Music Talk Board

(04-14-2013, 06:35 PM)nastynate Wrote: [ -> ]so my grandpa died /:

that's awful

(04-14-2013, 06:18 PM)Danjo Wrote: [ -> ] [size=100] YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!!!!! TAKE IT BACK RIGHT NOW! [/size]

[snip]

I think reading the Silmarillion is what really separates your average LOTR fan from a true Tolkien fanatic.

/rant

Yeah, personally...reading the Silmarillion is what made me really realize Tolkien's genius. The LotR and the Hobbit are excellent, don't get me wrong. But the Silmarillion was what clinched it for me.
Although, I like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series more, just because it keeps me entertained more simply because there's more books, lol.

Btw, did anyone else know we have a book subforum?

(04-14-2013, 06:35 PM)nastynate Wrote: [ -> ]so my grandpa died /:

Damn, dude. I'm sorry...

(04-14-2013, 06:18 PM)Danjo Wrote: [ -> ] [size=100] YOU TAKE THAT BACK!!!!!!! TAKE IT BACK RIGHT NOW! [/size]

Seriously, Tolkien is my favorite author and I think he's got more imagination than anyone else who's ever lived. He created a world with a complete history all the way back to its creation, and he invented 2 full languages to go with it, along with many smaller dialects and less complete languages. The magnitude of what he created is far greater than whats been done by any other single person, at least that I've ever heard of. He was a fucking genius.

That being said, I will agree that the books are slow, and if you can't deal with that then I blame you for not wanting to read them. He puts A LOT of detail in, which I personally like, but I can agree that sometimes you don't care what their having for second breakfast. The Fellowship is probably more slowly paced than the other two, seeing as it doesn't really have a major battle, just the stuff in Moria. The other two have the Battle of Helms deep and the Battle of Pelennor Fields, so they have a good amount of action.

You might want to start with the Hobbit first, its written very differently and isn't quite as wordy. Its basically targeted for a less "academic" audience than the other three.

Also if you read them all and don't see what I'm making such a fuss about, then you should read The Silmarrillion, providing you are interested. The Silmarillion is a very difficult read because its not one continuous story line, its a collection of stories of the history of middle earth. There are a lot of footnotes and a lot of extra things, like poems Tolkien wrote relating to the stories, usually before he wrote the stories themselves. If you aren't super interested in the poems (and the second and third and fourth slightly different different versions of the poems) then you can just skip them and you won't miss out on anything. I think reading the Silmarillion is what really separates your average LOTR fan from a true Tolkien fanatic.

/rant

I agree that he was a great visionary and he created a fantastic and complex world. I commend him for the depth he put into Middle Earth, and the lore and history is really interesting, but he's not that great of an actual writer IMO. I find the films focus too much on action, but the books focus too much on descriptions of trivialities. Neither have enough story. The problem I have with Tolkein's detail of writing is not with how much of it there is, but how he presents it. He's just not that good showing the reader why the lore is interesting. It's just there. In some places for seemingly no reason, which would be fine if he really gripped me with the history, but he doesn't. He's also inconsistent with the detail. It might take several pages to describe and explain something relatively trivial, but something's that vital to the plot has a paragraph or two. Not always, obviously, but frequently enough to be noticeable.

And there's very little difference in the dialects of the different races, and the speech can often be quite clunky. The latter doesn't bother much though, because it's supposed to be an 'old-world' style of speech. But the characters are very 2D to me, with little variation or depth to them. This partly due to the lack of variation in speech from character to character, but it's mainly just a general lack of personality.

I also feel the Ent attack on Isengard would have been better told as it happened, rather than recounted after it happened. But that's just me.

I have read The Hobbit, and enjoyed it. Although I recognise that it's not really very "Tolkein" in style, and the LOTR was mainly written out of pressure for a sequel. Quite funny in a way, how the book that Tolkein never particularly wanted to write became his most famous work. We have got a copy of The Silmarrillion somewhere, and once I'm done with LOTR, I'll probably read it.

Just my thoughts though, different strokes and all that jazz.

(04-14-2013, 06:35 PM)nastynate Wrote: [ -> ]so my grandpa died /:

I'm sorry man.

I'm sorry to hear that Nate.

And I guess Maps, you(Sam), and I are the only one who read books on here, which explains why that sub-forum hasn't gotten much traffic.

@Maps: I dunno, I found it interesting. I guess really there are very few books I don't find interesting though. I can honestly say I've only read one book that I just couldn't finish. (It was really shitty and seemed like it was written by like a 5 year old with good grammar.) And I haven't read the trilogy in a while, so my opinion is kinda biased by the awesomeness of the Silmarillion.

(04-14-2013, 06:38 PM)BobSacamano Wrote: [ -> ]Sorry, nate. Were you close?

yeah. it's not like i didn't really see this coming tho. he was one of the most unhealthy people i've ever met. he drank more Dr. Pepper than water and chewed ridiculous amounts of tobacco. i'm not saying i'm not sad or anything, but i was kind of prepared emotionally because i was expecting this to happen soon and know that he had a good life and did what he wanted. i get a lot of my taste in things and my personality from him i think.

I know from when my Grandfather died of cancer, it didn't really hit me until the actual funeral, because I knew it was going to happen, and I'd just sort of accepted there was nothing I could do.

I feel ya man. It can be tough.

That sounds like my great uncle. I wasn't really all that close with him unfortunately but my brother was. He somehow managed to live into his 60s without ever quitting smoking and only about a quarter of his heart still functioning for most of his life, iirc.

My grandpa's death hit me really hard and fast. He struggled with cancer for seemingly most of the time I knew him. I kinda got used to it, really. Then one day my mom got a call that it didn't seem like he would make it through the day. It was really unexpected, in my mind.

(04-14-2013, 07:33 PM)nastynate Wrote: [ -> ]yeah. it's not like i didn't really see this coming tho. he was one of the most unhealthy people i've ever met. he drank more Dr. Pepper than water and chewed ridiculous amounts of tobacco. i'm not saying i'm not sad or anything, but i was kind of prepared emotionally because i was expecting this to happen soon and know that he had a good life and did what he wanted. i get a lot of my taste in things and my personality from him i think.

Sorry bro. That's rough. My grandmother who I was close to died last September so I know it can be hard. If you need to talk to anyone just shoot me a PM on here or UG. I'll be glad to help

(04-14-2013, 07:45 PM)BobSacamano Wrote: [ -> ]That sounds like my great uncle. I wasn't really all that close with him unfortunately but my brother was. He somehow managed to live into his 60s without ever quitting smoking and only about a quarter of his heart still functioning for most of his life, iirc.

My grandpa's death hit me really hard and fast. He struggled with cancer for seemingly most of the time I knew him. I kinda got used to it, really. Then one day my mom got a call that it didn't seem like he would make it through the day. It was really unexpected, in my mind.

Never knew two of my grandparents. My dad's mom died when he was a teenager and my mom's dad died a little before I was born.

I kind of saw my grandfather's death coming. He was really sick for a while and had dementia and all of that. It sucked but everyone was pretty ready for it.

My grandma on the other hand was horrible. I lived next door to her my entire life and it completely blindsided us. She fell in her room and broke some ribs last summer, and we thought she would be fine. But then got really sick about two weeks later and the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong. Eventually they said she had a tear somewhere around her heart (probably from one of the broken ribs) and had to operate, but it wasn't successful. It was just awful. She was over 80 but was still completely with it and still active and everything. It sucks...




hug for everyone

I'm totally playing the original Spyro game. I'm trying to figure out why people think this is fun.

(04-14-2013, 09:44 PM)Grungie Wrote: [ -> ]I'm totally playing the original Spyro game. I'm trying to figure out why people think this is fun.

Because it was released in '98 and it was for preteens.