Tolkien Parody: Insulting or Flattering??

[mhagain]

Parody is fine; Tolkien himself is known to have had a mischievous sense of humour so the existence of parodies is something I believe he would accept (misreprenentation of his work as something that it's not seems to be where he would draw the line).

One of my personal favourites came from the old Tolkien Sarcasm pages, and does a fine job of summarising much of what's to be found in the HoME:

The second account, once intended for the Appendices, has only recently come to light, found written on the back of several examination papers in the effects of one Mr Avery Sharpe of Bristol, now recently deceased. The text is here in a very rough state, pencilled hastily and often almost illegibly, sometimes erased and on one occasion actually spray-painted over.

This gives a nice mental image of Tolkien deliberately wrecking his manuscripts so as to cause intentional difficulties for future researchers.