Lord of the Rings

I loved the films, and for educational purposes the book is great, but I was a bit bored and never made it past the first part of the second book. Its very realistic, but having to read 6+ pages at a time just filled with description of their course made my head numb.

Is it just me who felt this?

Both the books and the movies were far too drawn out for my taste. Though I'm a bit opposite of yourself. If finished reading all the books, but only made it halfway through movie one and two and somehow managed to watch the last one all the way to the end.

There is something however to be said for how much detail and back story was created. Few other authors have even come close to creating so fully another world.

I enjoyed the description for a number of reasons. The most basic was simply to have it present, as so many authors forget that it is their job to paint in the background and often the foreground. It made me accept JRR Tolkien as the actual author, and not have me feel that I deserved some of the honor as with modern authors that force me to assume certain details as present (forcing me to do the work of completing the scenery).

Another good part about the description was that it let me know that the author cared for his world. He did not rush through the story as if he had a job to do. He took the time to imagine his world as having substance beyond the sets where action occurred. It made me accept the world of Middle Earth as real.

Finally, those six pages treated me, the reader, with respect. JRR Tolkien did not treat me as a simpleton, but honored me with a full description as someone who could appreciate subtle details. That had me accept the author as someone that appreciated his readers, and I gave those pages the respect they deserved.

Let me once again tell you the story of my children and my painting. I will be sitting down painting a metal figure, and my children will come in and watch. One will then ask, "Daddy, when will you be done?" To which I will reply, "I hope that I never get done. Painting is fun, and if I finish then the fun will be over. I don't want the fun to be over, so I hope that it takes a very long time before I am done." The same should be with a story. Reading (and writing) should be fun. You should thus not be desiring for the story to rush to its conclusion. Enjoy reading (and writing) those descriptive passages. Enjoy reading (and writing) all the details of the story. The longer it takes to finish, the longer the fun lasts.

They're just a bit hard to follow for me, although I'll stand by what I said about them being quite educational, as I haven't much experience with countryside when I read it.

I admire the amount of effort he put into the info about Hobbits at the beginning, but it tired me out having to read it all before we got into the story.

The books were a bit drawn out, its not that I lost interest on purpose, sometimes in the middle of long novels I get distracted by other things and need to return to them a few days later, but I just never bothered with LOTR and started reading something else. I lost the passion for reading them, maybe because I saw the films before reading the books I don't know.

The Hobbit though was my fav, and I will be reading that again one day