It's sometimes annoying when people take their sterilized, hyper-sensitive (and, in my opinion, somewhat boring) politically correct values and apply them to days gone by. At the same time, Shapiro is entitled to his opinion (I am also entitled to call him a dweeb with too much time on his hands, but letting emotion get in the way of a scholarly debate is usually counter-productive), and he does substantiate his claims. Personally, I don't think you can get a completely accurate impression of anyone's views until you hang around them for a while, and we can't really do that when it comes to Tolkien, though we can always speculate. By the end of the day, when you're done hunting for "subtexts", I think it's healthier to enjoy the wealth of good writing in front of you. *Yawn*
P.S. Thanks yet again for an extremely erudite post, Squatter.
[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Lush ]
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~The beginning is the word and the end is silence. And in between are all the stories. This is one of mine~
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