/lit/ - Literature

>>10969483
When I first read LotR after seeing the movies I thought it was the most boring thing and figured I'd never touch it again. I couldn't even get through 20p of The Silmarillion. After that I discovered ASoIaF and a bunch of other series, and figured LotR to be creative but objectively the worst written of them all. I remember skipping as a kid all the "boringer parts" describing nature and was annoyed I couldn't understand what the fuck all those geographical landmarks meant. Horrid writing, I thought.
Now that I'm nearly two decades older, I can't read anything that isn't Tolkien and truly enjoy it. I regularly parse through The LotR and The Silmarillion and I'm always struck by the sheer beauty of the language.
Nowadays whenever I pick up one of these random fantasy series told in third person limited by an author that clearly has no passion for growing things, I just lose all interest. It's in every way a contemporary story except the characters are pretending to be in a fantasy video game.
I'm always amazed when Bakker says PoN was half inspiration from Tolkien and half from Herbert because, while I do think he has some of best prose you can find in fantasy, he has no subtlety in terms of characterization and no real passion for natural aspects of world-building. Not sure why I inserted this rant, but yeah.