[Iris Alantiel]

Child of the Seventh Age, you’re scaring me. I am also about to start training to be a librarian, and my boyfriend is entering law school. Spooky.

Actually, I’m in my last year of my undergrads right now, and I’m taking an English course on Fantasy. The professor is a little bit . . . interesting, and he has a few sort of frightening ideas about Tolkien (especially concerning his intentions regarding Shelob), but he did say a few things about fantasy in academia that, based on my observations, seemed dead-on. He noted that, when you ask academics to name the most important book of the twentieth century, they say James Joyce’s Ulysses . . . but when you ask the general public, they choose The Lord of the Rings. That’s starting to change, but change is slow. And with some of the things they tried to teach me this year, I can’t say I’m sorry. I’ve learned miles more about Tolkien from you fine folk than from that crazy prof (whom I was actually correcting in front of the class when he misspoke on Tolkien, so I fear he doesn’t like me all that much). I’m starting to think that maybe our dear Professor Tolkien should be left to the people who love him.

But still, it is encouraging to see The Lord of the Rings on this list. I suppose you could see the story as “saying something”, but personally, I don’t see what’s so wrong with it if it isn’t. I think some of the most valuable, most enriching works I’ve ever read are those that don’t have any major political or social agendas, but just say something about our archetypal emotions and what it means to be human, to struggle with the issues of life and death, good and evil, and what all those things mean – questions we all ask. Just my thoughts, of course . . . but I believe those are the books we should read before we die, because I think those are the questions we all want to be able to answer by that time.