I remember giving up on the English version the first time I tried (in school, I think I was 15 or so), because it was so archaic and hard to read. It's written (from a structural pov) like a storyteller telling children a story, but it doesn't tone down its prose for children at all. Lots of difficult sentence structures and difficult words. I really like it. (Except for all the poems and songs, but the dwarf song was THE BEST THING of the movie. Huge plus point for using the medium to its advantage.)
Heh. The first book I ever read in English to improve my barely passing English grade was LotR, and I think I was sixteen at the time ;) I can tell you I know exactly what you mean by the archaic and hard to read! Started from the Two Towers even, since it was the only one that library had available at the time, and the only reason I got through the first thirty pages was that I knew I loved the book in Finnish and had been told it was even better in English. Which it was, so I was duly rewarded for being too stubborn to quit, although the Finnish version remains to this day possibly the best translation I've ever come across :) I did start jumping over the scenery descriptions around that thirty page landmark, since they took me unnecessarily long to decipher - I needed to search more than nine words out of ten from my old, trusty dictionary, and the sentences were so long I had forgotten the first part by the time I got halfway through. I was almost starting to hate Rohan for putting me through such difficult-to-understand scenery
( ... )
Comments 2
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment