Once upon at time...

Current book: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Pages read: None

A bit busy today, and my husband and I are leaving for a long weekend tomorrow morning, so there won't be another post until Tuesday.

In the meantime, though, I had a thought about these books in general that I found sort of helped me to better understand, if not enjoy, the writing style. If you think of them as examples of storytelling - actual oral storytelling, perhaps even epic storytelling - they make a lot more sense. The digressions to give the history of minor characters, the emphasis on the long, arduous nature of the travel, the unnecessary vignettes with odd or inexplicable conclusions - all of these are characteristics of oral epics. Add in the fact that Tolkien was a Beowulf scholar, and things suddenly seem to fit together better. Does that mean that they're well-written? Not necessarily, but it's indicative, at least, of some intentionality behind choices that might be considered ill-advised.