on for paragraphs about the same thing, I start jumping to the next paragraph until I’m getting new information. Sometimes that takes an entire page of jumping. But it’s maybe been 4 pages out of 250, so nah, I’m definitely still reading it. But you’re right, I tend to only do this when I’m bored

My favorite parts were always the descriptions of landscapes as they move through them. And there's a great bit where Sam looks up at the stars near the end that's really beautiful... but you'll have quit by then.

No I’ve quit reading this on 3 other occasions in my life, I’m doing the series now. Even if I hate it by then end, I’m finishing it this time

I enjoyed the Hobbit much more than the Lotr. The Hobbit was a perfect book. The rest of the series is definitely worth reading as well, but in my opinion not on the same level as The Hobbit.

Tolkien's style reads more like mythology than modern prose. He's not poor at dialogue but his characters talk more like people in archaic epic literature than actual people. It's an intentional part of the worldbuilding but I understand how it can be alienating.

I liked Tolkien, but not enough to reread them again. I realize now that I like the movies better than the books, although I do mourn the fact that they didn’t include Tom Bombali (pretty sure I spelled his name wrong) and Goldberry. If there was ever a novel that focuses on Eowyn as main character I would so be on board to read that novel. I feel like The Lord of Rings could do better if they had focused on few characters and broke them into series of each character so I don’t get lost with all the storylines I’m supposed to follow.

However, I am glad others have come to love Tolkien. I am also fine with people not liking him. His prose is not for everyone.

TL;DR: reading Tolkien can be a slog, maybe try a dramatic audiobook?

I'm a die-hard Tolkien fan, with almost encyclopedic knowledge of his world. I read and watch the trilogy once a year, and own every book and resource relating to the Tolkien universe. I still tear up from the books and movies thirty years later. I've run a TTRPG in Middle Earth for years and don't plan on stopping.

All that to say, I always warn people interested in reading the books that they are extremely dry and often tedious to ingest. It seems that especially British authors of the time that the Professor started writing were like this. Tolkien was about 45 when the Hobbit was published, and in his 60s when the Fellowship was published. So in that period he's an old set-in-his-ways academic who probably spent a lot of time reminiscing on simpler times in the drastically changing post-WW2 world. Even looking at his major early influences like George MacDonald or Andrew Lang, they were very similar in overly descriptive scene setting and limited dialogue. I don't believe he ever set out to be an author either, but just fell into it, so the writing is rather elementary.

Most of that other folks have already stated, so forgive me for the rambling rehash. Suffice it to say, if you're finding the book too difficult, might I recommend a dramatic audiobook? There's one on Spotify under the name Roads Go Ever On that is fantastic, and includes various voice actors and even licensed music from the movies. The Lament of Boromir from The Two Towers made me weep openly!

In any case, enjoy the legendarium however you wish, no gatekeeping here! Cheers.

Oh I don’t disagree that location and culture figure into it. Tolkien was a linguist who was fascinated by ancient languages, so it’s not super surprising his dialogue is very old fashioned.

However, that 20 year difference is a big gap in terms of entertainment and modern story telling sensibilities. Tolkien grew up with silent films, by the time he’s in his 50s, Hollywood is just starting to develop the visual storytelling we’re familiar with today and move away from more theatrical and presentational performances and become more realistic.

Compare that to the media Herbert grew up with, and you’ll see a stark difference in how the west adopted storytelling sensibilities. The influence of Checkov and how western audiences gravitated towards realism really gets cemented by the middle half of the 20th century.

The same jump in storytelling styles happened in writing as well. By the 60s we’re seeing stories that also really start to focus on realism in regards to dialogue. Especially in sci-fi. Fantasy tended to be more stylized. And maybe that’s in part because Tolkien set the bar, and because fantasy tended to be about creating modern myths, whereas sci-fi tended to be about exploring ideas that humanity was dealing with in that moment (or obsessing about).

