A Look At Middle Earth From A Different Time: Prelude
When a self-styled scribe chooses to turn his gaze upon the literary works of a titan of yesteryear, it is easy to fall into an error of declaiming on the errors of the masters of bygone years while waxing long on how he himself would have done so much better. The fallacy of such pride of course is that the works he excoriates exist and have existed and been exalted for years upon years, while the critic has nothing to show in return. I do not then lay a criticism upon J. R.Tolkien, but point out only how the decades that divide us have shaped my views differently from him and make it harder to accept Arda exactly as he saw it; but at the same time, bowing before his genius in creating that world and acknowledging that few others, least of all myself, have achieved a fraction of his success. To say that I an a fan of Tolkien is a little bit of an understatement. Tolkien, I believe, created the modern concept of the fantasy world, bridging the gap between the dimly remembered pagan worl...