08-26-2019, 02:47 PM
(08-25-2019, 11:08 PM)Mattias Westlund Wrote:(08-03-2019, 02:08 PM)bigcat1969 Wrote: Then again while I did read LotR cover to cover, I don't ever want to do it again, so I may not be a good SF/Fantasy barometer.
In that particular case, I honestly can't blame you. Tolkien was a master world-builder, but I (and I seem to be relatively alone in this) don't think he was a great writer. As in "good at actually writing". His storytelling is roundabout, long-winded and archaic, and his ideas about brotherhood, women and foreigners haven't really aged all that well.
Tolkien was a child of his own time like everyone else, and what he wrote reflected his life experiences and the society and world that formed him. I get that. But there is nothing so singularly brilliant about his prose that I feel the need to excuse him for its flaws.
There, I said it. I think the Lord of the Rings, one of the most celebrated works of fiction from the past 100 years, is very overrated.
Oh, agreed, at least to a point. He laid down the foundations of the modern fantasy genre, but... I never did actually finish when I tried to read the first LotR. Now, for a fantasy series from around the same time that hasn't aged at all, which has been hailed as the true classic of its era, which has been said by some to be a work of fiction so excellent that it should be taught in schools... Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast is utterly striking, unique, and original, it is totally unduplicable, it is as strange and wonderful today as it must've been in its own time. It reads like a work of prose poetry. It is completely and utterly different not merely from LotR but just about any other fantasy series (though I hear that the Viriconium books are strongly influenced by it) and it comes with my personal (albeit probably somewhat worthless) recommendation.
