Psychological depth in Tolkien's characters

[the phantom]

Steady on phantom!

Ah, one of my favorite Brit sayings. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Reading is not a competitive sport.

Neither is driving your car around town, but there are certainly some drivers who are much better than others.

Of course in reading it depends on whether or not you have the same specific goal. Obviously you can't compare two people if one is reading specifically for pleasure and the other for comprehension. But if person A and person B are both reading the same book and both have the same purpose in mind (eg they want to know the characters as well as they can) and person A gets to know them much better than person B (because he is able to interpret what he is reading) then person A is a more talented reader in that sense.

but nevertheless experiences great enjoyment and satisfaction

Right now I'm not terribly concerned with how much people enjoy literature. I'm concerned with whether or not people are able to see character development.

As a child I really enjoyed reading all sorts of books (most of which had few deep characters, if any), but just because I had fun didn't make me a talented reader when it came to recognizing context clues as they related to the characteristics of the individuals in the story.

Don't be afraid to say that inequity exists in this world. It does. You are better than me at some things and I am better than you at some things. Similarly, some people are better readers when it comes to making logical inferences about book characters (which could be one reason why some people can't see depth when others can).