[HPforGrownups] Re: Defend OOTP against my horribly Muggle mind!

[EnsTren at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 76481

In a message dated 8/10/2003 8:39:37 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
evangelina839 at yahoo.se writes:

> Again, I'm too uneducated to discuss quality of literature
> convincingly, but I've always 
> found Rowling better than Tolkien. No, I have not read Tolkien in
> english, and not all 
> of his books either, and yes, I admit that the older a book gets, the
> harder it gets for 
> me to relate to it (I think I've read too many books with poor and/or
> over pretentious 
> dialogue), but... when it comes to characterisation, Rowling is *way*
> above Tolkien 
> IMO. I feel like I could read any piece of dialogue, just pulled
> completely out of 
> context, and know which one of Rowling's characters who said it. To
> me, that is really 
> impressive actually. Every single one of her creations have
> individual ways of 
> speaking. I could never tell one speaker from another when reading
> Tolkien.
> 

As near as I have been able to tell, and I am a psyc major who had hopes to 
be an english major but sucks royally in foreign langueages which for some 
reason is a requirement for an ENGLISH major. *breath*

as I was saying, near as I can tell Tolkien's works are WORLD driven.  The 
characters are props.  Look for descriptions of people in the books.  The main 
characters.  Legolas gets Blond, and bright-eyed and that's pretty much it.  
Oh, and he has a nice voice, and he talks to trees so much he sounds mildly 
scitzo.

Did I mention that Almost ALL (namely the ones he actually mentions) elves 
are described as having a nice voice and being bright-eyed?

JKR's stories are CHARACTER Driven.  The odd thing is that while it is a 
common thing, to be character driven, JKR's works are more about the other 
characters than the Main character, who is the POV.  This allows her to also make the 
story more world driven as well.  Looking out a window, as it were.  You can 
get the "Living" experiance that tolkien often gives people

> But then, what you said about "living" the HP world, I completely
> agree with. And 
> honestly, that matters more to me than mastery of language. I believe
> that what you 
> have to say is more important than the way you say it. I always get
> an image of 
> anything Rowling writes; Tolkien honestly confused me too much with
> details I never 
> needed (such as the points of the compass - too little cross-country
> running for me, I 
> guess).
> 

I've always said that Tolkien's works are for people with little imagination. 
 (meaning mental imaging via reading between the lines)  I DON'T need to know 
every color of a blade of grass on a hill.  I can imagine that for myself, 
thankyouverymuch.  (Funny story: I sometimes read a book and when I'm called 
away I get really impatient because "The comercial is going to end!"  And then I 
remember I'm reading a book.)

The only thing worse is Moby Dick, which has an entire chapter on rope.


Nemi
       --Black Dragon
       --Slasher and Yaoist
       --Utterly Psycotic


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