is that true though? The Hobbit was a kids book and the author took two decades to publish a sequel, which turned out to be a thousand-paged tome full of made up languages. LOTR didn't really start to take off in popularity until the 60s when young hippies and potheads decided they identified with it and it was like groovy man.

Tolkien only lived 10 more years and never published anything else major on Middle-earth. I think LOTR was always curled away in a little niche of pop fiction. Yes, it is quite popular especially these days after the movies, but I don't think many people ever considered Tolkien to be a modern Shakespeare that's pretty out there

and yeah the writing just isn't magnificent for the most part, it's hard to disagree with that. Tolkien was an etymologist who basically wrote fiction as a hobby. The Hobbit started out as something funny to make his kid laugh

Been awhile since I cracked my red-leathered copy (last couple times I tried I couldn't help but see Elijah Woods huge ass watery hobbit eyes etc) but seems everything was "grey." Pale "grey" this and stony "grey" that and hills and skies of thickest "grey." His visual descriptive language, at least, struck me as underdeveloped

Youvthink ASoIAF isn't immersive or has less backstory? He's literally called American Tolkien.

Sleazy? Or like just things that actually happened in real life not in the children's fantasy of Tolkien?

It's probably a little generous to assume that anything above eleven percent of the people discussing Tolkien today had read the books before those movies came out, let's face it.

In any case, the movies only make Tolkien look like some sort of erudite demigod of caramelized genius by comparison.

that's not at all what I meant though. I'm talking about the syntax, the literary devices, the dialogue, the flow of ideas, his overall command of written language as a vehicle to tell a story. Not the length of the book or the style or the amount of detail or the lack of rape and shitting around every corner

LOTR is probably my all-time favorite book fwiw. There is no other book like it, and there is no other universe like Tolkien's.

Martin is an obvious example, but there seems to be an enormous amount of fantasy literature which completely apes Tolkien, and adding a lot of bodily functions to his pristine Catholic mythos to make it more "serious" or something also seems to be very popular.

Once we've established that Tolkien's mastery of the language exceeds that of Martin's, we've still got plenty of room for insinuations of literary mediocrity.

This discussion is being done wrong.

But really how much grey shit can you have in 1 weird book

dude I like his writing too and I understand his style is exactly what he is going for etc. etc. believe me I get it, I have read not just LOTR but all his works a bunch of times. I'm not saying any guy off the street could write as well.

I'm saying he's not comparable to Shakespeare. It's fine to love Bill Nye but he isn't Stephen Hawking, you know?

I never read LOTR because I could barely get through The Hobbit. Just isn't my thing I guess. My imagination isn't good enough for it to feel magical, or something.

I could never finish reading The Return of the King, despite enjoying those books.

The last stretch of that book was a chore, legolas and gimli having pages and pages of bromance, and then one more fight in the shire. Didn't feel necessary at all.

If you guys want to read Tolkien at his best you should check out the start of the Silmarillion the Aiundale or whatever the fuck its called. That's some lofty prose right there yo.

Also I think The Children of Hurin is a swell tale. Hella tragic.

This intrigues Gormadoc "Deepdelver" Brandybuck.

Man I need to update my avatar now that Christmas is over.

I dunno the pale wintry night elf babes pretty cold yo

show.

don't tell.

haha your wife blah blah

dude if we wanna be ents, we'll be ents!!! FUCK!!!!

Make ents great again.

everyone here is hardly even a huorn

Man the descriptions in the two towers of the huorns when they come down by helms deep are exceedingly eldritch

And what's with this gormadoc deepdelver shit? You gotta bring anal into my thread bro?

Gimli was my fav of the company. then i had the misfortune of beholding those peter jackson abominations in which proud gloins son was reduced to a buffoon.

the purity of my imaginative thought has been tarnished evermore. I wish I could set Peter Jacksons beard aflame.