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In many respects, JRR Tolkien is my literary hero.
Oh sure, Borgés and Calvino and Bradbury wrote better and wider. Certainly, Tolkien's work has been rehashed and regurgitated until most folks are sick of hearing about Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits.
But for my money, "Leaf by Niggle" is one of the finest short stories written. And this quote, I think, helps explain why he is raised from a writer to a hero in my mind:
"Although now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned. Man, Sub-Creator, the refracted Light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons - 'twas our right (used or misused). That right has not decayed: we make still by the law in which we're made"
("On Fairy-Stories", J .R. R. Tolkien, 1947)
Oh sure, Borgés and Calvino and Bradbury wrote better and wider. Certainly, Tolkien's work has been rehashed and regurgitated until most folks are sick of hearing about Elves and Dwarves and Hobbits.
But for my money, "Leaf by Niggle" is one of the finest short stories written. And this quote, I think, helps explain why he is raised from a writer to a hero in my mind:
"Although now long estranged, Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed. Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned, and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned. Man, Sub-Creator, the refracted Light through whom is splintered from a single White to many hues, and endlessly combined in living shapes that move from mind to mind. Though all the crannies of the world we filled with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build Gods and their houses out of dark and light, and sowed the seed of dragons - 'twas our right (used or misused). That right has not decayed: we make still by the law in which we're made"
("On Fairy-Stories", J .R. R. Tolkien, 1947)
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