[redhead]

"...anything by the guy who wrote Hotel New Hampshire, or anything by Kurt Vonegut."

Bingo. I've read "The Hobbit" and also "The Lord of the Rings" several times, but I must be getting arrogant in my old age...I keep finding places I want to change the wording or the flow of the narrative. Bad Liz! BAD!!

[Taliesan]

"...anything by the guy who wrote Hotel New Hampshire, or anything by Kurt Vonegut."

My wife and I were reading Hotel New Hampshire together. The writing is ok but we threw it away in the middle because of the fascination with a brother and sister copulating. I think Irving is sick.

Same with John Updike. Undoubtedly a brilliant guy and clever, clever prose, but the characters he obviously likes I would slap silly if I met them on the street, so I can't endure him.

[Mamzelle]

Tolkein's narrative--I don't think you're offbase at all. Tolkein's gift was in his imaginative scope, his storytelling and some poetry. There are many awkward hitches and bumps in the flow of narrative, though. I'd still say he wrote the best story of the twentieth century. And for three years I'm going to have the movies under my Christmas tree!

The worst of our era are the Johns and the Anns. John Irving, Updike, and Ann Tyler, and there's another Ann who I've forgotten and who deserves to be. They write the most tedious, self-congratulatory drivel. Stories of small, self-pitying scope. Yet the critics keep praising them. Thankfully, they fall out of print and memory quickly. Phillip Roth, Kingsolving--they're all like the Johns and Anns in pretentiousness.