Some people feel J.R.R Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings are pure genius, with Tolkien being one of the most influential writers of his time, maybe even all time. Others find his writing a bit heavy and dull, as the novel is filled with hundreds of pages of backstory and lyrical poems and huge chunks of narrative.
Tolkien, like another other author, has his strong and weak aspects. His creative genius, his character development, his storytelling ability are phenomenal, in my opinion. The amount of time he dedicated to understanding his characters and their backstories is something I will never be able to do — not sure if I would want to either.I do think Tolkien falls short in writing good dialogue and pacing at times. I have to agree that there were parts of The Lord of the Rings that I couldn’t wait to get through; it just would drag on and on with backstory and narration. Where Tolkien excels, however, and what makes him so successful is the influence he had on the fantasy genre as a whole. I can’t think of another author who affected a particular genre of literature as much as he did. Sure he had his writing influences from other authors — ever author does — but he is arguably the “father” of the fantasy genre.
So what do you think? How do you feel about J.R.R. Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings?