Hi.
I like Tolkien's general way of conveying his ideas. His sentence structure and eloquence
While visiting my brother, I saw he had Game of Thrones on his window ledge. I began reading the start of some random chapter and I felt as if I were pushing a lawn mower over thick wet grass. It seemed unthoughtful and forced.
Interestingly, my brother and I different in appearance near equal to Tolkien and Martin in the related pic.
Anyway, what are your thoughts?
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Martin is a hack
Tolkien is the only good fantasy writer, mainly because he was a scholar of Saxon myth and incorperates it into his world. His prose is alright in the fullest sense of the word, character development nearly non existent. That being said his work is very comfy and the halfling and Elven vibes are enjoyable.
>incorperates
Incorporates
As I read, I noticed that every time a character voided themnselves, the author wrote instead that sunset found the character " squatting in the grass, groaning" each stool looser and fouler smelling. I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous.
...
Tolkien is to creative literary genius what Martin is to hack pulp idiocy. They both so far surpass anyone else in their field that they will be remembered 1,000 years from now as a kind of yin and yang of fantasy, a Manichaen duality of speculative letters. For every sublime, luminous beauty that Tolkien has gifted the world, Martin has cursed us with a tedious, banal ugliness. It is unfair to compare the two directly on any one point, because Martin is in every way the anti-Tolkien, patently sterile, parasitical, and inferior, but so much so that he becomes a monument in his own right, and counterbalances Tolkien. Could one exist without the other? Tolkien obviously could. But it is only by the contrast that Martin offers that we can truly appreciate the full depths and heights of Tolkien. Our understanding of Tolkien would be incomplete if Martin had never set pen to page. It is through only the abject failure and futility of Martin that we can approach an apprehension of the true scope and scale of Tolkien's hitherto inconceivable greatness. Perhaps this is what Tolkien had in mind when he wrote about the Music of the Ainur. If Tolkien is a subcreator in the image of Eru, truly Martin is like unto Melkor. It is only reflected in the awfulness of the one that we can fully see the goodness of the other.
GRRM's prose isn't what he's best at, and this is known. And his best does surpass Tolkien's. But then again I guess character development wasn't suposed to be the point of LotR.
Tolkien is better. Martin confuses bloated with epic and edgy with mature. Tolkien on the other hand has a real sense of meaning and grace in his work where Martin just has trendy pessimism.
This is what people need to understand about GRRM.
His prose is adequate. Nothing great, but enough to give a solid picture in the reader's.mind. I'd put him just a bar above Stephen King for prose.
Where he ultimately excels at, is world-building and deep characterization. You only have to look at the character arc of Jaime Lannister and realize what an accomplishment it is to turn everything against the reader's expectations
I personally think GRRM's series is on par with Malazan, which is tons of book exposition that can only be appreciated during a person's re-read of the series. .
Tolkien is, how should I put it, very epic.
Whereas George R. R. Martin is, how should I say... mm yes that's it FRRRAAAAP POOPY POOP ALL OVER. WHERES THE SUN. I CAN'T STOP SHITTING.
I don't know how you rate a writer's appeal when it comes to repeated readings, but when it comes to reading Tolkien's prose multiple times, I start to realize that I hate reading his entire songs more than once.
What's the point of this post? I don't know, I guess Tolkien just had too much fun with his own work for my taste. That being said, I have never read any GRRM beyond a little bit of "Dying of the Light."
People no longer read great literature. Thucydides, Chaucer, Flaubert, Spenser, Balzac, and so on.
The most culpable are the writers we find on the NYT best seller list or as Hollywood screenplay writers.
Tolkien, like Waugh was schooled in literature at its highest level and were immensely well read men. Writing a Lord of the Rings of a Brideshead Revisited was as natural to them as breathing or walking after such a superb education.
>genius artists don't work extremely hard to write the best work of art possible
way to misunderstand his post
Wow, a contrarian. Never seen that before. Since you insulted [popular thing] and praised [older thing] I can only concluded you must be of above average intelligence, and that you are too good for the trash media of the hoi polloi. It's the only thing that makes sense after reading your very sincere and honest original post.
I wish I could be as cool and culture as you, faggot.
I wouldn't say it's "work" for them, any more than making love to a beautiful woman or eating a delicious dinner in a 3 star Michelin restaurant or driving a 1960 Ferrari Testarossa was "work".
Lotta bitterness here buddy. Try to relax a bit or next thing you know, you'll be insisting that Harry Potter novels are the intellectual and spiritual equivalent of Louis Ferdinand Celine's Exile Trilogy.
That's dumb. You're dumb. Also you've never made love.
>his best does surpass Tolkien's
Example of Martin's best? I'm intrigued.
S T E A M I N G
Actually yes I have. Still working on that 3 star Michellin restaurant meal and Ferrari Testarossa though.
Let me rephrase: You've never made love to a beautiful woman.
I was talking about character development. What is Tolkien's best in LotR, Boromir? Compare to literally any character in ASOIAF, let's say Ned for the giggles. Even GRRM's moral, honorable guy has more depth and consequence than Tolkien's corrupted betrayer. Now, I'm not saying GRRM is better than him overall, in the end I'd give it to the old man for being the standard for fantasy. GRRM is too derivative imo.
>3 star Michelin restaurant
Why not 5-star?
Tolkien’s prose (at least in LotR) imitates the style of historical epics. If you like epics, you probably like Tolkien. I don’t care for them — they are grandiose, predictable, and devoid of psychology.
Unsure if bait, but Michelin only goes up to 3
>not being an illiterate moron is reddit
What?
GRRM writes better sex and defecation scenes than Tolkien.