/lit/ - Literature

>>17051985
Yes I have

>>17051985
No I haven't. I started Fellowship when I was like 12 but lost interest as soon as I got to Tom Bombadil. I've been watching the Peter Jackson movies though for as long as I've been alive, and consider myself a LOTR fanboy

crypto fash type beat

I tried to get through his translation of Beowulf but between his autism about kennings and the shitty formatting of the .pdf I was reading I just gave up and read Heaney.

>>17052051
>literally the most influential scholar on the poem
>some Irish guy
Yeah, I wonder who would make a better translation. You got filtered

Yes I was a huge tolkien nerd and read everything he wrote, right until my sister made fun of me for speaking dwarven, I was 13. I dropped Tolkien and started talking to girls instead

>>17051985
no but hobbit houses look comfy

no but i've played sil

>>17052082
>speaking dwarven
Tell me about Tolkien's languages. Do they actually have big enough grammar or it's just some alphabet, some rules and some random words?

>>17051985
is that actually considered a big accomplishment these days? yeah, when I was 15

>>17052127
As far as I know, Sindarin is the big one, which has an actual grammar and a vocabulary of several thousand words. Obviously, you won't be able to talk about modern things with it.

As for the dwarven language mentionned by >>17052082
>Although a very limited vocabulary is known, Tolkien mentioned he had developed the language to a certain extent. A small amount of material on Khuzdul phonology and root modifications has survived which is yet to be published.

You can't actually speak dwarven. Anon is probably referring to the runic alphabet taught in the preface of The Hobbit.

>>17051985
I only read the Hobbit.

>>17052065
Look anon, if you
want to read a .pdf with
spacing so bad that it would
make a redditor blush, then be
my guest. I have no problem with
>new page
enjambment, but I do think that
a page should have more than
five lines.


Secondly, I read his theories. I agree, it's frankly closer to an elegy than an epic. It's also patently a work by a Christian author creating a Christianized pagan epic, we have no evidence to suggest that there was ever a Pagan Beowulf predating the one we have. He's just flat out wrong about Kennings and wordplay, however. His belief that Kennings should no longer be used because English is more Romance than Germanic now is just flat out dumb, because a Kenning works because of Germanic grammar, not vocabulary. You use the grammatical construction by which Kennings work every day. Well, maybe not you, as most of your communication is incoherent gurgling, but actual people do. His autism about "whale-road" sounding too much like "rail-road" is a problem that he invents. Everyone who is too dumb, like you, to get that this is a poetic term for the sea, is not going to read Beowulf anyways. No one would think it sounds too much like railroad, and no one would then imagine a "blubbery locomotive". They just wouldn't.

Thirdly, this is Tolkien's earliest work, and it suffers from his attempts at trying to convey meaning rather than poetry. This is acceptable, it's an academic prose translation, by Tolkien's own admission he's not trying to make a work of art. He's intentionally not writing in verse. He was not trying to make it pretty. He wrote plenty of alliterative verse, and demonstrated that he could use kennings (I'm referencing his large number of alliterative verse works for in-universe Middle Earth Poetry, I'm not at the PC that I have these on so I cannot cite by name, but he also did some Arthurian stuff). This is why Tolkien didn't publish it, by the way, as he felt that the turgid prose stylings did not do a poem justice. I get that you're the kind of person that thinks you can read translated poetry in prose format and get the meaning, but Tolkien disagreed with you. His some had to edit it substantially, and publish it later, 90 years later in fact, for this very reason.

>>17052179
>His some
his son*

Also, apparently anti-onions spacing formatting is in place. How many enters is it before this kicks in?. I haven't tried to do that since like, /v/ in 2010. Is this gookmoot's doing?

>>17051985
I was memed into reading Tolkien. I cant believe anyone could call those books good or even enjoyable. How did it ever catch on?

>>17051985
just the lord of the rings and the hobbit but not the silmarillion
there's some stuff i want to check out though like beren and luthien

No, and it pisses me off because I liked the hobbit.

>>17051985
No, only the Hobbit, even then I found it to be pretty boring.

>>17052025
filtered by Bombadil

>>17051985
Only the first third of the third book when I was in college but then I got busy and dropped it. Had the movie in front of me but wasn't paying attention.

>>17052331
ask me how i know you have hundreds of hours of anime porn games recorded on steam

>>17053882
Nice projection. Its alright for people to not like things, I think lotr is great and have read the entire tolkein collection at least twice. Its pretty daunting and some people just cant into fantasy

>>17052025
>but lost interest as soon as I got to Tom Bombadil.
>>17052609
Was this Tolkien's original intention?

>>17053934
whatever his intenyion, Bombadil is one of the best pleb filters there is, second only to the Catalogue of Ships

>>17052025
Mediocre bait.

>>17051985
Yes and the Silmarillion

no
I watched Fellowship of the Ring and I found it kinda boring maybe the book is better

>>17054391
It's not.

>>17051985
couldn't make it out of the shire. No one needs 70+ to leave tutorial island.

>>17054425
That's the best part

>>17051985
No, I haven't. I've watched the films. Is that enough?

I've also heard a couple of his recorded dialogues of the book.

Yes. Twice so far. Tolkein is my favourite author not just because of his work but I love the man himself based on his letters.

I have read it twice but never read The Hobbit. I also haven't seen The Hobbit films so my only knowledge of it is the summary at the start of LOTR

>>17051985

Every 4-5 years I re-read it. Same with Dune, Foundation, Moby Dick and the Trial.

>>17054740
They're both great in their own ways but I'd reccomend giving the books a shot if you liked the films.

From what I hear and from what appears to me, the audio version of The Children of Húrin is the superior way of enjoying the literary piece.

It's one of those books that should be read multiple times over a lifetime.

>>17052223
>>17052179
Enjoyed your summary, thanks

>>17052179
>and no one would then imagine a "blubbery locomotive". They just wouldn't.
haha whale go choo choo

>>17051985
Yes. I'm a slow reader so it took me a couple of months but I loved it and will read it again sometime in the future if I need a pick-me-up

>>17051985
I read it a bit as a kid but lost interest. I hate fantashitty.

>>17051985
Just finished Return of the King, still working through the appendices though. I previously had tried to read them in high school but didn't get far. Was never that big a fan of the films either, but in the last few years I've started appreciating them more. Looking forward to rewatching in 4k soon.

>>17051985
I reread the trilogy at least once a year

>>17052065
>stingy detail obsessed academic vs an actual poet and professional of his craft
>acting like it's crazy people prefer the latter's translation of the POEM

>>17053882
desu I always immediately suspect a "Tolkien fan" to be obsessed with shit like JRPGs and shonen anime, and the rest reactionaries that like the idea behind Lord of the Rings more than anything.

I don't like genre fiction, sorry.

>>17054857
>They're both great in their own ways
Typical gritty Hollywood capeshit trash.

>>17051985
twice

the books are better than the movies except the two towers which is boring as shit