So long story short: I agree that there are many factors that influence writing style. But also a 20 year gap in the time those writers were active saw a massive amount of change in how people wrote stories. Media was taking large leaps forward. And while I do think Dune is more modern in its Prose, it does still feel somewhat dated, but not nearly so much as Tolkien.

You do know that it's probably because he did his world building from scratch, right?

I got a third of the way through before putting it down for the same reason. I don't want or need to know what every single blade of grass looks like JRR to the power of 9. It did nothing to move the narrative along and in the end I just couldn't do it.

I did enjoy The Hobbit though.

If OP thinks Fellowship is hard to read. Don't make them read Silmarillion. It. Is. Worse. I mean it's basically Tolkien's magnum opus. And language is even more descriptive than in the earlier books.

I respect him a ton. Tolkien did what no one else did: he crafted a universe based on a career of linguistic expertise and cutting edge 20th century philosophy. No one else will do that. Nevertheless, I think the movies are boring as hell and I have no interest in reading the books. :/ Sorry not sorry

To each their own, I guess.

If you're skipping pages in Fellowship, you're not making it through the Frodo and Sam chapters in The Two Towers. I love Tolkien but I completely understand that he is a very difficult read. But if you want to actually enjoy and get through the trilogy you are going to have to read it slowly and take in all the prose, which is where Tolkien shines. My advice to you, if you feel you have to skip through sections, is to put the book down and don't waste your time on something you won't enjoy. Or alternatively read The Hobbit first (if you haven't already; it's not clear in the post if you have) which is far more accessible and a much tighter narrative. Then return to Lord of the Rings.

When I first read Tolkien (1990s) I had been working at a research facility using networked Sun workstations. Our sysadm had given each computer a network node name from LOTR. This provided me with helpful visual images of the characters as I read: Arwen was the Sparcstation-10 on Rick's desk, Bilbo was a Sparcstation-5 on Zheng's desk, etc.

I was into the first half of Return of the King before I finally started skimming through pages looking for anything interesting to happen and skipping songs and poems. Wished I had started sooner.

Like OP said, all respect in the world to Tolkien for pioneering the genre and a truly astonishing amount of world-building. But as a storyteller he left me unimpressed.

While I think that's true of a lot of books, with Tolkien, one of the main reasons he is so beloved is the quality of the prose. The downside of this is that a lot of the writing is spent in description, or in retelling old legends, and other pieces of fluff that do not advance the narrative or tell us much about the characters we're following. I do believe that if you were to skip over this because you find it boring, you would be missing out on a large part of why Tolkien is special.

If you're looking for information then skipping and skimming is good. If you're actually reading something for pleasure then it doesn't make sense. Sometimes in literature it's not about what the words say, it's about what they don't say, or it's about the information left out or the way something is said. A turn of phrase can impart a nuance of meaning that you might miss by skipping and skimming bits. Tolkien writes for the love of words, linguistics and myth. Part of the joy in reading his work is the immersion and the vibrant picture he paints with words. I know I'm in control of what I'm reading and if I was bored enough to skip bits that didn't resonate then I would just not read it. It's not some revelation.

Jesus, you couldn't be more wrong 😅 His son helped him organise the fragments of his later works and put them together coherently. Tolkien was not thinking in terms of children's books either, he was meant to write a sequel to The Hobbit and ended up writing The Lord of the Rings, he even said to his publisher that it was not a children's book.

Strongly disagree about the dialogue. I reread the novels for the first time in 20 years just last year and I was struck by how naturalistic and often hilarious the dialogue is, especially between hobbits.

His work is written like a medievalist's. Which he was. All his works are highly inspired by medieval literature.

That's kind of like criticizing Shakespeare for his weird English.

I'm not going to tell you to like it, but calling it badly written is not really sensible.

Yeah, I was trying to remember conversations from many years ago. I've read the books a couple of times. I like em, but they could used some editing.

You’re completely delusional

You can say it 100 times, doesn’t mean it’s true.

