AN Wilson on Tolkien.

[davem]

Nice analysis http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...googlenews_wsj

The Lord of the Rings is among the best war literature. Not only the vast battles, but the tiredness and hunger of the common solider on his long, wet, nocturnal marches are unforgettably recreated. Tolkien lost most of his school friends in the First World War and his epic is a story of unremitting loss and pessimism....

Throughout our period, the polarities expressed by these two positions become more and more irreconcilable. On the one hand politicians, economists, industrialists and some moralists point to ever-increasing prosperity, and greater freedoms. On the other there is the sense that the Shire has been wrecked, that a tall chimney is belching smoke into its previously unsullied air and that, at the same time, the old tales are being forgotten, the old songs no longer sung.

This the 'Tolkien:Author of the Century' approach taken by Tom Shippey - not claiming that Tolkien was the 'best' author of the century, but that in a real sense his work (specifically LotR) reflects the 20th century back to us - that it is a work which could only have been written by a 20th century man who had experienced the horrors of the Machine in terms of warfare & industrialisation, & lived through the beginnings of a 'globalisation' & an approach to 'multiculturalism' which has effectively stuck the boot into all cultures & cut us all (whatever our culture) off from the old tales & old songs.

I'm not sure I go all the way with Wilson (though I suspect Tolkien would have...) but the piece is worth a read.