Just throwing my two cents in.
I thought the criticism was not completely invalid. The writer criticized Tolkein to show how the claim of Tolkein as Author of the century was founded on author worship, as opposed to realistic literary analysis. Tolkein did not include sexual themes in the stories, and its a wonder that anyone other than Aragorn was able to reproduce. To some, Tolkein's language is a barrier.
The only major point I disagree with is the view of Tolkein as an eccentric who lived in his work. I feel this is a failure to perceive the merit in such a course. The creative process is not wholly in the control of the author, and Tolkein studied the process in his middle earth works, and saw the conclusions that the unconscious parts of his works led to, and it was a more rich world, more real seaming than a work intended to quickly trick the reader into believing in a world only long enough to get a point across.
However, I still agree with many of his points, especially the religious ones. The Silmarillion does not prove the existence of a religion that the characters took part in IN THE LORD OF THE RINGS. The Silmarillion shows the history of middle earth in the earlier ages, but in the LOTR, do the characters take part in such worship? Hard to say.
I love Tolkein's works, but I'm not gonna say he was perfect at everything in writing. Who is? At style, I prefer Fitzgerald, and if you could fuse the two authors, I think you'd have the perfect 20th century author, in my mind.
Tolkein was great at what he was great at, but he, like everyone else, had flaws as well. If everyone here is going to shout out his merits, isn't it only fair that others should have free reign to point out his flaws as well?
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