Dumbing down the Books

[Eurytus]

Shake yourself out of this parochialism of time!

I find Tolkien's quote here greatly amusing. He seems not to realise the hypocrisy of that statement. That someone who greatly disliked the modern world and consciously sort to antiquate his book should accuse someone else of parochialism of time is slightly bizarre.

As to the antigue text being necessary and helpful to the tone, I have to disagree. War and Peace is an Epic, does its style of writing try to ape the old epics? No.

Besides which, whatever tone Tolkien is saying he tried to achieve and whether it suited the work does not square with the fact that it was meant to be written by Hobbits. The same hobbits who wrote book one. Why the change? It simply does not add up.