I gots me some questions for y’all. Or maybe just one good one.
I’ve written about this before, but for the newbies, let me just fill in a bit of info:
I’ve never been much for fiction of any type. It puts me straight to sleep. 10 minutes flat and I’m out like I have a light switch.
Non-fiction: History and biographies and the like is what I grew up on.
When I was in high school I read as little fiction as I could get away with, and wrote even less when it was assigned. One of my teachers assigned up the Tolkien series (Hobbit and three LotR books). But a couple weeks into the assignment, the girls started complaining that there wasn’t an alternate and whatnot and the guy decided that we’d just watch those horrible cartoons and do our reports off them.
Hey, it was AP English. I guess he decided we’d worked hard enough to get there and one way or another we were going to absorb us some Tolkien.
Long story short, I never read any of his stuff.
Over the last couple years I have made an effort to correct my “sleeping problem” and was able to make it through the Rowling series and some Heinlein and then devoured the complete works of Lovecraft.
But, with the story that started all the Tolkien bother being put into feature film production I figured that now was a good time to drive into the Middle Earth series. I liked the LotR movies a great deal and decided to go for it.
I bought a number of his books and dove into them. I started with The Silmarillion, though David warned me that it was “a bit of a dry read”.
Nonsense. It was perfect. Read like a history book, or as David said after I finished it, a bible. It most definitely is a bit Old Testament. I’m excited to get into the The Children of Hurin and the Unfinished Tales set.
However, I have not bought them yet.
Instead, I bought the above named Silmarillion, The Hobbit and the LotR big box set.
But now I’ve gotten about a 1/3 of the way into the Hobbit and I’m mighty sore. Is this damn thing a children’s book or something? I know these supposedly started out as stories JRR would tell his kids, but I cannot believe that Elrond would have a damn thing to do with elves who sing such insipid tunes.
In fact, I am of the mind that he actually murder them before they completed the first chorus.
So, is this thing a children’s book? Should I stop, get the other ones to read, and skive this one off for the foreseeable future? Or, should I slog my way through it?
And in reference to that last question: Is the LotR series follow in this very silly to read vein?
Help a brother out.
It is a children’s book. The songs are cute, and were mercilessly parodied by the Harvard Lampoon staff in “Bored of the Rings.” Yes, that implies there are songs in LOTR, too, but fewer. And LOTR is definitely NOT a children’s book. It doesn’t have that “I’m reading you a story” narrator voice that he adopted for the Hobbit.
I’d say slog through it, but if you really can’t stand the thing, go straight to LOTR, slog through the first chapter and you’re good to go.
I can’t wait to hear your impressions of Tom Bombadil, BTW — he wasn’t in the movies for good reason.
I’m guessing it is a kid’s book because our teachers read it to us in 3rd grade.
The Hobbit is a children’s book, I first read it in 5th grade. If you’ve only made it to Rivendell, then keep going, at least until the riddle game.
But I then read the LOTR trilogy in 6th grade…
LOTR is much more serious. But has lots of Good Stuff ™ in it.
I was never able to get more than a page or two into the Silmarillion.
I did not care for The Hobbit as a reading expedition. I, instead, listened to it as an audiobook. It was still a slow-go, but in short driving trips, it was perfect.
As far as the LOTR trilogy goes, if you can make it past the first 30 pages or so, it gets pretty exciting. (although you said you liked the history thing – that is what the first part of The Fellowship of the Rings is – like the Old Testament.) I loved the books and have re-read the trilogy at least three times.
Good luck!
P.S. this is coming from a girl who likes sci-fi and fantasy, though.
And, hey, I liked Tom Bombadil. 🙂
And, I think I skimmed the question … I don’t think LOTR is a children’s book, personally. It has fairy tale type stories in it, but I really enjoyed it. If you like sci-fi/fantasy, you’ll enjoy it. If that isn’t your style of read … you will be bored.
The Hobbit is the Akira of the Tolkien world: it’s how you start out. Plow through it to get to know Tolkien a little bit, and then get ready to enjoy the LOTR books. They are more serious and much, much more in-depth. IMHO it helps to have read The Hobbit before you read the LOTR books.
HKPistole,
Okay, so that begs the question, if the Hobbit is the Akira of the Tolkien world, what should I have read after I read Akira?
I thoroughly enjoyed the Akira trade paperbacks back in the ’80s and ’90s, but didn’t read any manga after that.
I think I have a copy of Ghost in the Shell buried in the garage, but never opened it.
Well it is a little like anything in life. I just recently saw some of the brat pack movies for the first time and they all suck except for Breakfast Club, which rules, but also the only one I saw as a kid go figure. Same goes for the Hobbit. If read as a kid you are more likely to like it as an adult. I was lucky, I had the Hobbit read to me by an outstanding reader as a young kid, and I thought that the songs were great. I do not read them when I read the book, and do not think that they are necessary as read, but when spoken (by an awesome orator) they are not too bad.
Also try LOTR first and the the Hobbit. That is the way that my brother did it as an adult and he liked it better (after having not been able to read beyond the first chapter of the Hobbit as a kid).
>I think I have a copy of Ghost in the Shell buried in the garage, but never opened it.
The story gets better soon – stick to it!
The Hobbit is written in the form of a kid’s book … but it picks up very quickly once you get past the visit to Elrond.
It’s his first book. cut him some slack, and tough it out.
The LOTR trilogy proper is strictly adult fare.
Hobbit is best read pre-teen, but that said, slog through it as it does get better out past Rivendell (though never up to the LOTR adultness level) and provides some “backgrounding” that might make LOTR more entertaining…
Enjoy “The Hobbit” with what childishness you have… LOTR strips away the bright faeryness of it all.