Rereading "The Lord of the Rings" after cheating with Harry Potter for a few years, I'm led to wonder again about the wonders of narrative pull. I always thought that Tolkien was a master, but compared to Rowling, he just doesn't stand up at all. Of course, it's hardly fair to expect a book you've read a few dozen times to exert the same pull it did the first time. But I'm not sure it was ever narrative pull. Tolkien mastered creating characters you want to know, lines you want to repeat and speeches you want to recite. (The songs, not so much.)
It's as if he knew what he was good at and more or less phoned in the exposition to fill in spaces to get you to the good parts, and the good parts are so good that readers put up with the rest. Rowling is killer at exposition, maybe second only to Andrew Vachss among people I've read. Douglas Adams was very good, AND you laughed your ass off. Dashiell Hammett, John Le Carre and John Grisham always made me turn the page. People say nice things about Stephen King (he won a poll I ran on this topic on Democratic Underground some years ago) but I just don't see it. Obviously, I read the wrong books. Or maybe I just hate suspense.
Regardless, I love "The Lord of the Rings" the same as always. It's just taking longer. Rather than blame Professor Tolkien, as with most things I blame the kitty.
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