FoTR - At The Sign Of The Prancing Pony: Bk I, Chapter VIIII

[Merry]

You know, Kirill, many of us are religious people here. I think it's interesting when people claim to love Tolkien, but hate his Catholicism and don't believe his statement that LOTR is a fundamentally Catholic work. If I claimed to love Tolkien, but refused to acknowledge, for example, the influence of Norse mythology on the legendarium, since I am not 'Norse', I could rightfully be accused of closed-mindedness and bias, couldn't I?

For myself, I will bow out of this thread, since I don't find your comments on religion respectful.

[Iolanthe]

Perhaps we had best steer away from the subject - it's an area of such deeply held and personal views and I have nothing to add to Merry's comments.

Iolanthe, even if you see Tolkien as something much deeper than your average fantasy book, LotR still is what created the genre. It still is fantasy. And lack of depth, compared to Tolkien, doesn't mean the genre in itself is bad. Your average book generally lacks such depth, no matter which genre. Tolkien has high quality, is real literature, but still remains fantasy, since there is no contradiction; those are different categories.

Kirill, I think you misread my post . I know Tolkien (unitentionally) started the Fantasy genre and that LotR is fantasy. I really wasn't implying otherwise!