Shakespeare wrote the English of his time. Even for plays about Ancient Rome.

Tolkien didn’t really write the dialogue of his day. Not even the high literature type of dialogue of his day. It doesn’t mean his work is badly written, just that, indeed, his dialogue can be too stiff, much the way Icelandic Saga can do dialogue - which would sound very wooden to us, but we’d accept because in theory it’s best part isn’t the dialogue.

That’s odd that you didn’t feel Herbert’s writing was bad, because it’s honestly very bland and simplistic.

I had the same experience with Linux servers and Simpsons & Futurama characters. The best were the clusters: Patty&Selma and Sherry&Terry.

i read somewhere a while back that the consensus in literary circles is that tolkien was not a fiction writer (in so far one can reach a consensus on such a thing). the reasons they gave are pretty much what you say here. but his books became first a cult classic, and then...somehow...or the other...infiltrated mainstream consciousness.

he wrote during a time of great societal turmoil that marked the end of an age, and my personal theory is that the dense and turgid prose was actually exactly what people were looking for. the prose is exactly what a layman would imagine an ancient document about bygone worlds would read like, and if the world as u know it is collapsing around u, it can be very comforting to read something like that.

I felt the same about Tolkien for a long time. I’m giving them all a try on audiobook. I find it’s more enjoyable - I don’t notice the lengthy descriptions as much, the conversations between characters is more nuanced and I can do it all while walking or cleaning the house so I’m not just sitting thru the longer parts. The hobbit was perfect, halfway thru two towers now and it’s getting longer but still way better listening than attempting to read.

Detecting the inverse is going on. Education has dropped and redefined language with deep meaning. It was going on when the Inklings, Tolkien and CS Lewis writers club, were producing their works. They've got some comments deriding the erosion of language. CS Lewis more openly attacks the urge that leads to this in That Hideous Strength. JRRT is superior dialogue. Those of us today are less accustomed to it.

For concrete example consider the rewrite of the Hardy Boys books in the 1980s. The publisher edited to reduce the grade level of the writing, stripped literary elements such as suspense, turned it into a more action emphasized experience intended to match pacing of action television shows in that era. This sort of major revisions have occurred little by little over the last hundred years. What kids are receiving in school today is far more stripped down than kids received 100 years ago.

Reading older works from that distance means much of the nuance is lost. You do not pick up on the references or the connections baked in.

This. Tolkien was a medieval literature professor. His academic work is much worse. I still remembering being in an advanced level English course and no one wanted to admit how tough his academic work was to get through.

I enjoyed his fiction because it reminded me of works like The Fairie Queen and Beowulf. If that era of writing isn't familiar or enjoyable to you, don't force it. Or try reading those works separately, then return to him later.

I agree to an extent but I also don’t. I don’t think language has simplified as much as it has changed. Yes, going back in time the English language was far more verbose. Literally. In Shakespeare’s time, they literally used more words than we do today.

Is that because generations today are “dumbing down” language, or because we’re getting more efficient with our strange hodgepodge of a language? Or a combination of both, it obviously doesn’t have to be a binary.

Also, one must consider that visual storytelling became far more sophisticated, and moved away from “telling” and focused on “showing”. A few hundred years ago people used to say “I’m going to hear a play” now they say they’re going to watch a play. Theatre used to be more about the written prose or verse, and the language was the focal point. In a post-checkov world, that just isn’t the case. And even more so with film. Film is far more about the emotions conveyed when NOT speaking than otherwise. Unless you’re specifically going for writers who focus on dialogue like a Sorkin.

Language and how we communicate is evolving. And I’m more akin to take the stance that it’s not good or bad, it’s just different. I certainly do agree that the state of education is not in a good spot in modern America, but I don’t think that’s the driving force behind why language has changed. That’s got more to do with societal influences, people of different ethnicities moving into the country and influencing the culture, technological advancements etc.

