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gawd. Tolkien is awful.

just........ AWFUL.

Tolkien isn't so bad. As far as creating an entire world, languages, histories and meta narrative is concerned, he is golden. I can see where the writing style gets people bogged down, but let's remember that they are intended for children. The Hobbit at least certainly was, and I can only imagine that LOTR was aimed at a teenage sort of reader by the time he had finished it....mostly due to the fact he wrote at shit for his kids.
So I think read in that context, it's pretty damn good. Not read in a nerd-man-child context, as most people do.
Like adults who read Harry Potter. They are children's books. Not for you grown ups who struggled with English at school.

i dunno. i dig a lot of types of books, and even stuff like Hunger Games that's aimed predominantly at young adult, if it's engrossing and entertainingly written, i'm there.

not saying anybody else shouldna dig him, but for me Tolks is a writer that isna engrossing in the slightest.

BLEGH.

Fair enough. There are certainly some dull sections in each book.
Some young adult stuff can be amazing, and I suppose these days there is becoming more of an overlap between stuff intended for kids and for adults. I'd like to think that most teenagers should be able to read a text "intended" for an adult readership....but I'd also like to think that those adults you see who read predominantly fiction intended for a younger reader are supplementing that shit with some real books as well.
I may be giving people far too much credit there, though.
That is in no way a knock at you either Behnders, I suppose if anything I get frustrated at the dumbing down of society, particularly where's reading is concerned because I guess I sort of romanticize it as the last bastion of intellectual food....when in reality it has never been that, really.
Iunno, shit like Dan Brown pisses me the fuck off. There's nothing wrong with toning it down a notch and reading some young adult stuff, but I guess it has to be fairly well written for me to engage with it.
That was my main point, really.

lol. we're saying the same thing. garbage is garbage. i never got into Tolkien, i could be missing out on something.

i feel you. it's a whole lonnnnng discussion all the stuff 'Muricans are okay with now that scares the poo right out of me along with a lack of interest in decent literature.

OOF.

behndy wrote:lol. we're saying the same thing. garbage is garbage. i never got into Tolkien, i could be missing out on something.

i feel you. it's a whole lonnnnng discussion all the stuff 'Muricans are okay with now that scares the poo right out of me along with a lack of interest in decent literature.

OOF.

Haha! Yeah we are.
It's not just Murica dude, Straya does it, too. Possibly worse.
The fact that Bryce Courtney is a national "treasure" sends a shudder through my already cold blood.
The West is doomed.

When the Doom comes....we will fall like Old Valyria.

behndy wrote:lol. we're saying the same thing. garbage is garbage. i never got into Tolkien, i could be missing out on something.

i feel you. it's a whole lonnnnng discussion all the stuff 'Muricans are okay with now that scares the poo right out of me along with a lack of interest in decent literature.

OOF.

You're missing out on a lot.

Authorial scheduling doesn't work very well within the confines of an instant gratification economic expectation. Writing a novel takes a long fucking time. Capital letters Long Fucking Time.

Tool's sort of a good example of that, although they're doing all sorts of other stuff in the meantime.

Plenty of great books being released today--it's like music. We can't judge the country by Nickelback, and we can't judge the country by 50 Shades of Grey.

Iommic Pope wrote:

behndy wrote:lol. we're saying the same thing. garbage is garbage. i never got into Tolkien, i could be missing out on something.

i feel you. it's a whole lonnnnng discussion all the stuff 'Muricans are okay with now that scares the poo right out of me along with a lack of interest in decent literature.

OOF.

Haha! Yeah we are.
It's not just Murica dude, Straya does it, too. Possibly worse.
The fact that Bryce Courtney is a national "treasure" sends a shudder through my already cold blood.
The West is doomed.

When the Doom comes....we will fall like Old Valyria.

lol. but what... oh WHAT will rise from the ashes? fire tempered steel to forge a new path? or tainted and rotted pig iron, rent in twain with little effort?

Dosey - it's not that stuff like NickHole'sBack or Fifty Other Shades Of Greeeeyyy are popular, it's how much amazing stuff falls by the wayside because of boring pap like that.

i'm actually more worried about no one seeming to care that our gub'ment is spying on us and committing illegal acts all the time and calling assassinations on US citizens abroad and NOTHING EVER HAPPENS TO THEM.

but again... whole 'nother conversation.

um. i get that novels take a lot of work and research and rewrites.... but RR Martin is out of hand right? and a dickbag for writing the end of the tv series but taking forfuckingever with the books?

