(Books) which do you prefer?
I vastly prefer The Hobbit it's way more fun, imo, and I really like the sense of mystery and discovery you get whenever the characters enter a new geographical region. I really like the way the elves and dwarves are portrayed as well. Oh- and it's got the Mirkwood, which is just neato.

I have nop preference - I just find it difficult to seperate them. To me they are part of the same story.

Also, as an adult I find them slow going and annoying as a read. When I was a teenager they seemed really great....now, not so much.


- Ed C.

They're totally different imo, but I also find them a bit slow these days- especially LOTR. If i were going to reread it, I'd probably start just after the council of Elrond.

Fellowship of the Ring where things seem to be slowly building up to something. It's got Boromir - my favourite character , Aragon when he seemed cool, some interesting history lessons and Moria.

Regards,
David R

While part of the same story, they're completely different both in intent and execution, yeah.

When I was a kid, I'd have said LOTR.  Bigger story in every sense of the word, a classic epic, etc.

Judging each book as a novel, however (and LOTR is one big novel), LOTR is quite weak in terms of pacing and structure.  I tried re-reading it a few years ago, but just couldn't get past Rivendell because of this.  [Tangentially, I get pretty much the same result when I try re-reading Neuromancer (beautiful language, visionary ideas, awful novel-as-novel; no matter what the fanboys say, Gibson got much better after that).]

Anyway...

I still find the Hobbit to be very readable.  There is little of the purple tinge that the LOTR prose exhibits, the pacing is lively, and the main characters (Bilbo, Thorin, Gandalf) actually have...characterization.  As Aos says, there is more atmosphere and a sense of wonder, too: the silver rune-pens of the dwarves, the elvish banquet disappearing in a shower of sparks from the bonfire, the strange grunting and scratching noises in Bjorn's house (hey, what was JRR trying to do there...), even Bilbo's brief glimpse of Mirkwood's treetops.

Hobbit is the winner here for me.  I can't wait to read it to my children, when I have children.  Of course I'll read them LOTR afterwards.

I agree with the emerging consensus. The Hobbit is the more enjoyable read. For that matter I also enjoy the Silmarillion more than LotR. Both of them have more of a...shall we say...narrative artifice. The Hobbit can be seen as having actually been written by Bilbo, with his personality seeping through the prose. Similarly The Silmarillion reads as if it were actually a product of its setting.

I prefer the Silmarillion, actually. I LIKE history.

-clash

What Clash & El said. Silmarillion all the way.

I prefer the Hobbit, but I do love them all, I include the Silmarillion.

I do find that they are different for me now. If I'd never heard of them and found them now, I'd probably not finish any cept the Hobbit.

Quote from: David RFellowship of the Ring where things seem to be slowly building up to something. It's got Boromir - my favourite character , Aragon when he seemed cool, some interesting history lessons and Moria.

Regards,
David R

Boromir is my favorite ME character but I prefer the Hobbit to LotR.

Quote from: Pierce InverarityWhat Clash & El said. Silmarillion all the way.

It made a big impression on me at a tender age - so much so that my 2nd ever d&d character was called Turin Turumbar! (sp?).

Strangely, i've never re-read it. It might not make such an impression second time around.

Back to the OP. I like them both, but i always have trouble re-reading LotR. Not a problem with The Hobbit.

I like the Hobbit better as a read, but so far the recent LoTR trilogy was pretty fun.

I really like the Silmarillion, too, but more the way it's presented as a living conception in the History of ME books; I've read each of them at least twice over the years.  Tracing the development of the whole ME mythos in JRRT's mind is endlessly fascinating to me.

Speaking of, has anyone read The Children of Hurin? I bought a couple of the early "histoy of Middle Earth" books but never really read them, they just seemed like boring archivalism. TCoH OTOH is apparently an attempt at producing a genuine complete "work". Any good?

If you enjoyed the narrative fragments from Book of Lost Tales (the version of "Children of Hurin" in that book is part of the recently published version), you'll like Children of Hurin.

It's very grim, and the language recalls Nordic prose sagas in my mind.  Pacing and all.  I liked it very much, but it's a taste thing.