John Cowan scripsit:
>I deny that JRRT's work is an example of "genre fiction" in the sense that
>you mean, though I certainly agree that the work of his endless parade of
>epigones is. Tolkien is almost the paradigm case of a writer who forces
>his public to accept his taste rather than adhering to theirs, and as such
>is fitly compared with Joyce (whose works I also love, most especially FW).
...
>His _cordial_ dislike for him; the same phrase he used about allegory, all the
>while he committed allegory whenever it suited him (notably in "The Monsters
>and the Critics" and in _Smith of Wootton Major_). No one who did not have
>a feeling for Shakespeare could have written the scene of the trees marching
>off to war in _The Two Towers_.
I would like to have a virtual volume of _The Collected Letters of John
Cowan_, so that whenever I am researching any topic, I can have quick access
to pithy observations such as these.
Warm regards,
Jeffrey