LOTR's decade attempt. lets do this!

[Khan Harrison]

So for ten years I have been trying to read LOTR.

Going to accomplish that this summer, but I need some help
I hate the 2 book structure i get SO BORED JUST following Sam and Frodo for an entire book. What chapters should I read in order to intertwine the story the way the movies do?

 

[theenglish]

So for ten years I have been trying to read LOTR.

Going to accomplish that this summer, but I need some help
I hate the 2 book structure i get SO BORED JUST following Sam and Frodo for an entire book. What chapters should I read in order to intertwine the story the way the movies do?

Well, that's a little complicated. Books Three and Four do not really follow the same timeline. The movies introduced a fair amount of extra material not found in the books to extend Frodo and Sam's journey.

Really though, Sam and Frodo's major section is in second half of TTTs. Only the first three or four chapters of book six actually deal with them alone. If you would like though there is no reason one couldn't reader TTTs by alternating chapters, although chapter two of both books three and four tend to be the slowest reads.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

What chapters should I read in order to intertwine the story the way the movies do?

I've always been a big fan of the chapters where the characters are walking around to different places.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I actually clicked on the thread expecting a post about the films' collective runtime.

 

[FPAlpha]

Why not try and read the book as it is and mentally separate it from the movies?

The book may feel a little bit anachronistic to today's audience.. hell, it opens up with a discussion about pipeweed and the merits of certain kinds (which ultimately does have some importance to the story ), not exactly how one would imagine a story to start about the ultimate battle between good and evil.

The book takes its strength from the imagination of the reader.. Tolkien goes to great length in describing Middle Earth and everything in it and it seems todays audience sometimes just don't have the patience or desire to lose themselves and create mental images themselves (something that could be said in general about general reading and stories).

So my advice would be to sit back, try to erase the movie pictures from your mind and enjoy the story.. let yourself be drawn into it and do not compare it to the movies. I guarantee you a wonderful experience if you're willing and capable to get lost in a story and enjoy it for what it is.

 

[Merlanthe]

Im part way through a reread not having read it in over 10 years. When its good its very very good and hard to put down but when its slow i find myself wandering off and reading whole other novels before coming back to it again. Reading the books is also increasing my irritation with the movies.

 

[Stevil2001]

I have childhood memories of being bored by the whole thing, but I recently reread it, and I did it by reading it in the six-book format, and widely spacing the six books (about one a month). I really liked doing it that way, though to my surprise, the hobbits wandering around turned out to be some of my favorite stuff!

http://www.lessaccurategrandmother.blogspot.com/search/label/series: middle-earth

Also, this order seems to break it down to clumps of a few chapters: http://www.chronology.org/tolkientable/chronological.html

 

[theenglish]

Why not try and read the book as it is and mentally separate it from the movies?

The book may feel a little bit anachronistic to today's audience.. hell, it opens up with a discussion about pipeweed and the merits of certain kinds (which ultimately does have some importance to the story ), not exactly how one would imagine a story to start about the ultimate battle between good and evil.

The book takes its strength from the imagination of the reader.. Tolkien goes to great length in describing Middle Earth and everything in it and it seems todays audience sometimes just don't have the patience or desire to lose themselves and create mental images themselves (something that could be said in general about general reading and stories).

So my advice would be to sit back, try to erase the movie pictures from your mind and enjoy the story.. let yourself be drawn into it and do not compare it to the movies. I guarantee you a wonderful experience if you're willing and capable to get lost in a story and enjoy it for what it is.

I don't know if I buy this argument about the patience of modern readers. Song of Ice and Fire goes into great descriptive lengths and back story about its world, but is hugely popular.

 

[Hound of UIster]

So is LOTR.

However the first book of Song of Ice and Fire was published in 1991. If you had someone in 2040 read it, I suspect you would get similar complaints of boredom like LOTR.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I actually clicked on the thread expecting a post about the films' collective runtime.

LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Same with me!

 

[FPAlpha]

Why not try and read the book as it is and mentally separate it from the movies?

The book may feel a little bit anachronistic to today's audience.. hell, it opens up with a discussion about pipeweed and the merits of certain kinds (which ultimately does have some importance to the story ), not exactly how one would imagine a story to start about the ultimate battle between good and evil.

The book takes its strength from the imagination of the reader.. Tolkien goes to great length in describing Middle Earth and everything in it and it seems todays audience sometimes just don't have the patience or desire to lose themselves and create mental images themselves (something that could be said in general about general reading and stories).

So my advice would be to sit back, try to erase the movie pictures from your mind and enjoy the story.. let yourself be drawn into it and do not compare it to the movies. I guarantee you a wonderful experience if you're willing and capable to get lost in a story and enjoy it for what it is.

I don't know if I buy this argument about the patience of modern readers. Song of Ice and Fire goes into great descriptive lengths and back story about its world, but is hugely popular.

I've heard this argument from many people after the movies came out and they wanted to give the book a shot.

Consensus was that especially the detailed description parts where Tolkien wanders off for a few pages bored them until they decided to put the book down and focus on the movies (and the movies also taxed their patience because each one went over 3 hours and they didn't even bother with the Extended Editions).

Song of Ice and Fire is about the same ballpark.. as awesome as the show is the books are even greater but they do involve a serious commitment of time and it seems people are less and less willing to do that (especially if there is a movie or show about the book). People who read as a hobby don't really count as they enjoy spending time with books and don't consider it "work" something like that.

 

[Davros]

I am always baffled when I hear about people being bored reading Lord Of The Rings.

 

[Greg Cox]

I am always baffled when I hear about people being bored reading Lord Of The Rings.

I confess I gave up midway through the first book in high school and never picked it up again. (And this was at a point when I was devouring every Michael Moorcock book I could get my hands on.)

I suppose I should give Tolkien another try someday.

 

[Theonethatis]

If you can get through the first 130 pages your golden. It picks up significantly after that. This is about the time the hobbits get to Bree.

 

[IndyJones]

I am always baffled when I hear about people being bored reading Lord Of The Rings.

It's been a long time, but I quit somewhere near Tom Bombadil.

 

[Greg Cox]

I gave up on Fellowship when they were visiting the elves. A twenty-page term paper reared its ugly head and I put Tolkien aside in favor of getting my homework done in time.

Never picked it up again.

 

[sidious618]

I got into The Two Towers and then had to quit. Too boring. This was back in 9th grade, mind you, so it's possible I'd be more favorable to it now. I did read A Song of Ice and Fire in 10th grade and didn't find it boring so it's possible I'd find LotR just as dull on reread. I do love the movies, though, so perhaps I should try again. I also really enjoyed The Hobbit but that's written very differently.

 

[The Old Mixer]

I force myself through the books the first time and didn't appreciate them at all. I tried them again after having seen the first couple of films and found that they helped me to appreciate the books considerably, hence a much more enjoyable second read.

 

[Hunter X]

I reread them this past January for the first time since I was fifteen and found I wasn't bored at all. In fact, the notoriously slower passages were quite relaxing in some sense, as if Tolkien was just saying "hang on, we don't have to get there yet. Let's just chill out in this forest for a while, smoke a pipe and enjoy some leisurely conversation."

What impressed me the most in a way was realizing that someone else could come along and adapt these books and end up with quite different movies from Jackson, and yet also, in some way, stay quite true to the books.

 

[Vulcan Logician]

Fellowship keeps your attention so well. Then TT: Sam is hungry Frodo is hungry. Return of the King: Sam is very hungry, Frodo is starving to death. They are shivering cold (Ginsberg: starving, hysterical, naked). I think one of the hardest things about reading the second two books is how well Tolkien communicates the discomfort of his characters. It's almost like you are going through it yourself.