> Now back to Tolkien. I think the failure of some people to "get through"
> LOTR has more to do with
> their personal tastes than any deficiencies in the story. They are either
> immediately turned off by
> the "hobbit-cuteness" of the first few chapters, which goes against the
> grain of their
> blood-and-thunder leanings, or they have been raised on soap-opera fantasy
> dreck and prefer
> plot-telling to story-telling.
>
> These people don't want to read (an act which requires a certain contract
> with the author, an
> agreement to fill in the space between each line with further imaginings of
> your own), they instead
> want to be TOLD. And lacking imaginations, they fail to grasp the joy in
> the unknowable or the
> mysterious, or what they are missing by being spoon-fed. They don't see
> that they are grown-ups
> now, and that instead of baby-food or Fruity Pebbles they could be having
steak.
I've read it three times. Still find it overly-detailed and taking to long
to get to the point.
The Silmarillion, while told from a third-person narrative perspective,
moved more smoothly and cut to the chase.
--Mike Mott
