1k Comp :: Fab Prizes :: Newbies come & talk! <3

[Sphenni]

I don't tend to spend my life studying a book. I read the books, see if they're good and then read them again about 10 times per week if they are xd . I don't really think any deeper than that. Apart from i am finding that i am learning the Ancient Language of the elves subconciously sweatdrop

I still don't see how Tolkien's writing is anything like Christopher Paolini's. LotR is about Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf and whoever else and that ring, isn't it? Eragon is about a boy who becomes a dragon rider. And it shows all the mythical creatures in a completely un-Tolkien way...

And that doesn't explain the stereotype of wolves. britian's last wolf was hunted in 1743, so he couldn't be the one who made that one up. I don't get why nearly every book which has a wolf in it shows them as "big" "bad" and "scary". Even the books that aren't children's books.  

[Niphz]

@JieRui - I haven't seen the film, but the poem I've read bits from and I love it <3 I do intend to read it properly some day (actually I already feel crap 'cause I study Eng Lit and I haven't read it xD). Apparently the film is awful, though, it's like basically a cartoon, or something, right? D;

@LV - Darling, The Hobbit IS a children's book. Don't say what is 'Tolkein' or 'un-Tolkien' until you've read LotR, and preferably The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales as well. Trust me, the modern fantasy genre began with Tolkien. <3 It's okay to not think too deeply about books at your age; it would be good to try to think about the overall message of the book, though, it will help you in English (as well as in life in general, because that skill of seeing beyond the surface is greatly needed). Also do not just watch the LotR films - although they are very, very good - the books have a slightly different feel to them, and the language he uses is gorgeous. (:

 

[a- K0KO-]

Ah. Niph is so deep. I have yet to learn. o wo
Usually I just read books. A lot of books. Short or long stories. Then reflect/look back for a while after I finish, or just start another one.  

[Niphz]

Well, I study Eng Lit, so this is like.. home territory P; for years and years I did just read and read without thinking about them, but I was younger then. It's good, anyway, just keep going, and you'll mature along with the literature you read. (:

 

[Chibito7]

Maa, I do literature too, and I love reading, but, Tolkien (not LOTR specifically, just Tolkien's style of writing) is not my kind of writing, and I can admit that fully. *shrug* I can't appreciate it the way Niph does. Maybe it's because I'm not quite as deep. xd But everyone has their preferences, and just because I don't enjoy Tolkien's style, doesn't mean I don't admire him. It just means I don't appreciate it as much and understand how great he is, hahaha. I just find his style too lengthy. I tend to find older books too lengthy, too waffley. It has to be said, LOTR bored me. Not the story line, but just by how long it was and how it was written.

*puts hands up* But I have nothing against Tolkien. =P Just not my man. wink  

[Niphz]

Well, y'know, that's fine, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but at least you've read it and made an informed judgement, y'know?

 

[Sphenni]

ee I love reading xxx But the Hobbit is just x( because there are no really exciting bits. It just drones on. It's kind of like... *thinks what to compare it to* ... a piece of music composed with only Middle C, the B below it and the D above it. There are no highs and lows, just the average. If you get what I mean. There aren't any moments where i read a bit and think *god i really want to know what happens next*. It's too predictable.

> Short books are awful. books that are a whole story (not just something like Dark Sun which is just like a side-story to the main series) with less than 200 pages (excluding the books that about 5 year olds read) i just find so boring, because they are not detailed enough, and you can't seem to get enough into it.  

[Niphz]

Well, we are just going to have to agree to disagree, because I'm not having this Tolkien argument here or I will actually get too annoyed. Px

Short books.. in general I agree; but there are some masterpieces which are, in fact, short stories, like The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. But you're not old enough for that, so don't worry P;

 

[mymiridon]

i have no desire to read anything from earnest hemingway. Frankly I've never understood how some books that are considered classics make me so bored, unintrested, or lethargic. Perhaps I'm just uncouth in the ways of Literature.  

[Niphz]

I do agree that some authors seem to be more suitable for admiration rather than genuine enjoyment, like Virginia Woolf, or Eliot to some extent, or a lot of the modern/post-modern writers. I haven't read much Hemingway, but I did like The Old Man and the Sea <3 it has a sort of underlying rhythm to it, and it's so concise that you feel it's more poetry than prose. (:

 

[Chibito7]

What would Niph recommend I read ('classics' wise) that would be beneficial for lit?  

[Sphenni]

Virginia Woolf? don't we have a picture of her up on the fiction library or something?


My mum tried to get me to read Bleak House a year ago and by around the fifth page i was so bored that i just pretended that i had read it and returned it to the library xd . The language was a bit too... sophisticated. Or was it just the context? I can't remember.  

[Niphz]

It'd be a good idea to start reading a bit of WWI literature (Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves is the best autobiography, definitely; and it's very readable and the language is gorgeous, and I want to marry him xD). To have an understanding of different styles is good, so do read a Virginia Woolf - Mrs Dalloway, for example, and maybe some DH Lawrence or something? Evelyn Waugh, for satire, like Scoop; foreign literature is always worth a read, if you can't face War and Peace then I recommend Anna Karenina by Tolstoy (it's a psychological novel, really); also One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez, who is wonderful and created a whole genre of his own (magical realism), which is echoed in modern books like God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy. Other classics.. I hate Dickens, as you know, but Bleak House is very, very, very, very, extremely good. <3 All the normal English novels by Austen and the Brontes (but not Northanger Abbey, that one is crap). For religion and philosophy, CS Lewis' The Screwtape Letters, and Voltaire's Candide, amongst others. Erm.. okay. I'll stop now. That list was just off the top of my head..

WAIT omg I forgot poetry xD

Poetry: Chaucer, but you might be doing him already? Shakespeare, of course, his sonnets are actually works of genius (read #30, I love that one). Wordsworth and Coleridge and Blake, but you might do them next year anyway. WWI poets you will do. -thinks- TS Eliot, but not The Waste Land, unless you've read the entire works of Shakespeare, Dante and Marlowe, and know the Bible inside-out, both Testaments. xDD;

OKAY I REALLY WILL STOP NOW. XD

 

[Niphz]

Liani Vine

Virginia Woolf? don't we have a picture of her up on the fiction library or something?


My mum tried to get me to read Bleak House a year ago and by around the fifth page i was so bored that i just pretended that i had read it and returned it to the library xd . The language was a bit too... sophisticated. Or was it just the context? I can't remember.

You are too young for Bleak House. Try Great Expectations instead, I'm told that one is quite good, but I just don't like Dickens (apart from Bleak House <3).

 

[a- K0KO-]

Niphz

Well, I study Eng Lit, so this is like.. home territory P; for years and years I did just read and read without thinking about them, but I was younger then. It's good, anyway, just keep going, and you'll mature along with the literature you read. (:

Oh literature~ That changes a lot about how you see and read thigs, doesn't it? o: People I've met who are superb in english are totally out of my league. o wo <333
Thank youu. I hope I do. c:
I really love reading, but I guess I need to decipher more into the meanings and things like details. likes to rush.