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Book Review: The Fellowship of the Ring (read-aloud), by J.R.R. Tolkien

I've now read The Fellowship of the Ring three times, and I think I'm prepared to state that I don't intend to read it again.  There's certainly some lovely stuff in it, and a good deal of excitement, but the excitement to boredom ratio is just too darn high, I'm afraid.

After watching the LOTR movies with my son (chapter-skipping a few places for the sake of nightmare reduction), I thought I'd give the books a shot as read-alouds.  Tolkien's writing tends to frustrate me a bit when reading on my own, because his books are the kind that you really need concentrated reading time to get through.  It's tough to read in ten-minute blocks and have any idea what's going on.  In that way, his writing is much like almost all other classic fiction: veering toward dull.

Really, the reason Peter Jackson produced such richly-detailed film sets is quite obvious: Tolkein overdescribed everything.  And the more I've read Tolkien, the more I've come to admire the Peter Jackson films, even when some of the changes irked me at first.  But I give him full credit for removing Tom Bombadil completely.  Seriously, was there ever a more ill-timed interlude than the Bombadil one?  The Black Riders were in pursuit, the dread building, so why not introduce a character completely tangential to the whole story and sing a few songs?  Booooooriinnnnngggggg!

And that's another thing.  I suppose I'm willing to grandfather Tolkien in here, but including more than one song in a book should disqualify a writer from future publication.  (Especially if the writer decides to include a song entirely in Elvish, for pity's sake.)

I realize I'm coming off pretty negative here, and that's unfortunate.  Because I really do like the overall outline of the story.  The Council of Elrond is great reading.  Gandalf's retelling of the history of the One Ring is quite compelling.  But when you take all the great dialogue and action and bury it in endless descriptions of "getting from here to there," it really bogs down and tries the patience of your average ten-year-old anybody.  And actually, I just noticed that my favorite parts of the book were basically all dialogue.

I've continued with The Two Towers just because my son wanted to hear about Boromir's big fight with the orcs.  Of course, that scene, so memorable and touching in the film, is mostly absent except for Aragorn finding Boromir amidst a large pile of orcs.  (My favorite scene in the film, BTW.  I defy any guy to not tear up a bit at Boromir's dying words.  "My captain!  My king!")

We'll see if the boy has the patience for the second book, but I'm not optimistic.  I think maybe my boy and I just aren't into high fantasy.  Though I imagine he'll enjoy Gollum and the interaction between Gimli and Legolas.

Is it literary blasphemy to declare LOTR boring?  I certainly have no qualms declaring The Hobbit so.  Maybe I'm just spoiled by TV and movies and the tendency of modern writers to go with leaner prose.  Who knows?

Anybody out there with me on this?

I should mention that I borrowed my esteemed sometime partner in pavement pounding's copy of LOTR, illustrated by Alan Lee.  The illustrations are not boring.

So…future postings.  I'm halfway through The Scarlet Pimpernel and a few chapters into Frank Close's Neutrino, on account of I'm a particle physics fanboy.  I'm seriously contemplating another Library Fast so I can concentrate on reading some books I've bought, and buying a few more and reading them, too.