Tolkien Was Turned Down by Nobel Committee
January 8, 2012 3 Comments
JRR Tolkien, the author of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, was rejected by the Nobel Prize committee for poor storytelling and bad writing.
I’m with history on this one, but am actually surprised that he got far enough in the process to warrant a rejection.
About Matthew
Agreed. While I get the following his books have garnered and I do enjoy the stories he told (in movie and/or cartoon version), I personally have never been able to get through one of his books. I tried to read The Hobbit for three years before I gave it up.
I think we have a different opinion on how history turned out!
Although I do remember it taking me a couple tries before I got into the Hobbit. I gave up the first time, then my brother encouraged me to try again.
Don’t get me wrong, I would love to be able to read his stuff. Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit remain on my to-read list. But his descriptions go on for days! By the time I got to the end of the description, I forgot what he was describing in the first place. In this case, I prefer to let Peter Jackson tell me the story.