You know, was just thinking about this article. Making the claim that Tolkien is the author of the century may be a bit hyberbolic. I'm only now reading The Silmarillion for the first time (after having nearly memorized LOTR) and I'm finding myself a little frustrated - a lot of *telling*, but no *showing.* Tolkien is a seriuos author, and he's worthy of serious criticism.
But Jenkyns is awfully hard on Tolkien in order to disprove Shippey, and unfairly so. He's not criticizing Tolkien's work on its own terms, as was mentioned earlier in this thread. He's criticizing LOTR for not being what it's not trying be. Or something like that!
I think he's got it wrong, too, when we dismiss Tolkien's critics. True, critics look down on popularity. Popularity is important but, like Jenkyns says, not everything. Otherwise we'd all be studying Danielle Steele. Shudder. I don't have a problem with critics distrusting popularity - for the most part. Jenkyns has that wrong. I distrust Tolkien critics because most of them are extremely dismissive of the whole fantasy genre - they tend to ghettoize scifi and fantasy as "escapist" - like there's something wrong with that. In this article, Jenkyns reveals himself in subtle and unsubtle ways as another critic who just doesn't get this whole fantasy thing, and why don't those pesky Tolkien fans just grow up and read some Serious Literature?
And he won't really admit that Tolkien *is* serious literature. Maybe Jenkyns is afraid that Tolkien fans are unfamiliar with any other literature, but I don't think that's the case. Tolkien melds our ancient common legends and the modern novel and makes something very distinct in world literature. For many fans, Tolkien's work opens up new worlds and inspires them to go back to the sources that he used, to read more.
Maybe if I work up the energy I'll write a letter to TNR editor...
EG
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