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JamesCole comments on Special Status Needs Special Support - Less Wrong
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I used to love Tolkien, when I was a kid. But honestly, I can't see the attraction as an adult. Piling centuries of backstory onto a character doesn't make it three-dimensional. And while Tolkien's short doggerel can be fun, his long poems are boring. I don't know - I'm not a poet - but they're probably technically excellent. That doesn't save them.
I love his long poems - I once memorized the Lay of Earendil, and Erranty, and The Hoard, and The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon, though I don't remember all of them now. It's nice to have something to recite to myself when waiting for the bus or something.
And I do find most poetry boring; I have a collection of American verse, but it seems that Poe is the only worthwhile poet of the lot - of course, as for Tolkien, others will certainly differ on this.
One person's trash is the next person's treasure, I guess.
So, when I first (tried to) read the Silmarillion in high school, I thought it was incredibly dry and boring. But when I came back to it a few years later in college I thought it was great, and still do (I now like it much better than LotR, in fact). Probably the sort of epic/mythological style it's written in is something one either loves or can't stand.