[Lush]

To elaborate on something Imladris already mentioned: there is nothing new under the sun. The challenge that writers face, in whatever they write, is in taking something familiar and making it their own, and making it readable, clever, fun, deep, you name it.

For example, you can take "The Wasteland" and chew out Eliot for just clumping together a bunch of references to other writers and peppering the whole thing with a little Modernist gloom and doom. That would be missing the point. Of course Eliot was playing off his predecessors, but "The Wasteland" is deeper than that, because it makes you think of things in a new way; it touches you in a new way; it it rattles and excites and horrifies you in a new way.

The somebody like Adrienne Rich comes along and is clearly influenced by "The Wasteland" and Eliot's other works, but, through the strength of her talent, has something new to add.

This, I believe, is evident in pre- and post-Tolkien movements in literature, with many different evolving themes intersecting. The results are usually worthless (at least, in my not so humble opinion), but that has more to do with the fact that most literature is worthless in general.

Yet there is always that smattering of books that are worth your time; these are the books that, according to Vladimir Nabokov's rule of thumb regarding "great" literature, cannot be read, they can only be re-read. As the Danielle Steeles of the world get richer, there are still writers out there who produce awesome, important stuff that our grandkids will hopefully be reading (unless, um, we destroy the world 'till then, but I try to be optimistic).

And I would gladly place J.K. Rowling into that pile of authors that saw some things in Tolkien they could play off of and did it wiith style, grace, and a good sense of humour no less.