Is It LOTR's Fault?
- Thread starter Nardpuncher
- Start date
...from dictionary.com:
...LotR is one book published in three volumes. It is NOT a trilogy lol. Just like Remembrance of Things Past is not a series, it's a very long novel lol.
That dictionary definition is not taking into account that current usage does allow for one story in three parts to be called a trilogy. "Individually complete" can also be subject to interpretation; it does not necessarily mean that each story resolves everything.
Besides the ancient Greek plays referenced earlier, there are also things like Dante's Inferno trilogy (the other two relating to Purgatory and Paradise). LOTR is the earliest prominent example of a literary trilogy from the past century, but the three-act structure predates it by millennia.
Besides the ancient Greek plays referenced earlier, there are also things like Dante's Inferno trilogy (the other two relating to Purgatory and Paradise). LOTR is the earliest prominent example of a literary trilogy from the past century, but the three-act structure predates it by millennia.
I believe this discussion came up a long time ago, and someone pointed out that the concept of a trilogy was introduced a long long time ago, and has been a staple of literature for quite some time. Long before LoTR.
It was customary, as I understand it, for Victorian novels to be published in three volumes. They were single novels written to a great length. I believe they were nicknamed triple deckers. When someone reading aloud was good entertainment, a long novel had a higher price-to-entertainment ratio than a short one. So writers were more or less ordered to write it long. But it was all commercial. I see no reason to think the motivation is any different now.
Well I think part of the reasoning behind having a trilogy or a at least continued volumes based on a work is... you can arrange it so that you can have a distinct beginning, middle and end and people know what to expect. Sure Star Wars stands on its own, but Empire doesn't. Nor does Jedi.
Although when it comes to books, if you count the books published post humously by his son, LOTR kind of continues past the LOTR.
But if you're going in terms of movies - 3 is a good number usually. Your first one sets up the world, your second plays in it, your third typically wraps up the previous two and sets up the next "Act". LOTR really could be one long movie too for that matter, of course it would take you all day to watch. Same reason novelists break up their stories, especially if they've got a long reaching arc.
Although when it comes to books, if you count the books published post humously by his son, LOTR kind of continues past the LOTR.
But if you're going in terms of movies - 3 is a good number usually. Your first one sets up the world, your second plays in it, your third typically wraps up the previous two and sets up the next "Act". LOTR really could be one long movie too for that matter, of course it would take you all day to watch. Same reason novelists break up their stories, especially if they've got a long reaching arc.
Varney? Oh, hell no. Varney the Vampire was originally published in short instalments called penny dreadfuls, and there's a reason they're called that: they cost a penny, and tended to be quite dreadful. Because it was written in short bouts over years, it's a fairly inconsistent story (Varney has more origin stories than a comic book character); interesting to read as a cultural artifact, and because it originates so many of the common literary tropes about vampires, but if you're just reading for pleasure, expecting something that meets modern aesthetics, I wouldn't recommend it.
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
I'm not sure what the response is here. A lot of older Victorian fantasy can be found in single long works or in a series or as periodical releases later combined in several books. LOTR however, did have a huge impact with more popular series that followed. I do think the pubs saw the money to me made in a trilogy, series, and assorted hardback and paperback releases.
It is the nature of the genre to build and lengthen, but the industry also tends to milk the built in lengths for all its worth. TV and film only makes it worse.
In the 70s I think there were a lot of similar fantasy series that sprung up. Terry Brooks did the Swords of Shannara, right? I have a few and have never read them. I'm looking forward to the new Game of Thrones, series, but haven't read the novels. Actually, I don't read much modern fantasy, I prefer the pre Tolkien Golden Age and Victorian and earlier Arthurian literature. If LOTR did popularize the return to serial or trilogy fantasy, is that bad? Sure there were knock offs after it, and subsequent knock offs in book and film now, but so?
It is the nature of the genre to build and lengthen, but the industry also tends to milk the built in lengths for all its worth. TV and film only makes it worse.
In the 70s I think there were a lot of similar fantasy series that sprung up. Terry Brooks did the Swords of Shannara, right? I have a few and have never read them. I'm looking forward to the new Game of Thrones, series, but haven't read the novels. Actually, I don't read much modern fantasy, I prefer the pre Tolkien Golden Age and Victorian and earlier Arthurian literature. If LOTR did popularize the return to serial or trilogy fantasy, is that bad? Sure there were knock offs after it, and subsequent knock offs in book and film now, but so?
Nardpuncher
Rear Admiral
^^ You should be pleasantly surprised by the book A Game of Thrones and the others in the series.
It doesn't rely on wizards and elves and all that as it's more grounded in reality. Very easy to get lost in it.
I heard somewhere it's been voted the top fantasy series. I'm not sure where.
It doesn't rely on wizards and elves and all that as it's more grounded in reality. Very easy to get lost in it.
I heard somewhere it's been voted the top fantasy series. I'm not sure where.
I've always wondered how "the trilogy" became the standard. Lord of the Rings and the Foundation series were, for whatever reason, put into trilogy format before it became "the thing to do" and were read by the largest amount of readers in that format. And considering that both works are the cornerstones of their respective genre's, it just seems like the ideal format for people.
Sort of like how because TNG got good in season three and lasted seven seasons, Trek fans started saying it takes a Trek show three seasons to get good and that seven seasons was the ideal number.
If LotR and Foundation had been quadrologies instead of trilogies, we'd all be thinking that was the ideal number since they've been the most influencial works of their respective genre's.
As far as reading....I find that I despise what I call "Elves and dwarves" style fantasy because it's far too derivative of Tolkien. And I only read LotR because it's THE classic that inspired and influenced fantasy for decades. Little interest in that kind of story and my interest in fantasy lay more with either the New Wave of fantasy writers like Moorcock or Zelazny or older writers like Vance, Ashton Smith, Dunsany, Hodgeson, Wellman, Lieber.
