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LONDON (Reuters) - Fantasy epic "The Lord of the Rings" has been picked as Britain's favourite read.

The BBC's "Big Read" campaign ended on Saturday with a resounding victory for one of the most enduring classics of the 20th century, a labour of love by Oxford academic J.R.R. Tolkien.

The quest for the best read attracted 750,000 votes -- and almost a quarter of them went to "The Lord of the Rings."

Second in the hotly fought contest was Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice.

Third was "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman, fourth was Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and fifth was JK Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire."

The contest began in April when around 140,000 people nominated books as part of the campaign to encourage reading to form a list of 100 national favourites.

They were whittled down in a contest that sparked widespread debate about the strengths of British literature over the ages. Sales soared and so did library lending figures for the short-listed books.

Among those celebrating Saturday's victory on live television was Tolkien's grandson Simon who said: "It is an unbelievable honour for me to be here today and for my grandfather to be so loved in this way.

"He died when I was 14 but he was very significant in helping me through difficult times.

"I would ask him endless questions about 'Lord of the Rings.' I was a bit of a pain but he did his best with me. He was great."

As for the abiding appeal of the epic, Simon Tolkien said: "He had absolutely no idea of where it would be today."

Tolkien's saga has now found a whole new generation of fans with the trilogy of "Lord of the Rings" movies which have been world box office blockbusters.

Where was Pukoon in all this?

Gormenghast rules my world...

or rather, IS my world...

I lost count as to how many times I voted for "THHGTG"

THHGTG radio series was boss, the telly was good, but what will the Hollywood CGI version be like?

regards
Hotblack Desiato of Disaster Area

i'd have liked HHGTTG to have won too. but i'll settle for LOTR.

anything but harry potter...

Wonder if LOTR would have been top if there hadn't been films?...

CellThree wrote:Wonder if LOTR would have been top if there hadn't been films?...

I'm sure it was top in some polls before the films

Many, many polls, including the Waterstones book of the century poll a few years ago. This is always great fun, because the critics HATES the fact that it always wins. They hates the nasty, twisted little book...

CellThree wrote:Wonder if LOTR would have been top if there hadn't been films?...

I think not. Few percent of ppl in Portugal didn't knew or read Tolkien before the films were made.
This is now kind of a fashion...

moonchild wrote:

CellThree wrote:Wonder if LOTR would have been top if there hadn't been films?...

I think not. Few percent of ppl in Portugal didn't knew or read Tolkien before the films were made.
This is now kind of a fashion...

I hate to disagree, but... LOTR has sold more copies than any book other than the Bible. And as Big Si and MrChris have pointed out, it regularly wins "best book" polls here in the UK.

It was bound to win.

It may not have been well read in some countries, perhaps if it was translated fairly recently. But it has sold a HUGE number of copies, and Tolkein has regularly been voted favourite author in Britain at least. I know the film has led to more people discovering his books, but as you could judge by walking into any British bookshop even five or ten years ago, they were selling extremely well back then too.

I think that Tolkein has many faults, and I don't think it's the best book ever written by a very long way, but I also get annoyed by the utter snobbery of literary critics who dismiss it as 'silly' and unimportant. In terms of the BBC's Big Read, many of the critics who said it was silly - because it was unrealistic, had no bearing on the real world, and contained lots of people with long ears and silly names - also defended Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Doh!

If you look at some of the criticisms as well, they are just plain untrue. Two in particular:

"It has no women" - it does, and 2 of them in particular (Galadriel and Eowyn) are pretty kick-ass. Admittedly, they're in more peripheral roles, but there's a world of difference between that and none.

"The goodies all win out safe and sound" - they don't. There's an incredible amount of loss and grief at the end, with Frodo in particular being unable to enjoy the victory. In fact, in spite of the victory practically everything that was fought for ends up being lost.

Tolkien himself said "those who have read the book, (or at any rate, reviewed it)" (my italics), implying that a lot of the negative reviews it received were based solely on preconceived prejudice, and that the reviewers didn't even bother to read it. It's like the old "I hate (insert band name), I've never listened to any of their songs" - how can you know that you hate them if you don't know what they sound like???

