[Lush]

Nice link, though I, once again, disagree with using some nebulous notion of "today's culture" to blame Phillip Pullman and myself for finding some (if not all) of Tolkien's characters to be particularly psychologically deep on their own accord (this is when you subtract Tolkien's keen ability to draw the reader into the story so far that one has little problem picturing himself or herself as Sam, making his lonely choices in Mordor, for example).

I am do not view Tolkien's characters to be, on the most part, psychologically shallow because I live in the modern age, but because my definition of literary psychological depth differs from yours.

I believe that these characters are deep the way myth is deep, in that they do not allow for a close, personal study, and yet are able to resonate with the reader on a different level than, say, the likes of Humbert Humbert, Nick Carroway, or Anna Karenina.

We see Anna Karenina from the inside out, as opposed to the majority of Tolkien's characters (Gollum and, I would argue, Sam being the notable exceptions, but even then the inner psychological drama of these characters does not come close to what is happening inside Anna Karenina), where the reverse tactic is used by the author.

Calling Tolkien's characters "psychologically deep" is, in part, a slighting of writers like Tolstoy, Nabokov, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, Zadie Smith, and the like, whose concerns are, indeed with viewing characters from the inside out. None of these authors, however, were concerned with writing a mythology, which is what Tolkien was doing, and which, coincidentally, demands for a different approach in exploring the merit of each individual character.

I don't agree with Pullman's dismissal of Tolkien, because the criteria he uses to judge the book do not seem applicable to me, but I do agree with him that if one is looking for psychological depth, one should probably look elsewhere.

Incidentally, Anna Karenina appeared on the literary stage over a century ago. With this character in mind, arguing that it is the modern age specifically that has a problem with Tolkien's characters is, to me, a bit silly.

Furthermore, is The Lord of the Rings not a bestseller? Do millions of people not flock to see the cinematic adaptation? If modern culture does not "appreciate" what Tolkien is doing, then it certainy has a peculiar way of expressing itself. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]