Will it mean some art forms will fade? Yes, it does, and that’s a bummer. But it’s a fact of life. People decried the death of the radio drama when film began to grow, but things change and some things become obsolete. Such is life.

That said, I still never found Tolkien’s dialogue particularly gripping. I prefer characters to have more nuance, play with more subtext, and be more naturalistic. Doesn’t mean my preferences are right, they’re just what I prefer.

When I was reading it I felt the language was too modern for the story it was telling. The narration, not the dialogue. "Yep, this is a book of the twentieth century." They say that his writing gets more and more antiquated as the story goes on, but I can't say I perceived any of that.

> Or try writing about our world and capture all of its intricacies. Wouldn't be easy, right?

When I think about fantasy books that capture all the intricacies of their world, I don't think about The Lord of the Rings. I would say the saga really skimmed across the surface of the world. I never came away with a particularly meaningful image of what Gondor and Rohan are like as societies, what cultural quirks they have.

I agree. Never said Tolkien achieved that, just explained why he didn't. I don't think it's even possible to be honest. Just put two people in a room and you could keep writing forever about what defines their lives.

Within regular literature, Emile Zola and Honore de Balzac set out to write epic cycles exploring through every section of French society. Such can also describe the project James Joyce set out on with Ulysses. In fantasy too I've read enough books that really set out to put their alternate realities on the page.

.... Wait what? How am I only finding out today that Forest Gump was based on a book? That's wild!

The thing with Tolkien’s diction is that it shifts as the story progresses to other areas of Middle-earth. It’s starts off with a rather comfortable, discursive 20th-century style for the Hobbiton scenes, and when the action shifts to other areas the diction becomes much grander to match, like the Medieval Gondor or the Old English Rohan. Sometimes he will purge his writing entirely of words not derived from Old English sources, which truly makes it feel like you’ve travelled to a different place, and in The Return of the King especially he has a very elevated tone, compact, declarative, unafraid of inversion, with a very satisfying balance of iambic and trochaic pulses (it reads well aloud). You’ll also notice that when Aragorn throws off his persona as Strider and assumes the mantle of King of Gondor he often starts speaking in Homeric dactyls, the rhythm and cadence of the heroic Epics, whereas if the Hobbits were ever to start speaking in verse rather than prose it would probably be in common iambs, there are lots of little touches like that that endear LOTR to me.

Like most people here are saying, it’s not for everyone, which may be why so few fantasy writers copy Tolkien’s stylistic strategy in this (they’ve stolen plenty of other things of course). Most fantasy writers show their world by simply railroading you from place to place and then throwing a bunch of invented history at you, but I personally thought that Tolkien’s method with language was the only one that actually made you feel like you’re in a different world. People who have read lots of older quainter books or large epics usually do better with Tolkien than people hoping to curl up with something cosy. Personally I prefer being thrown out of my comfort zone when I read something new rather than just curling up with something that will give me everything I expect a book of its kind to do. It sounds like you’re not going to get out of The Lord of the Rings what Tolkien put into it, so there’s no shame in putting it down and reading something you think will be more worth your time. There are so many masterpieces out there to read that I think you would be doing yourself a disservice if you instead spent your time on a book that didn’t give you anything in return.

Agreed, I’ve heard that Dune has been used for examples in English classes of how NOT to write, because the story and world is often engaging enough to get the students’ interest, but is still filled with mixed metaphors, confused tenses, tautological descriptions, and sometimes the subject of a sentence will change from clause to clause.

I started Lord of the rings three times.

At some point I "got" the language and loved it from then on in

Similar to the Patrick O'Brian Aubrey/Maturin books - hard to get into but so worth it

I quit reading the fellowship about 5/6 through it because I was bored.

Got the audiobooks and flew through the trilogy.

Fellowship is just slow. The other books probably wouldn't have been as bad, but...

☝️

It's nothing close to the movie. They present Gump as a proper fool in the books. In the movie he was very likeable.

Do not read the book lol.