Quote:
Originally Posted by Timboli
I cannot agree with that.
Yes to hear a wonderful piece of violin music played on a Stradivarius is pure heaven, but it can still be great, even to a high degree, played on another violin.
And frankly, I don't see what I have been suggesting as dumbed down. The words aren't being replaced, there is just less of them regarding descriptive portions, to enhance the flow for some readers who struggle with long descriptions.
In a very real way, that descriptive stuff is like the icing on a cake, wonderful if you like icing, but not so great if you don't. What matters, is if you can appreciate and enjoy the cake, with or without icing ... the cake being the main important bit.
Tolkien's work and craft has plenty of merit aside from the heavily descriptive portions.
You can compare if with a 7 course meal. Still a great meal, even if you only have 4 or 5 of the courses, one of those being the main course.
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What you are talking about, an abridged version, has been tried with quite a few longer books over the years. The ebook version of Freeman's "Lee's Lieutenants" is an abridged one volume version of the original three book volume. I've got both the paper version and the ebook version. They used a well known Civil War author and scholar, Stephen Sears, to do the editing. In theory, it makes the work more accessible to the average reader, but I really didn't care for it. So much was missing.
A well edited book really doesn't have a bunch of fluff that can be removed. Everything should have a purpose in a well edited book and something doesn't have a purpose, then it's removed.