Why You're Wrong About Tolkien

Tolkien is a prolific author who has had a massive impact on the fantasy genre.

He’s known for many things.

Being a professor of Linguistics at Oxford University. Inventing his own languages. Reinventing the fantasy genre. And, of course, his relentless long-winded descriptions that often drag on far longer than they need to. After all, the Hobbits didn’t leave the shire until page 100, right (more or less depending on if you read your novels in small print or large print).

In my time, I’ve spoken to published authors who have assured me that Tolkien would never get published in our modern-day society because of the way he writes, claiming that Tom Bombadil contributed nothing to the story and is as boring as watching paint dry. On top of this, I’ve met countless people who won’t even open the cover of the first book because of his writing’s infamous reputation.

The internet is littered with forums exploring these aspects of Tolkien’s writing; how Tolkien describes everything to the smallest detail, and how his extensive exposition breaks the ‘show don’t tell’ rule.

But what if I told you that this was all one big misconception.

Yes, that’s right.

Tolkien being a writer who drags on unnecessarily isn’t true at all – but more a psychological effect of an established and widely accepted theory. To put that in simpler terms, people believe Tolkien is a wordy writer because they hear it from other people who believe it. But the reality is, Tolkien’s published books are reasonably short – especially when you compare them to modern titles that are aimed at a similar age group. In fact, there are many other modern-day authors who drag on a lot more than Tolkien.

So, let’s put thing in perspective.

The Lord of the Rings series in total is about 500,000 words, not including the Hobbit. It was written to imitate some of the great, ancient works of literature, such as Beowulf, and for that reason it really does belong in the adult category of reading. This means that it attracts a more mature readership who are accustomed to reading longer works.

The Harry Potter series is about a million words in total. While this series transcends the age groups of Middle Grade and Young Adult, it is still written for a younger audience. Which means that theoretically it should be a bit shorter. Yes, the Hobbits take about a hundred pages to leave The Shire, but it’s takes Harry about ninety pages to get to Hogwarts, which isn’t too much of in improvement (again this changes depending on the size of the print).

The Inheritance Cycle is about 900,000 words in total. Although we’re well and truly out of Middle Grade territory here, this still almost doubles Tolkien’s word count for a readership that is much, much younger than Tolkien’s. And Paolini drags on much more than Tolkien ever could – writing a scene about smithing a sword that spans pages, and wars that never seem to end. It really does baffle me how one can easily get through these books but struggle to read Tolkien’s work. And if you want me to do the ‘hundred page Shire’ comparison again… I’m not going to because Paolini blows Tolkien away with the amount of pages he takes to get things going.

The Kingkiller Chronicals is about 750,000 words and the final book is still yet to be released. I absolutely adore this series, but one of the few criticisms I have of the books in general is that they drag at times, especially when they don’t need to. It’s a book written for adults, so it has a bit more leeway, but 750,000 words for an uncompleted series is a bit much.

And I could go on.

The Obernewtyn series. This one literally spends the first book setting up the series, and the last book (which is 700 pages long) spends half the book on a long desert walk.

The Mistborn Series. A million words and I never got past the first book.

The Wheel of Time. I’m sure you’ve heard about that. Too many to count, let alone read.

So why does Tolkien get a bad wrap?

Although I don’t think that Tolkien is boring to read at all, some people could perceive him as boring because of his style of writing. As I said earlier, it was written to imitate an epic poem (though I don’t think it’s anywhere near the level of epic poems. I’ve read The Iliad, The Odyssey and many other ancient works, and reading pages of genealogy can really be hard). 

It could also be because of The Silmarillion, which is long, and very much does drag at times.

But that can’t really be held against Tolkien as a writer, because the Silmarillion was Tolkien’s extensive notes that were only ever published after his death, by his son Christopher Tolkien.

So next time someone tells you that Tolkien’s writing is long winded.

Tell them they’re wrong.

And I hope this article has inspired you to give Lord of the Rings a read if you haven’t already.