OK, so I'm a massive fan meself, but I can and do see it's flaws (and what are flaws for me may well be the best bits for others). I'm mostly prepared to let them pass cos as a whole, the book is very relevant and the wealth of background detail makes it a convincing story.

A lot of it is probably down to literary snobbishness - like, how dare anyone write a socially relevant book that is both interesting and readable as well?!?

Phew!!! Rant over.

What mh said.

mh wrote:"The goodies all win out safe and sound" - they don't. There's an incredible amount of loss and grief at the end, with Frodo in particular being unable to enjoy the victory. In fact, in spite of the victory practically everything that was fought for ends up being lost.

Indeed.

At one point Galadriel (or maybe Elrond) talks about "fighting the long defeat"; all the Elves accomplish is a brief respite so that they can escape into the West. '"They are sailing, sailing, sailing over the Sea, they are going into the West and leaving us," said Sam'.

It is a book filled with a wistful longing for beauty that has gone away. As Tolkien himself said (about the author of Beowulf, but the words can apply to his own writing), "He was telling of things already old and tinged with regret, and he expended his art on making keen the touch that sorrows have, which are both poignant and remote"

Edit: 100th post! No longer Road Kill!

There's another very familiar, boring criticism which is often made as well, which is that the book sees world divided into 'basically good people' and 'basically bad people'. I'm not trying to vindicate Tolkein's views of the ideal social order, which often look aristocratic, undemocratic and just possibly involve disparaging views of women and other races. But the idea that there is no moral complexity in Tolkein's work is ridiculous. To believe this you have to ignore what happens to Bilbo, Frodo, Boromir, Gollum, Saruman, the Dunlendings, etc etc. All are plagued by self-doubt, pride, greed and vanity at various times. Hell, after Sauron shuffles off even the orcs change their ways. Sorry, that was a minor spoiler, I guess.

markfiend wrote:Edit: 100th post! No longer Road Kill!

Congrats!

markfiend wrote:I hate to disagree, but... LOTR has sold more copies than any book other than the Bible. And as Big Si and MrChris have pointed out, it regularly wins "best book" polls here in the UK.

It was bound to win.

In UK that's for sure. But not in Portugal. I read this kind of stories for many many years ago, and only now the ppl is starting to search for more books of Tolkien or Feist or even Terry Pratchett.
Before the films, it was few ppl that looked for those kind of books...

markfiend wrote:

moonchild wrote:

CellThree wrote:Wonder if LOTR would have been top if there hadn't been films?...

I think not. Few percent of ppl in Portugal didn't knew or read Tolkien before the films were made.
This is now kind of a fashion...

I hate to disagree, but... LOTR has sold more copies than any book other than the Bible. And as Big Si and MrChris have pointed out, it regularly wins "best book" polls here in the UK.

It was bound to win.

Yeah but Westlife and other crap and frightful bands always win best band etc....Doesn't actually make em good!!

MrChris wrote:There's another very familiar, boring criticism which is often made as well, which is that the book sees world divided into 'basically good people' and 'basically bad people'.

Oooh yeh. The quote about the fallen baddie when they see the Elephant in Two Towers is a classic example. You can paraphrase it as something like "was he really bad or did he just fall into the wrong company and get led astray?"

There's another place where Gandalf (I think) says that even Sauron was not evil in the beginning. And he does also say that while he would use the Ring out of a desire to do good, he would turn out worse in the end.

For the LOTR fans on the forum, fancy a new avatar?

No, but thanks... any Walter Matthau "ya dumb bas'tid!"?

Red Sunsets wrote:No, but thanks... any Walter Matthau "ya dumb bas'tid!"?

http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&l ... gle+Search

Is it unforgivably geeky of me to admit that I bought my tickets for the third LOTR movie two weeks in advance? Cos I did.

CellThree wrote:Wonder if LOTR would have been top if there hadn't been films?...

or in previous times, if Melbourne House hadn't been around. That was my route into the Hobbit

this is a fairly essential resource. Even gets a mention in the last LOTR book

http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/east ... books.html