I'm sure the story was fine if you're into that kinda stuff...but damn it, Tolkien was an awful writer.
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“The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent. If we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death, our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.” - Stanley Kubrick
I hate when delivery people (I.E. FedEx or UPS) are lazy and don't leave delivery notices. I was expecting a very important package to be delivered today and sure enough when I get the call from the delivery people for me to buzz them into my apartment complex...I'm in the shower. So I run down afterwards and look for a delivery notice and of course...with my luck...there isn't one.
Normally I wouldn't care, but this is an early Christmas gift for my fiancee that I've been waiting 3 weeks for.
Last edited by MetalheadPenguinsFan: 12-14-2012 at 12:45 PM.
I hate when delivery people (I.E. FedEx or UPS) are lazy and don't leave delivery notices. I was expecting a very important package to be delivered today and sure enough when I get the call from the delivery people for me to buzz them into my apartment complex...I'm in the shower. So I run down afterwards and look for a delivery notice and of course...with my luck...there isn't one.
Normally I wouldn't care, but this is an early Christmas gift for my fiancee that I've been waiting 3 weeks for.
Yeah, I've been in a similar situation before. Made me rage pretty hard.
A guy from my company was in town this week to work with my team. His wife works in the hospital where a lot of the victims were taken. He spoke to his wife right after this went down. He told us the body count before it made the news. It was surreal and sickening all at once. Just absolutely tragic. My heart goes out to everyone involved.
So who here besides me is done their Christmas shopping???
MEEEE!!!!!! *puts hand up*
I was done a few weeks ago mainly because I wasn't sure if there was going to be anything further at work beyond the end of last month now that the Australian Tax Season has ended for another year.
However, I did pick up some work in another section and I do get the Christmas/New Year period off.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Hook
Another school shooting today. Glad I don't have kids. I'd be scared to even send them to school these days.
I'm sure the story was fine if you're into that kinda stuff...but damn it, Tolkien was an awful writer.
There are a lot of things that I do not care for. Hell, 99% of the movies my girlfriend picks fall into that catagory, especially when she says that she read that it was so well acted, or this actor or that was up for some award. That said, I can hate it but appreciate something that is good.
Calling Tolkien an awful writer is just not a legitimate opinion. It just isn't. Not liking his stuff is. But what he accomplished is amazing.
He did what a lot of the greats have done in literature, took a life changing event, WWI where basically the entirety of the male portion of his village was wiped out (the british had this stupid notion that people would fight together best who grew up together and lost virtually entire villages in WWI in that way) and turned the event into great literature to try and come to grips with what happened. In the end it is a very depressing moral. The hobbits were the innocent villagers he grew up with and the 'super hero' of the books, Frodo, his only power was being so innocent that he would not let his greed for power fall to the ring. But in the end, what does he do but take it for himself proving that there really is no good or innocence in the world. The world was not saved by some inner goodness or character of the salt of the earth farmers he grew up with but by mere chance when two greedy people fought over the ring and one fell into the lava. Chance not God, not some great good. What a depressing moral. But there is a greatness there. Like I said you can say that it is not your thing. But you can not say that it was awful writing and maintian a shred of legitimacy.
Finally made the jump from PC to an Apple product. Very happy I did so. I guess after using a 9 year old computer, anything is going to seem incredible following that, lol. But a few days into an Imac and I am very pleased.
I think he's a good storyteller, and I liked the LotR movies.
But his writing was nothing short of excruciating. It's stream-of-consciousness, plodding, meandering, adverb-crazy bull****.
There's a difference between being able to tell a good story and being a good writer.