World building was incredibly fascinating to me for a long time, I built my own world, but not being a writer, I could do little more than create timelines, maps, etc. Over time that sort of thing stopped interesting me and I grew to appreciate more those guys who could create a world with a few words in a few stories.
I love these smaller worlds these days, rather than overblown and excessive world building...I'm looking at you Wheel Of Time, as they don't take forever to read, but feel "real" in the best tradition of imaginary worlds...if you know what I mean.
And it's a goddamn shame that Tolkien gets more recognition than Lord Dunsany (probably the most influential fantasy writer before Tolkien). Tolkien's big accomplishment was the detail of the fantasy world his characters inhabited.....but Dunsany had an almost supernatural command of the english language and was an infintely better story teller. Lyrical sentences that flow like water and amaze with their ability to conjure imagery simply astound me.
Sadly people today can't appreciate that older style of fantasy, often times feeling like it's too "fairy tale-ish". Gaimans "Stardust" was Gaiman doing his best Dunsany impersonation.
I'll leave with a couple of quotes about and from the man himself:
Inventor of a new mythology and weaver of surprising folklore, Lord Dunsany stands dedicated to a strange world of fantastic beauty . . . unexcelled in the sorcery of crystalline singing prose, and supreme in the creation of a gorgeous and languorous world of incandescently exotic vision. No amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany's pervasive charm.
...H.P. Lovecraft...
All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.
When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours, our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.
...Lord Dunsany...
Sort of like how because TNG got good in season three and lasted seven seasons, Trek fans started saying it takes a Trek show three seasons to get good and that seven seasons was the ideal number.
If LotR and Foundation had been quadrologies instead of trilogies, we'd all be thinking that was the ideal number since they've been the most influencial works of their respective genre's.
As far as reading....I find that I despise what I call "Elves and dwarves" style fantasy because it's far too derivative of Tolkien. And I only read LotR because it's THE classic that inspired and influenced fantasy for decades. Little interest in that kind of story and my interest in fantasy lay more with either the New Wave of fantasy writers like Moorcock or Zelazny or older writers like Vance, Ashton Smith, Dunsany, Hodgeson, Wellman, Lieber.
World building was incredibly fascinating to me for a long time, I built my own world, but not being a writer, I could do little more than create timelines, maps, etc. Over time that sort of thing stopped interesting me and I grew to appreciate more those guys who could create a world with a few words in a few stories.
I love these smaller worlds these days, rather than overblown and excessive world building...I'm looking at you Wheel Of Time, as they don't take forever to read, but feel "real" in the best tradition of imaginary worlds...if you know what I mean.
And it's a goddamn shame that Tolkien gets more recognition than Lord Dunsany (probably the most influential fantasy writer before Tolkien). Tolkien's big accomplishment was the detail of the fantasy world his characters inhabited.....but Dunsany had an almost supernatural command of the english language and was an infintely better story teller. Lyrical sentences that flow like water and amaze with their ability to conjure imagery simply astound me.
Sadly people today can't appreciate that older style of fantasy, often times feeling like it's too "fairy tale-ish". Gaimans "Stardust" was Gaiman doing his best Dunsany impersonation.
I'll leave with a couple of quotes about and from the man himself:
Inventor of a new mythology and weaver of surprising folklore, Lord Dunsany stands dedicated to a strange world of fantastic beauty . . . unexcelled in the sorcery of crystalline singing prose, and supreme in the creation of a gorgeous and languorous world of incandescently exotic vision. No amount of mere description can convey more than a fraction of Lord Dunsany's pervasive charm.
...H.P. Lovecraft...
All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships.
When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours, our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else.
...Lord Dunsany...
People can be too uncritical of Tolkein of course. Some of his writing in LoTR, later on especially, looked as though it was translated straight from Beowulf. Only having one woman with anything to do with the story made it unbalanced, like 1940s and 1950s war movies where the brief female screen time was as someone's squeeze. Don't get me wrong, I don't think 2nd WW battle movies need women in them but a huge fantasy novel that all but excludes them is something else.
Hm, i can think of one series like that...
It also puts some nice spins on established fantasy archetypes...
The Oedipus cycle was a trilogy, and that was written 2500 years ago. Trilogies are here to stay, it seems. 
In a word? no.
That is the irony, some of Tolkien's writing and presentation isn't that good. Today it probably would have been edited down to one single book anyway. The Simarillian is very tough to get through, too, understandably so. I agree trilogies were around before. Now, actually, though, trilogies don't seem to be in. Now it's a 'saga' or5 or 6 books. Some don't know when to quit.
I love Foundation. My sister got me an omnibus edition when I was 15. I though, by golly, she's finally gotten me something I like! Took her long enough to figure out who Asimov was!
I love Foundation. My sister got me an omnibus edition when I was 15. I though, by golly, she's finally gotten me something I like! Took her long enough to figure out who Asimov was!
Hate to burst your bubble, but the fourth book sucks.
I'm still reading Sharpe right now, so it's going to be awhile before a start another series. I really liked the original core of books, but yes some of these newer novels have gone on far longer than this franchise should. I think that's another reason for trilogies and sagas and such. Contracts and pubs lengthening a series when there's no artistic need. The Sharpe prequel trilogy should have been one book, plain and simple.
Did someone mention Mists of Avalon earlier? I hated that book. Instead of splitting a book for trilogies, someone should just have a good editor help make one exceptional book.
Did someone mention Mists of Avalon earlier? I hated that book. Instead of splitting a book for trilogies, someone should just have a good editor help make one exceptional book.
It's entirely possible to create an interesting world with memorable characters in one book.
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