Alright. Jason wants me to fight him. I'll fight him, I've just been waiting a little while.

I joked that criticizing Tolkien was heresy. Jason said, really? can he do no wrong?

Heresy, Sean? There are flaws in this work, no? Is the poetry not a little wearisome, at times? Does it bother nobody that descriptions of Sauron's creation of orcs, goblins, et al parallel racist descriptions of how "degenerate" races came into our world? The language there is not far off.

There's a little hyperbole in my baiting here, okay? A complex work of literature can stand up to some pretty big hits, and I think The LOTR is up to the challenge. But doesn't *anything* about Tolkien's work bother you?

Does anything about Tolkien's work bother me? Nope, not really - not for what it was.

If I ever get around to doing something on this order, will I do it differently? Absolutely. We even kicked this around one time, Jason and I and some others. We called the project 'Eos'. It was going to be appropriately multi-cultural. It would, of course, have given due honor to women.

Problem was, for me, I couldn't get interested in it.

Sometimes my high-minded ideals get in the way of what I like/love and what I can pull off. In some of my work on a fantasy world, I thought it'd be nice to do a language, at least the rudiments. I started it and thought, on the first word ('love' incidentally) 'There's no way I'm going to come up with new root words for all of this stuff!' That's about when I realized if I'm ever going to do something like this, which trends look bad and I might not even start until I get to heaven, if I do, somehow, by grace - if I ever do it it's going to be radically simplified. It's got to be stuff I'm interested in if it's ever going to get done, not high-minded ideals.

So what do I do? I'm a pacifist by principal, but I love reading about military strategy (like in Orson Scott Card) and good guys triumphant in war (like in Tolkien). Ursula K LeGuin does a better job of peaceful, interesting fantasy writing (sung to the tune of 'Peaceful, Easy Feeling'), so there's some hope there. I believe in multi-culturalism, but I'm most acquainted with Europeans and European mythology and, frankly, I prefer it.

Boy, this is some tangent.

Tolkien was a chauvinist - no doubt. He had this funky romanticized view of his relationship with Edith that was like courtly love but not like equitable friendship. Edith was Luthien and he was Beren. Did this do anything for Edith? I don't know. He didn't have women in his life who were intelligent and active.

He was also racially chauvinist. He loved England and Germany. (He hated Hitler for spoiling the Germans.) His descriptions of all the other 'swarthy' races aren't enlightened 21st century. But I don't detect real hatred in them - just a preference for what he grew up in. He also has very hard judgments of his own people in many, many places, especially those who cut down trees to make room for machines.

Tolkien's poetry doesn't bother me at all. The dude was a scholar of Olde English. I think his poems carry that aesthetic beautifully. No, they're not William Carlos Williams.

Yes, the lack of religion is curious. However, it was a wonderful choice. Tolkien (a little arrogantly, I think) despised allegory. He didn't desire to treat it therefore. To me, this comes off as a breath of fresh air. This last couple years has brought home to me some of the really beautiful and subtle treatments in Tolkien of hope and providence. They're proving inspirational to me when more heavy-handed treatments (like the new book 'Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues') leaves me totally cold.

His history is in keeping with the mythologies he loved so well: deep time with immortals who do amazing and great things with no progress in material culture or technology. As I have already noted, Tolkien was deeply skeptical about the value of technological advances.

Ok, there's one thing about Tolkien that bothers me a little. [pause for collective, unbelieving gasp.] His historical framework, in my view, is basically doubled. He started with Morgoth and the Silmarillion and Beleriand and basically doubles a lot of it in the Third Age down to things like a great N-S flowing river with big, impassable falls. This is just the framework, though, for the staggering beauty of The Lord of the Rings.

I cannot be objective here and I will not try to be. I will defend Professor Tolkien on his own ground to the last. I read 'The Hobbit' in second grade because I couldn't help myself. Tracy Colony told me about it on the bus and it set my imagination on fire. My love for Tolkien kindled a love for reading that was all-consuming for many years and has produced whatever aesthetic and intellectual foundation I might stand on today. 'The Lord of the Rings' is my favorite book in the world including the Bible. I'm the guy who said Christopher Tolkien reading from the Tale of Beren of Luthien is without exception the most beautiful spoken piece I have ever heard, and I don't expect to hear anything more beautiful (this does allow some music to eclipse it aurally).