Sam and Frodo

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Augh! America is far from inventive, in my mind. Why do you think all the best authors (except Lloyd Alexander, though he did visit) come from Europe?

I've said a lot of unpleasant things about the United States in the past, but I'd never accuse it of being an uninventive nation. If America has produced less classic literature than Europe, it's because you can't expect one country to produce as much in a couple of hundred years as the entire continent of Europe has produced in thousands. Even if we're talking about the English language alone, Shakespeare and Marlowe were playing to packed houses before the Mayflower was even built, and English is pretty young: the Greeks were writing philosphical treatises before the alphabet we use was even invented.