Truyện Ngắn Lãng Mạn Nhất Thế Kỷ 20 tải về miễn phí cuốn sách

Sheauhan Yap sheauhanyap — Started re-reading recently for the first time in ages. Both here and in The Hobbit, I was struck by a few things I hadn't noticed when reading it before: * So much nature writing! As an impatient kid I'd skim it all just to get to the juicy plot bits, and hence completely forgot it existed, but now it's actually quite nice to savor. * So many songs and poems! I thought there were just a few, but in fact it breaks out into a song-and-dance musical number every couple of pages. I'm surprised they made LOTR into movies and not Broadway shows. * There is a whole poem here that's basically an extended edition of the nursery rhyme Hey Diddle Diddle. I know now that Tolkien wrote LOTR partly as an excuse to make up origins or uses for real Old English words (e.g., the name "Gandalf" appears in some historical saga but is never explained, so he created a character by that name here). I guess he had fun doing the same with nursery rhymes. * Tom Bombadil speaks in verse the whole time! I'd assumed that apart from the obvious song/poetry bits set in italics, the rest was regular prose dialogue. But if you try reading his prose out loud, you'll find it has the same rhythm as the verse. * I've recently started seeing people complain about fat-shaming everywhere, and I can't help but notice it here too: Bombur the dwarf is fat and slow, Butterbur the innkeeper is fat and not too bright, Fatty the hobbit is fat and lazy... It doesn't ever feel vicious, but it's just something I don't remember noticing before. * p.x: "Some who have read the book, or at any rate have reviewed it, have found it boring, absurd, or contemptible; and I have no cause to complain, since I have similar opinions of their works, or of the kinds of writing that they evidently prefer." Oooh, burn. * p.25: "...anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom. Their dwellings were apt to become rather crowded with mathoms..." Clearly there needs to be a LOTR edition of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. * p.104: "[Lobelia] snorted, and showed plainly that she thought [poorly of the Gamgees]. Frodo did not offer her any tea." p.105: "[Sam] had been saying farewell to the beer-barrel in the cellar." I love how this ultimate quest over good and evil begins with gentle snark about tea and beer. * p.123: "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes." Sounds like my fellow statisticians. Maybe, instead of Data Scientists, we should be rebranding ourselves as Data Half-Elves.