[Aiwendil]

I also agree that it is not a 'mannered' book, there is less of a surface manifestation of literary method.

This bit raised an interesting question in my mind. No, LotR is not a 'mannered' book; it is heroic rather than ironic. But what about The Hobbit? Here there is a surface manifestation of literary method. Here we have a truly ironic device, the fiction that the book is being told orally; this is especially true of the first few chapters.

This actually rekindled some hope in me for modern fantasy. Almost the entire modern genre is based on LotR. But Tolkien produced not one but three great works. The Hobbit and The Silmarillion go largely ignored, and unimitated. Perhaps because LotR was so succesful, modern authors have constricted the genre in an attempt to produce another LotR. But what the genre needs to remain innovative and productive is all three - anachronistic children's tales filled with wonder, heroic fantasy epics like we have now, and vast semi-tragic mythological cycles.

That's just a random idea I thought I'd share - to be honest, I'm not sure whether I believe it myself. But do with it what you will.

the essence of nostalgia apparent in Tolkien is itself something that encourages stasis and formulaic restatement.

This is an interesting idea, and I am tempted to agree with it for what it is. But I'm not sure it can help to explain the current state of the genre, since this nostalgia is one of the aspects of Tolkien which his imitators have failed to imitate.

I think a large part of the confusion comes from lumping differing mediums under the general banner of "Art" and then making generalizations.

But surely the term "art" has meaning. My supposition is this: there is a Platonic essence called "art"; this essence must exist in all media that we call the "arts". Because there is a single, common essence of art, there must be a single, common purpose for art that makes it art(regardless of whatever secondary purposes various media might have).

Leaving other forms aside and concentrating on literature, I guess the question then becomes, what sort of content is aesthetically pleasing, and what sort is problematic?

I don't pretend to have an answer to this; this is the question that the various theories of art (music theory, literary criticism, etc.) should address.

I think you're at least partly right here. I was astonished to learn that the Star Wars novel "I, Jedi" was considered a risky venture because it was written in (*gasp!*) the First Person (hence the title).

Sometimes (I would say frequently) the conventions of a genre or sub-genre are beneficial, however. I actually think I, Jedi suffered from being in the first person. That's because the first person simply doesn't work as well as the third person for that type of novel. It's like genetic mutations. Each human has on average two mutated genes. Very few of these are in genes that actually matter (many are in sections of useless DNA). Of those that do matter, almost all are harmful. Only a very small fraction are beneficial. It is through these few beneficial mutations that evolution occurs. Within a genre, each writer makes slight changes to the formula. The vast majority of these neither greatly improve nor greatly detract from the work. Of those that do matter, a great number detract from the work. Only a few of these innovations or new ideas are actually beneficial - but it is through these that literary evolution occurs. The only difference is that in literature, the chances for a good change are somewhat higher, since this is presumably what everyone is seeking. Thus it's hard to know which aspects of the fantasy genre need change and which don't. I hope that made some kind of sense