shadowy_blue
Senior Member
Discos, your complaints do have some validity. There were some parts of the book with too much description of sceneries and locations.
With that being said though, Tolkien created the landscape of a world, and in order to do this he needed to describe everything in minute detail. And the sceneries also set up the atmosphere of a particular scene. We know that Frodo and Sam are in perilous quest in Mordor because of the black sky and, heavy clouds and stinky smell, we know that the Fellowship are safe and in rest when we have read about the ethereal nature of Lothlorien and Rivendell, etc.
And let's also think about it for a second, if Tolkien hadn't spent all that time explaining every detail of the scenery then it would be VERY difficult for Peter Jackson to make the scenery in the movies good...he used the books a lot for the explanations Tolkien gave about the scenery and everything.
I'll be honest enough to say though, that I prefer watching and drooling over the wonderful sceneries and locations in the film (especially if it's really close from the description in the book), than reading one whole page dedicated to the description of one specific place.
To answer the question though, I prefer reading the informations about the emotions and thoughts of a character. I prefer reading about the informations about battles and other touching and tragic events in Arda, but it doesn't mean that I don't appreciate all the wonderful sceneries in Middle-earth. 😉