My Problem with the Lord of the Rings...

Please don't hurt me.

So, I was talking to a few of my friends the other day about the Lord of the Rings. I haven't finished the books, they were telling me that it was worth the time. Perhaps they are.

The biggest reason I don't really want to, though, is this:
I have no idea what's going on.

See, I definitely appreciate J.R.R. Tolkien's contributions to--nay, almost exclusive invention of--the modern Fantasy genre. Without Tolkien, we wouldn't have elves and halflings fighting alongside armies of people riding giant eagles against the orcish hordes, and so on and so on until one side or the other falls down dead. And I like that. A lot of people must like that, because the Tolkien Fantasy Genre has been the standard for fantasy for as long as I've been a nerd.

But I still have no idea what's going on.

It all started with Tom Bombadill. We've got the hobbits who head out of the shire--okay, yeah, I'm totally with you--after Bilbo's 111th birthday during which he used a magic ring to turn invisible--okay, sure--and then on the way to meet a wizard at a tavern, there's a guy who starts rhyming the trees into eating the hobbits. For no reason.
First of all, who the FUCK is this guy? Are we supposed to know who Tom Bombadill is? Is he important? All sources point to no, Tom. All sources point to NO.

So I stopped reading the Fellowship of the Ring, and started reading the Two Towers. I got a little way into it, and then Gandalf started talking about who his horse is. Apparently, Shadowfax is supposed to be some big fucking deal.
Dude. J.R.R.. IT IS A HORSE. IT IS NOT IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT.

I can appreciate the fact that he's trying to build a world here, and that the world is populated by a whole bunch of interesting and legendary creatures and things that we should care about. Like, I really do respect it.
But why tell us about Tom Bombadill when we don't know why the people from the South are supposed to be evil? Is it because they ride Oliphants? Sauron is against humans--or so I assume, from the line 'The age of man is ending'--so how do these people justify fighting for him?

How about the city out front of the Gondor capital? The one that has been an important battleground for whoever knows how long? Why are they fighting over it?
What is its strategic value? What is the fight about? Who lived there?

And really, why are the people fighting the Orcs in the first place? They obviously have language, and it's assumed that they have a culture of their own, so what happened to diplomacy? (Even if they're 'tortured elves.' Who tortured them? Why? Where did they get so god-damned many elves to torture? Seriously, there've gotta be a million of the fuckers just chillin' inside Mordor. Aren't Elves rare? Is this what MADE elves rare? Tell us!)

Instead of actually creating a history that involves more than the one battle between Sauron and the Last King of Gondor (or whatever), Tolkien pretty much focuses exclusively on how stoked he is about Elvish and the precise lineage of Gandalf's horse. So I guess my biggest complaint about the Lord of the Rings is the fact that I really couldn't care about the minutiae you seem to be obsessed with, J.R.R.. I just don't give a damn.

To redeem myself slightly, I effing loved The Hobbit. It is a better book than all three of (what I read of) the Lord of the Rings series combined. It has one of the best first lines of any book I've read: "In a hole in the ground lived a Hobbit."
It establishes the main character, who the main character is, what he does, and what is expected of the story (which is to say, he will leave his hole, both figuratively and literally, and go on an adventure.)
What is the story?
To go out and get gold.
Who is doing it?
A hobbit.
Who is the bad guy?
A dragon.
The story is strikingly simple, but Tolkien manages to fill it completely with an entire world; one so poignant that it inspired me to a life of nerd-dom. With a story as simple as the Hobbit, the world outside of the plot doesn't really need to be explained, just the parts that affect the movement. I really like The Hobbit. You should read The Hobbit. I think I might go read The Hobbit again.