Heh, sounds like we are arguing over semantics, but not really. The difference is between not caring for a book or liking an author and making a statement that he is a 'awful writer'. I do not especially care for Hemmingway. 'I ate the hamburger. It was a good burger. A manly burger. Then we went to war and killed men in manly ways.' No I do not care for his writing, but I can appreciate his writing. And even if I could not the rest of the world does, so if my opinion differs from the rest of the educated world, if I really even care to do so, I would need to really understand what he is doing and why they appreciate his writing before I can put myself way out on that limb to say that he is an 'awful writer'. And I had better have a lot of well reasoned arguments to support my premise that flies in the face of the better part of a century of literary critics who say otherwise. There is a huge difference between not liking something and saying that it is awful. Stephanie Meyers is a 'good story teller' who is an 'awful writer'. I can support that statement. Well the awful writer part, good story teller maybe not. Harry Potter books as well. Without much effort at all. The Tolkien one? Not so much.
with regards to JRR, i'll say this: i wish even a fraction of the energy spent gushing over his fiction was spent on his academic writing. the The Monsters and the Critics article had a lasting impact on the way i read and interpret myth. too say nothing of his work on Gawain (hey, looks like W.S. Merwin has a new translation, that might be worth checking out).
Heh, sounds like we are arguing over semantics, but not really. The difference is between not caring for a book or liking an author and making a statement that he is a 'awful writer'. I do not especially care for Hemmingway. 'I ate the hamburger. It was a good burger. A manly burger. Then we went to war and killed men in manly ways.' No I do not care for his writing, but I can appreciate his writing. And even if I could not the rest of the world does, so if my opinion differs from the rest of the educated world, if I really even care to do so, I would need to really understand what he is doing and why they appreciate his writing before I can put myself way out on that limb to say that he is an 'awful writer'. And I had better have a lot of well reasoned arguments to support my premise that flies in the face of the better part of a century of literary critics who say otherwise. There is a huge difference between not liking something and saying that it is awful. Stephanie Meyers is a 'good story teller' who is an 'awful writer'. I can support that statement. Well the awful writer part, good story teller maybe not. Harry Potter books as well. Without much effort at all. The Tolkien one? Not so much.
I'm not alone in thinking the way I do about Tolkien, the vast majority of professors I've had didn't think highly of him and I've read a ton of critical stuff about his paper - in academic circles he's not exactly revered as an example of a fine writer in most situations. You'll find some who will say otherwise...but yeah.
He was a linguist who rambled. That puts him well above all-around useless drivel like Stephanie Meyers, but from a technical standpoint he was lousy.
Mind you I am a huge fan of Hemingway's style. I love authors who could get their point across without taking 15 pages to describe a damn bridge. I was also a writing student. There was a huge split in the English Department at Montana when it came to certain authors - just about every student in the Literature path adored Tolkien (and Potter) while just about every student in the Writing path (and the professors there) saw him as nothing more than a technically challenged stream-of-conscious mediocrity.
Like I've said before...I appreciate his stories, at least, The Lord of the Rings movies are very good...but The Hobbit ranks above only Atlas Shrugged when it comes to the worst book I've read since I was 14.
Last edited by Big McLargehuge: 12-15-2012 at 06:04 PM.
Went to Pirates fan fest today. Got McCutchen's autograph and paid $20 for this bag of goodies...
In it had a nice big blanket, nice shirt, hat, two free grandstand tickets to any game of my choice (other than opening day or weekend) AND two CLUB seats (same rules apply)
Paid $20 and got over $150 worth of items
My wife is very happy. Looks like we're going to the game with club seats on our anniversary
Like I've said before...I appreciate his stories, at least, The Lord of the Rings movies are very good...but The Hobbit ranks above only Atlas Shrugged when it comes to the worst book I've read since I was 14.
Ayn Rand truly is a wretched, wretched writer, isn't she? Her philosophy is defensible depending on your point of view, but her writing is all kinds of awful.
They're a group that the KKK has called out as 'hate-mongers'. Let's stop giving them the attention they crave and just ignore them. They'll eventually just die.
They made headlines in MD, actually at my high school, when my classmate's brother (also same HS alum) was killed in Afghanistan two years ago. After about two weeks of coverage in local newspapers they ended up not appearing despite claiming they'd show up leading up to the funeral a day before. Sad.
I hope their latest protest is just "talk" as well.
Last edited by Iggy Smalls: 12-15-2012 at 09:01 PM.
They're a group that the KKK has called out as 'hate-mongers'. Let's stop giving them the attention they crave and just ignore them. They'll eventually just die.
With the way social media is today, these people are always going to get their attention fix. No way is this group going to die out, unless someone takes it in to their own hands.
