I have seen the movie series when I was a kid, but do not recall the storyline a bit. Could not sit through a single episode when it came on Prime Video. However, I’ve seen people read it and say it’s one of the best literary works written on power struggle. Why should one read it?
P.S. don’t give me any spoilers.
by nayarrahul
21 Comments
You should read it because it will help you understand a bit more about almost every later work in the genre. Tolkien’s influence on other authors was immense.
Yes. Don’t faff about with the screen stuff.
The books have a lot of singing. There’s some weird characters that were excluded in the films, and rightly so because they tend to raise unnecessary questions. You’re also going to invest a lot, I mean A LOT, of your time reading the world’s history like you’re in school reading a foreign country’s history. Some people love the lore, if you’re into those stuff then LOTR might just be manna from heaven for you.
They are some of my very favorite books ever and I find them amazing. That being said, they aren’t perfect/can be daunting in some ways. For example, there are lots of songs/poems that can really bog you down. I strongly recommend that for your first read through you just skip them. The story is still clear and enjoyable without them… if you find you want more background and history, then you can go back through them and delve into the poetry (which is legit beautiful), the appendices, and the lore.
Also, when you get to Tom Bombadil in Fellowship: some people find that section really hard to get through. It is a diversion from the main story — even Tolkien had trouble figuring out a way to get the 4 Hobbits back on their journey again. Go ahead and skim the section; you can see if you’re intrigued by the character if you do another read-through.
I hope you really enjoy them. I love the way Tolkien creates his world and surrounds the reader with culture, history, and memorable characters.
Couple of tips:
>Read them as thee separate books, tried to read the plus 1,100 all in one book, just looking at how much to go puts you off.
>Don’t get too tied up trying to understand the deeper lore (The Silmarillion does the job better)
>Read the Hobbit after because if you read this first the ‘jump’ in complexity in LOTR will be too much (you’ll be expecting the same and feel let down it’s not)
For me the characters go on a massive and trying journey. Tolkien recreates this by making the reader do the same, you’ll actually feel like you took every step on the route they take by the time you’ve finished 😂
If you mean the rings of power series on prime then its no wonder you couldn´t sit through a single episode 😀
Read the Hobbit. If the Hobbit is too slow and the language too fancy/dull/dense then just stop because the Lord of the Rings is slower and the language is more so in spots. I love this series. The first time I read these books in middle school it took a month each and about 3 attempts to read the Two Towers and the Return of the King.
The TV show is trying to adapt some of the material that is in the appendixes at the back of the Return of the King. It is completely irrelevant to a reading of the Lord of the Rings in the same way that reading Roman history tells you nothing about European history in the 1600s.
Unpopular opinion: it’s not worth a read. The way it’s written, the characters, the plot devices and many many things didn’t age well but since ‘it started all’ it always gets a free pass whenever we criticize books.
Some consider the books slow while others consider them works of art. Some think both.
I’d start with The Hobbit and see how you feel after that.
The books are masterpieces. They’re slow paced with a lot of old fashioned language and descriptions, so the way to enjoy them is to savor them. If you keep wishing for something modern and fast you’ll be disappointed. Think of LOTR as a slow multi course gourmet meal, vs lots of modern fantasy as fast food.
Tolkien didn’t just tell a story in these books, he created a whole mythos, a world with its own incredibly detailed legendariun, lore, languages (as in he literally created multiple working languages with their own scripts, grammars and histories). It’s totally unique and unparalleled in terms of its scope and complexity, Middle Earth became his life’s work and nothing compares to it. Writers like JK Rowling get praised for created detailed worlds but no one can compare to Tolkien. And he did it first, before anyone else, which is pretty incredible when you think about it .
So if you’re at all interested in language, myth, and the origins of contemporary fantasy, you’ll get something out of reading Tolkien.
On a more surface level, the story itself can be dramatic, strange, and moving at times – it can also be very slow paced as Tolkien is interested in fleshing out the landscapes of his world, and the culture of those who live there (lots of songs which.. maybe weren’t his strongest suit). Many of the characters are beloved by readers despite their flaws, and some of the human characters in particular have redeeming qualities despite their weaknesses – so they are complex and feel very real despite the setting and the circumstances being so fantastical.
At its heart, it’s quite a straightforward story about good vs evil, about the inevitable corruption of power and about friendship in hard times.
The Amazon Prime series is basically fanfiction. Very expensive and shiny, but fanfiction nonetheless.
YES
Like watching paint dry.
I see some folks recommending to start with The Hobbit. I’m not sure if I support it. It’s chronologically good choice to start with Hobbit. You’ll get some background, you’ll get an idea of the world and setting of LOTR. But The Hobbit is not at all a good way to judge whether or not you’ll like The Fellowship of the Ring (the first book in the trilogy).
The Fellowship is my all time favourite fantasy novel, but The Hobbit was absolutely tedious. Both the stories are completely different in their tone and pacing. Fellowship is a classic fantasy adventure tale.The Hobbit feels like adventure for the sake of adventure.
The Hobbit is a children’s book. It is clearly written with the target audience in mind. Tolkien breaks the fourth wall too often and straight up explains why a certain character is doing a certain thing instead of showing us the motive. And that’s 90% of the novel. It’s hard to take it all seriously. The stakes don’t feel high at all.
That’s not the case with The Fellowship. The danger is real and the story moves quite fast. The sense of adventure is real. So, unlike others, I would say it’s fine if you start directly with The Fellowship. You won’t miss much. There’s ample of exposition in Fellowship itself that will give you a lot of context. If you like Fellowship, you can go back to read The Hobbit. Because there’s a high chance of you getting bored with The Hobbit. I know I was. And I was certainly not feeling encouraged to read the rest of the trilogy. Which would’ve been a big mistake if I’d followed my instinct.
Tl,dr: So yeah, start with The Fellowship of the Ring right away. That’s all I’ll say. You can skip The Hobbit without missing much. And the trilogy is certainly worth a read. And a very important fantasy novel.
As others have said, start with **The Hobbit* and assess from there.
yes, read it. i avoided it for so long because i thought i would be generic fantasy (i know lotr is the father of it all, but ive consumed so much fantasy that i was worried it would fall short). i also had a midkey grudge against the movies because theyre the reason tesiv oblivion’s setting was horribly bland.
the worldbuilding is great, but the main thing that made the trilogy fantastic was the characters and their relationships. its very uplifting and kind.
whether to start at the hobbit or fellowship, i would recommend the hobbit. its my least favourite by a mile but i dont think the beginning of fellowship would have hit has hard without reading the hobbit.
It’s one the greatest tales ever told. Though the first 200 pages are dragging out a bit, but it’s absolutely worth to keep reading.
The Fellowship of the Ring has perfect fall vibes if you’re looking for a seasonal book.
>However, I seen people read it and say it’s one of the best literary works written on power struggle.
This is way overstating it. The Lord of the Rings are good books, but I’d only recommend it to you if you actually like or are interested in fantasy as a genre.
Yes. I would not consider myself a fan of the genre. I haven’t watched the movies. However, almost 30 years ago my husband and I were renting a place in the middle of nowhere for his job. The only books in the house were The Hobbit, Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. Started to read them imagining I would quickly stop and have to make a trek to a book store. Instead, I devoured them.