The last time that I physically read JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings was just before the first of the movies had come out. Recently, my wife has given me the entire set of books in an unabridged recording on compact disc (on a BUNCH) of compact discs, that is). These I have converted to an audiobook format which is quite compact and useable on my iPod. So, this time around, I’ve been listening to The Lord of the Rings. At present I am nearing the end of The Two Towers. A few comments seem in order.
1) If you have contemplated getting this set, it is well done. The narrator, Rob Inglis, does a superb job. I can almost imagine Tolkien himself reading the stories to me.
2) Efficient readers will speed up and slow down as they read, skimming sections whose content does not seem greatly relevant, slowing down and mulling over slowly portions which seem to merit such attention. LISTENING does not allow for such efficiency. Though Tolkien’s specification of exact geography was no doubt extremely helpful to Peter Jackson’s screen writer and art director, it can become tedious when being read out loud.
3) This particularly applies to the songs which are abundant in The Fellowship of the Ring. Inglis does a wonderful job of putting tunes to the songs and of actually then singing them. But in my reading of the book, I found the songs tedious and not very helpful, and would skip them. Can’t do this with the recording.
4) In going through the book again after having seen the movies twice, I’m actually quite stunned with the level of fidelity to the book exhibited by the movie. I really don’t see how anyone could seriously quibble. Jackson et. al. created wonderful movies based upon wonderful books without subtracting from or adding to the book any more than was necessary.
I am NOT a fan of listening to books, especially when such listening steals the desire to read a book. At the same time, when I’m traveling alone over a number of miles, Rob Inglis reading JRR Tolkien is vastly more profitable than listening to local sports talk hosts pushing their quasi-pornographic fantasies or enduring political talk show hosts as they mercilessly vilify their opponents.
Geoffsnook
Sounds cool. Haven't done the book on tape thing yet. Maybe I'll do it one day. Sounds like a good one to start with.
TulipGirl
The last time I read the trilogy was. . .goodness, was it really 17 years ago?! But I read The Hobbit aloud to the boys. We really like the songs. *grin*I always thought I was a visual learner, and maybe I am. But the past few years of listening to lecture and sermon MP3s has me questioning that. I seem to be able to remember and integrate information better when I hear it, but able to recall and verbally respond with information when I read it. In other words, don't ask me the details of what I've listened to lately — just the broad picture!Many of the school books the boys are using are available at librivox.com (free audio books, classics!) Since they are all reading a lot of the same books in spite of the age differences, it's helped to have both audio version and text versions available. My mom sent the boys her ipod for their school audio books, which was quickly dubbed the MoPod, since they call her Mo.
Anonymous
The last movie left out the end of the story, which (to me) was the whole point. The Hobbits went on the journey (unknowingly) to toughen up, so they could defend/liberate their own beloved Shire. The adventure made them able to stand on their own. (Not a Biblical view of things at all, but this was more a good vs evil thing than God vs Satan) I was very disappointed with the end of the movie trilogy.
Randy Greenwald
Agreed. The end omits some very important aspects of the story.