Is Tolkien fun to read?

yeah

>>9516678
na

>>9516684
this guy is lying

>>9516678
Tolkien is usually someone's first "real" piece of literature they read, so yea it is fun. I would say that, you know, a david sedaris essay is more entertaining; but Tolkien is definitley engrossing.

Yes. It reads almost like a history of middle earth instead of a personal account like most popular fantasy does.

>>9516685
this guy is lying too

>>9516678
Listen to the audiobook by the whimsical old English guy. If he doesn't get you into it, you never got it.

I thought it was so fucking boring in middleschool but gave it another try in highschool and enjoyed it. The Silmarillion is fucking terrible though.

>>9516829
This is especially true for The Silmarillion. It's rooted in his linguistic and historical academia, I personally love it and believe why this has separated Tolkienesque fantasy from every other take.

Read the hobbit in 5th grade and loved it. Opened it up a few months ago and was amazed at how funny it was. Haven't read any of his other stuff since middle school because the movies really turned me off, but at the time i was enthralled.

I've only ever read the hobbit. Fantasy and Sci-fi have never really done it for me, but it's been a while since I've tried any. Should I just jump into the Fellowship? I'm not worried about difficulty or anything--just don't know if there's a more engrossing/better way to get into fantasy. Can't say I want to read a lot of it, but I feel like I should mix it up.

>>9518696
LOTR is a decent mix between classic literature and regular fantasy. It's written in a way that makes the characters and places seem like they really are in a different world than ours. I would recommend it

>>9518696
Brandon Sanderson is way more fun to read IMO

I fucking love Children of Hurin.
What a great tragedy.

>>9518118
I bet if you give it another try you'll think differently :^)

The Hobbit, the Silmarillion, and Fellowship are all good. The Twin Towers and The Return of the King are legitimately boring as fuck. Page long descriptions of plains and mountains would be bearable if his prose was good, but its purposely bad.

Which would you say is better, Dune or LOTR?

>>9519518
They are both in the top teir of their respective genres in my opinion. But I would say LotR is better just because I prefer fantasy

>>9519383
Return of the King is incredible and vastly more exciting than Fellowship

I think Tolkien is something you have to read while young to appreciate or just have to be a fantasy fan boy. I read Hobbit and loved it, and read LOTR in high school but it gets dull in two Towers and return of the king was kind of a grudge match to finish.

>>9519518
LoTR has stronger writing and literary technique for the most part, but Dune has better insight into themes that are relevant IRL (cultural heritage and preservation, ecology, etc) and has a more coherent Bildungsroman format for entry-level readers. Both have equally incredible world building, subjective based on your preference for Sci-Fi or Fantasy.

In my opinion tolkien is boring sometimes but, is cool to read.

>>9516793
What a faggot

>>9516678
Tolkien was a great scholar and a writer. But his fans are mostly angsty neckbeards who can't admit that LoTR is for kids/teenagers and shouldn't be considered as serious literature.

File: enhanced-15871-1391714404-1.jpg (285KB, 600x900px) Image search: [Google]

285KB, 600x900px

>>9522872
This. It's time for LoTR fans to graduate into real literature like pic related.

>>9516678
God I love gilded pages. Looks so pretty.

>>9519250
Yeah, was honestly surprised by it. Most of the Chistopers editions are unreadable collection of out of place annotations, and very poor formatting, but Children are absolutely fantastic. I'm wandering what else that old hag of a son of his has still hidden in his basement.