/lit/ - Literature

What are some of your guilty pleasures /sffg/?
Books or series you love, despite knowing they might be shit.

>>14196367
5 The Schizo
Like the grandmaster but undergoing sensory overdrive they think too many moves ahead, contemplating too many realities. Causality to them is a function of probability, their own intelligence paradoxically allowing them to conceivably believe in anything because they understand all their preconceptions are founded on the data the acquire during the time they live. Consequently they can become hyperfixated on worst case scenarios because they can see the chain of reactions necessary to achieve those scenarios and how flimsy all our precautions are. Because they are able to draw links between actions now and events in a more distant future their excessive prescience manifests as erratic and incomprehensible behaviour. The butterfly effect dictates that the longer a change is introduced to a system the more drastic that change becomes, thus if their actions are meant to have causes many years in the future their behaviour their actions become impossible to understand within the time period they are performed. Perfectly able to simulate their own response to a variety of stimuli they cannot be tempted by merely materialistic rewards but instead are driven by ideals, some imagined, some real. To exist on this plane is to be a riddle to others and yourself.
(Ted cabin tier, IQ 155-190)

Is it "canon" that The Hobbit was written by Bilbo Baggins, but written in such a way by him to be palatable to Hobbit children and so amended events to have sillier and more whimsical themes while Tolkien's more "R-Rated" events like Children of Húrin being the more truthful nature of Middle Earth?
Or was Tolkien just having fun and I'm reading too much into it?

>>10590010
Flaws in Tolkien's LotR:

>beginning is way too long and drawn out.
Lest we forget, the book starts with long leisurely descriptions of Bilbo's birthday party. We only start learning about things in chapter 2 and only via a long conversation when Gandalf comes over for tea. IIRC after 100 pages we're still in the Shire.

>Council of Elrond
One of the most important chapters in the book is approx 60 pages of a committee meeting

>The Two Towers
Absolute madman, despite following the story linearly in time to this point, Tolkien for some crazy reason drops Aragorn & co. and only follows Frodo & Sam for the first entire half of TTT. Then we go back in time so at the second half of TTT we're right back where Fellowship ended.

>rushed ending
Compare the climatic chapters to the first half of Fellowship. All the dramatic ending battles and resolutions are giving around the same number of pages as the hobbits prancing around the Shire picking mushrooms. The pacing is completely off.

>overly descriptive, archaic prose
Not everyone's cup of tea.

And yet? LotR is one of my favourite novels of all time. Despite everything, it works. Why? I think it's to do with how Tolkien had already developed the mythology and languages and history of his world before writing the novel. So the reader is aware of a depth, even during slow periods of the book, and it's completely fascinating. It shouldn't work but it does. Council of Elrond is one of my favourite chapters in the entire thing. Reading about the Shire is one of the most comfy feel-good experiences in literature. The Black Riders on Weathertop are legitimately terrifying. Moria chapters are incredible. Gollum, the Pellenor Fields, the complexity of characters like Denethor.

The sheer audacity of the story, which is the most foolish of fool's errands, and the idea of the One Ring which is almost a character in itself.

Undeniably flawed, undeniably brilliant

>>10579300
>not loving chad more than brad

el oh el m8

I would really like some recommendations for fantasy or science fiction with heavy themes of monasticism (technopriest is totally acceptable) and/or theology. I like well-written angelic/eschatological fantasy fiction as well as Name of the Rose type stuff (I know that doesn't fit the genre) and Anathem-style (though I didn't like the writing of that one).

Any ideas, anons? I'll suck yo dick.

>>8992026
Supposed to? Nothing. That doesn't preclude a secondary interpretation, but Tolkien had no such thing in mind.