Once you know the basic plot lines of Lord Of The Rings you could skip ahead a hundred pages and probably be ok.
And similarly, you could hit ‘summarize’ on the whole series and get the gist in three pages.
But the point Lord Of The Rings isn’t to know the story…it’s about reading the book. Living in it. Imagination. Stimulation. The fact that it’s long is one of the best things about it.
This is what we have to do as artists. Make things that are so compelling that being informed of them is not enough…it must be experienced. And when it is, it’s well worth it.
