When asked about Lord of the Rings, I always feel I must both apologize and admit having read it many times. But the last time I read it was thirty years ago, and I have forgotten so much, and skimmed over so many battle (and eating) chapters in the first place. Probably read The Hobbit when I was about eleven, with the rest following slowly over the next couple of years. Then, I read the trilogy every year, mostly as a way into a world that was not the one I had to endure. One with magic, a mechanism much craved by a powerless child. I was given the Silmarillion when I was maybe 18, and failed to read more than the first twenty pages or so, eventually skimming extremely lightly over the rest in despair and exasperation. I don't think I ever read LOTR again.
Many more fantasy novels would be read, swallowed whole, then returned to the library*. At some point in my late 20s, after too many multi-volume epics owing their roots to Tolkien, particularly since I got them from the library and it became more and more difficult to read them in order, I called a moratorium on trilogy fantasy. Basta. Thankfully, I then found Pterry. Breath of fresh air, and oh did I ever get the jokes.
So the LOTR movies were not so much a disappointment as a point of disinterest. (Peter Jackson committed the sin of Meet The Feebles - ugh, which I hadn't connected until after I saw the first one.) Fellowship of the Ring was pretty, but dull, and not at all the world I'd visited as a kid. Never even considered seeing the rest. I could go into the why, I had two thorough film classes, might even manage a paper on it's failings, if I could generate enough will to bother. Take it as read that there is much to criticize. Even ignoring the divergence from the books.
My imagination did better, then. Today, those are just old dreams, polyester bell-bottoms, corduroy vests, all browns and beiges. The trek to Mordor may have been hellish, but making it through hell meant a lot to me at that age. Today, the urge to find that in a story is long gone. And magic is less than unreliable, useless as wishing, a waste of time and effort better spent actually thinking through a problem and working to solve it.
I've also lost my taste for heroism. The real good guys just get on with it, without magic swords or mysterious prophecies.
*Which is why I know that if Harry Potter and my childhood had overlapped, I would have read every one with gusto. And outgrown them at about the same time.
12 comments:
I was never really into fantasy or magic as a kid preferring science fiction. Asimov, Clarke, Bradbury, Heinlein and such. I've never read LOTR but have seen the movies. Not having read the books gave me a large gap of ignorance into which the movies flowed, so I enjoyed them.
I read SF later, and it seemed to me the same, but dressed spaceships and with lasers, instead of robes and wands.
I like the LOTR movies well enough, I usually watch them when they come on TV, but they're not favourites or films that chime with me in any way.
As for the books, well, you only get to read so many books in a lifetime, and I have so many others I need to read first.
Pacian,
I'm glad I read them when I did, or I probably would not have. Just as with the C S Lewis Lion, Witch & Wardrobe series, which got to me before I got terminally disillusioned with christianity. And I'm glad because they were good, but would have irritated me a couple of years after. I found the uber-hostile-feminist Mists of Avalon before I came to a more reasonable feminism, a very narrow window. Timing is everything.
I keep thinking about how cliched and hackneyed Citizen Kane looks. It seems that way because every filmmaker to follow copied it extensively, as it broke all new ground first. LOTR is like that for fantasy, and probably for SF as well, as the template everyone copied after. So, I'm glad I read it first.
Oh, I don't know about not needing heroes...what about Cohen the Barbarian?!
I wonder if you've read Gormenghast - another fantasy world, but each character so very recognisably human. Wonderful writing, I thought.
RtheS,
It's not well known in the US. I came across it as the BBC series, which was very impressive. I found the book unappealing, but probably as much because it is so much of it's own place and time.
I was given Water Babies by my English aunt, when I was young. I don't know if it was just a bit above my reading level, or slid sideways of my interests, but it never caught me.
I have to admit that I'm still intrigued by the Sméagol/Gollum character. And what Andy Serkis did with him in the films made me sit up. That's the only reason I read the LOTR series. Haven't read any other fantasy, but still dabble in SF, specifically Connie Willis's works and then there is Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Good stuff.
Rou,
The Gollum characterization is the sole redeeming point of the films, for me.
I have no problem with "genre" fiction, and I think the pigeonholing into the worthy and unworthy is just silly snobbery. I just like the funnier sort. Getting through nursing school, I read Robert Asprin's Myth series during breaks. Very soothing.
I read Lord of the Rings during a long hospital stay in my twenties. The time and place were just right. It wouldnt do me now. As for Harry P, my children were just the right age to grow up with him, and in the right language too (not French!) It became a wonderful shared family experience. I enjoyed gormenghast, but that was then... My magic tastes turned to science fiction, but I preferred it "hard" with some basic facts to logically extrapolate.
And we havent even discussed Douglas adams yet...sorry, I'm going on a bit...
I think you know I grew up with my Pa reading TLOR to us. I can never bring myself to watch the films. My imagination would be upset! This, even with Pa telling me he likes the films and the charge of the Rohirrim ( I think ) always brings tears to his eyes. Like you I used to read it regularly. I would start in the UK Autumn. I haven't read it since the films came out. Too much of Smeagol on cornflake pkts and 'hobbits' on ad. hoardings, I guess.
I tried Pratchett ( as the Alchemist is an avid reader), but the book I tried ( can't remember which) did nowt for me.
PS Nowt to do with your post, but have just seen a film you might enjoy. Very Australian.....'Red Dog'. If you want to see the red earth, miners and characters of Oz, I suggest you watch it!
I'll shut up now! Blame the 'Whisky Mac', I have been imbibing!
Rosie, Herhimnbryn,
Write as much as you like here. I love both of your comments completely.
D says about SF, quoting, or paraphrasing someone, the penis theory of science fiction. If it's not hard, it's not worth fucking with.
H, try Small Gods, or Going Postal, or Night Watch. Some of his books are decidedly weak, especially some of the early ones. And some fans seem to be blind to how faulty Color of Magic (his first) really is.
Post a Comment