JKR and JRRT

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 178681

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "eggplant107" <eggplant107 at ...> wrote:

Lee Kaiwen:
> > Tolkien so much more enjoyable than Rowling 

Eggplant: 
> If you enjoy Tolkien then that's fine but I've got to tell you that
> has not been my experience. I read The Hobbit and thought it we OK but
> nothing to get very excited about; I've only read the first of the
> Lord Of The Rings books and would have stopped reading at about page
> 40 if I was smart. I only finished reading the book out of a sense
> duty due to a perverse idea I have that once I start a book I must
> finish it. I vividly remember a feeling of dread just looking at that
> damn book and knowing I had to pick it up and read more of Tolkien's
> dreadful songs and more explanations of what The Forest Of Sphincter
> is called in the Elfin language. JKR on the other hand is a real page
> turner, nobody had to put a gun to my head to read her stuff, I always
> felt that all of her books were much too short.   

Lee  Kaiwen:
> > there are no glaring inconsistencies that
> > leap up to knock you out-of-story

Eggplant:
> I also found that to be true because Tolkien was so mind numbingly
> dull that I was never in his story so I didn't have to worry about
> getting knocked out of it. And I can not think of any other author in
> the English language that is so completely and utterly lacking a sense
> of humor, in that regard Tolkien is certainly number one. But if you
> get pleasure from reading Tolkien then that's good, there is no
> disputing matters of taste. 

Geoff:
In replying to your post, I must see if I can get the discussion back on 
topic in relation what we are saying to JKR's books or the elves will not 
be in the Forest of Sphincter but in the here and now!

As you say, matters of taste are matters of taste. I first met LOTR in 
about 1955/56 when I was 15 or 16 and it blew me away. There was 
nothing like it. I read "The Hobbit" many years later and didn't really 
take to it, because of the rather childish level of the humour in it – 
and that wasn't meant snobbishly because it was written for younger 
children anyway.

Not everybody likes the Ring. My wife just isn't into either that or the 
HP books. Tolkien himself was fully aware of this and wrote on one 
occasion:

`The Lord of the Rings'
is one of those things:
if you like it you do; 
if you don't then you boo!


which I think also disproves your point about his sense of humour. 
If you read one of the biographies - perhaps Humphrey Carpenter's 
early one from 1977 – much is  revealed about this.

There is humour in LOTR but I think we need to compare the two 
worlds of Middle earth and the Wizarding world. In JKR's books, we 
are in a modern setting with modern teenagers, so the humour is late 
20th century to match. I enjoy the humour of the HP books; I have on 
occasion laughed out loud and long at some it, especially the verbal 
examples. 

On the other hand, with LOTR, the excellent Peter Jackson film 
adaptations have blurred one fact, possibly because Elijah Wood 
and a number of the other principal players are young. In the book, 
Frodo is 50 when he sets off on the Quest and we are also in a 
historically distant era where life was a bit more serious and demanding 
than in our current labour-saving existence. 

Gandalf didn't use his wand to do the washing-up. :-)

There again, our chief baddie, Sauron, unlike Voldemort, is rather 
inaccessible and not open to the gentle chiding of his former Professor. 
I would love to see Gandalf knocking on the gates of the Morannon and 
saying to Sauron "Now look, here, Andy (or whatever), you've got to stop 
behaving like this. Just because you haven't got a body anymore you 
can't go round sulking and wanting to rule the world."

No, there is humour in both but it is of a different kind. I can appreciate 
both these series of books. But, as you correctly said, it's a matter of 
individual taste which, in passing, is why I find some of the current 
argumentative threads on HPFGU frustrating and, to an extent, pointless.