Richard K Morgan is probably my favorite author, and i wish he was more prolific, but i never feel like he just doesn't care. Martin.... seems like he gets off on making people wait and having the power to basically tell publishers to fuck off.


ne?

Martin's only a dickbag because of the demand--it's not like he's writing slower than he was before. And he's old, and, as I read somewhere--maybe in this thread?--his blood is made of Russian Dressing. Hence making sure the showrunners know what the ending is.

And, yeah, it sucks that people don't like good stuff, but it also sucks that the arbiters of "the good stuff" are generally classicist assholes who won't recognize game as game--so the average high school graduate hasn't read a book that's been released in the last 30 or 40 years, and a lot of that shit is hard to get into anyway, nevermind when you're forced into it for the schoolings

Also: Do you read Phillip K Dick? I think you would dig.

DoS: yeah man, I hear you on the quality over quantity argument, definitely. Not saying it's the end of culture, just seems to me like you have to dig a bit deeper to find the good shit these days. I don't know how it is in the states but we seem to be entering this real anti-intellectual Raeganist kind of period here (despite hipsters seemingly making it cool to be "intelligentsia". Note, 9/10 hipsters are fucking idiot trendites). So a lot of good work that is critical of major political change and policy is subtly labelled as being "extremist" and anything that involves any kind of involvement or demand on the reader's behalf is immediately put into the too hard basket.
Maybe it's always been this way and I'm just noticing it now...
Haven't read any Dick yet.
Lol.
Been on my list though.


Behnds: I do believe Neurosis had the answers to those questions on their last record.

Edit, while I was writing that, you guys posted that other stuff.
Yeah, that is a dick move...but I imagine they just put a figure with a whole bunch of zeroes after it and said, "do it."
Our government is too busy licking your governments asshole to do any real cool shit. They're great at racism and homophobia, so there is that.

Yeah man, I'm with you on the school curriculum thing. But I think that has a lot to do with policy makers getting their grubby noses into things they know shit about and not leaving it to teachers/academics to dictate. Plus there is always going to be a moral/cultural component attached to the question of "what do we teach kids and what sort of adults do we want here?"

Iommic Pope wrote:Tolkien isn't so bad. As far as creating an entire world, languages, histories and meta narrative is concerned, he is golden. I can see where the writing style gets people bogged down, but let's remember that they are intended for children. The Hobbit at least certainly was, and I can only imagine that LOTR was aimed at a teenage sort of reader by the time he had finished it....mostly due to the fact he wrote at shit for his kids.
So I think read in that context, it's pretty damn good. Not read in a nerd-man-child context, as most people do.
Like adults who read Harry Potter. They are children's books. Not for you grown ups who struggled with English at school.

Actually Tolkien wasn't writing for kids all the time. He served in WW I and Wrote the backgound for his middle earth stories while he was recovering from trench fever. the hobbit was intended for children but became popular with adults as well, the Lord Of the Rings was intended for adults. If you read the bools with some understanding of what WWI vets went through, it lends a lot of additional meaning to them. Tolkien himself denied any relation to his stories to WWI or WWII but it's undeniable that there was an influence there.

i like some of The Dick. he's got a few that are a little too drug influenced to be fun reads, but some awesome stuff too.

AxAxSxS wrote:

Iommic Pope wrote:Tolkien isn't so bad. As far as creating an entire world, languages, histories and meta narrative is concerned, he is golden. I can see where the writing style gets people bogged down, but let's remember that they are intended for children. The Hobbit at least certainly was, and I can only imagine that LOTR was aimed at a teenage sort of reader by the time he had finished it....mostly due to the fact he wrote at shit for his kids.
So I think read in that context, it's pretty damn good. Not read in a nerd-man-child context, as most people do.
Like adults who read Harry Potter. They are children's books. Not for you grown ups who struggled with English at school.

Actually Tolkien wasn't writing for kids all the time. He served in WW I and Wrote the backgound for his middle earth stories while he was recovering from trench fever. the hobbit was intended for children but became popular with adults as well, the Lord Of the Rings was intended for adults. If you read the bools with some understanding of what WWI vets went through, it lends a lot of additional meaning to them. Tolkien himself denied any relation to his stories to WWI or WWII but it's undeniable that there was an influence there.

Interesting. I have been misinformed. I always thought it was for younger readers. Could be because my awesome hippie fourth grade teacher readdit to us.
I always read LOTR as an essay against the dangers of mass-industrialisation, which I suppose is inextricably conjoined with the first world war.