Do you like books that are overly descriptive?

[Weebster]

I'm rereading The LOTR but the extensive descriptions are irritating. I'm on The Two Towers now.

 

[rayless]

I don't know about now, but I remember when I was 16 and had to read The City and The Mountains (Eça de Queiroz) for my literature class and it had such LONG descriptions that, at the time, I lost all the "satyrical" point of the book because of how tired I was of reading the description a train wagon.
Maybe I should try to re-read it now.

 

[whatevs]

I was going to respond precisely that the second time I tried to read the LOTR saga I found the descriptions tiresome and unnecessary.

 

[Niko66]

I find it annoying with landscapes, clothes and such.

 

[Sakura94]

LOTR was fine.
Wheel of Time was a little ridiculous.

 

[jandek]

Depends on the book. Sometimes mind-boggling detail is working with the writer's purpose and can achieve a hypnotic or surreal effect, like in Karl Ove Knausgaard or the Dream of Poliphilus.

I don't think Tolkien is too excessive in his descriptions... Post-Tolkien fantasy is more guilty of this, in my opinion.

 

[Weebster]

I was going to respond precisely that the second time I tried to read the LOTR saga I found the descriptions tiresome and unnecessary.

I skip all the songs.

 

[whatevs]

I skip all the songs.

Fuck the songs. I never read them in any book. Context and lore my arse.

 

[Weebster]

Fuck the songs. I never read them in any book. Context and lore my arse.

What other books have you read that have songs?

 

[whatevs]

What other books have you read that have songs?

Recently I read a book I actually really liked, La Hoja Roja of Miguel Delibes, which I think had poems or songs. Skipped them.

 

[sfabians]

I like short stories better.

 

[thinkkank]

wait till you get to Silmarillion

 

[Weebster]

wait till you get to Silmarillion

I read it. I liked it better than LOTR

 

[thinkkank]

I read it. I liked it better than LOTR

really? i barely got through it. what did you like about it?

 

[Weebster]

really? i barely got through it. what did you like about it?

It was a faster read because it felt like I was reading a quickened history text. I didn't need to remember every little thing just like I don't need to remember every event or person in a history book.

 

[Fragile]

No. I grew up reading the books from the one known Colombian writer, because they are forced upon every child 10 or older, and they are so needlessly descriptive it's almost unbearable.

 

[Weebster]

No. I grew up reading the books from the one known Colombian writer, because they are forced upon every child 10 or older, and they are so needlessly descriptive it's almost unbearable.

A hundred years of solitude?

 

[Fragile]

A hundred years of solitude?

Yep. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

 

[Ashu]

I like books with just the right amount of description. If they were overly descriptive, I wouldn't read them.

 

[Weebster]

Yep. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I was considering reading that. Now I won't lol