I can understand if you don't appreciate Atlas Shrugged because you don't like the style of Rand's writings. But the woman's philosophy is spot on the mark. And THAT is why people fall in love with her and her novels.
 

What's your favorite Jewish novel?

John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes? A great comic strip, I'd say.
 

BDR: That's a hard question. I just finished a piece on Bernard Malamud (a review of the new bio), and I'm now a big fan of A New Life, his academic novel. I'm also love Seize the Day and American Pastoral.
 

Why are literary people so often snobbish about their hobby? Literature is not terribly different from art or music. Despite artistic pretensions, you don't really learn anything significant from literature the way you do from reading philosophy or history or science or mathematics or other non-fiction. Even great fiction writers are only rarely great thinkers with serious things to say. Why do literary people get confused about this? I read a lot of fiction as a kid (both the childish kind and the adult kind that you so treasure), but I stopped reading fiction about 15 years ago and I don't miss it at all.

It is perfectly okay that you want someone who shares your interest in literature; that's understandable. However, you are exuding a sense of superiority to people who view fiction primarily as escapist entertainment rather than as "serious" entertainment. And it is not at all impossible that these people are more knowledgeable and educated than you are and simply don't take your hobby of "serious" literature all that seriously.

Principally I am here to defend Tolkien whom you have deeply misunderstood. J.R.R. Tolkien was unique in history, writing a book which was motivated by, of all things, his love of historical linguistics. His interest was in creating the language. Elvish isn't like Klingon, which some dolts invented just because they thought it would be cool. Tolkien's books were written around the Elvish languages which he invented first; his creation of the history, poetry, mythology, and art of the world was primarily to explain the changes his languages went through and why they went through them. (By the by, your link makes it clear that nobody can actually learn the Elvish languages; Tolkien never pretended that they were complete enough to have a conversation with, nor did he ever intend them to be.)

The Lord of the Rings is not a great book. Neither is The Hobbit or The Silmarillion. But, if Tolkien was an artist and the world of Middle-Earth was his work of art, he was one of the world's great artists. The problem is that Middle-Earth can only be glimpsed through these imperfect works of his. Elves and orcs weren't silly when Tolkien created them; they became silly when they were abused by his imitators. Tolkien was creating a mythology for Britain heavily based on the mythology of the Norse, whose elves and dwarves he adapted. There are certainly silly bits in Tolkien (Tom Bombadil, Treebeard, most of The Hobbit which was written for his children, and indeed hobbits in general were intentionally silly, though retaining a kind of dignity), but then there is the deadly seriousness of The Silmarillion (not liked by most Tolkien fans, and never published by Tolkien in his lifetime, since it reads like a religious text, which is what it is supposed to be - the Silmarillion is my favorite work of Tolkien.)

Tolkien has had an enormous amount of imitators. My wife reads trashy fantasy novels; I can't stomach them myself because they are all so derivative of Tolkien. Tolkien, however, has nobody who has ever outdone him. In all of history, nobody has created a fictional world (not even a serious "literary" one) of the depth and reality of Tolkien's. There is a very good reason for this: most people create a world in order to sustain their books. Their primary interest is in selling the books so the world has just enough depth (and perhaps a little bit more) to sustain them. But, for Tolkien, who had no interest in being a great writer, the world was the point. It began as a labor of love intended entirely for himself; it was no part of his plan to share it with the world which is why it took him twelve years to write The Lord of the Rings. He would stop writing for weeks at a time while he figured out if the position of the Moon was consistent in a particular scene.

I wouldn't say that Tolkien is my favorite writer or even close, nor are his books great literature. His characters don't converse; they declaim. His backstory is handled clumsily, often overwhelming the work (since it was the backstory he was really interested in). His sense of detail can be overwhelming; you always know exactly what kinds of trees grow in every part of Middle-Earth. But Middle-Earth was a brilliant creation - a vibrant, unique world (except for its imitators) with an absolutely complete and consistent history and mythology.
 

If literature is like art, then how can it also be artistic pretension? Is art artistic pretension? If, as a work of literature, LOTR is one of the world's greatest works of art, how can it not be a great work of literature? Also, if Middle Earth's history is handled clumsily, how can LOTR be brilliant for its history? And if, despite all this praise, you don't consider it a great work of literature, what is a great work of literature? Is world-creation a criterion?

Finally, isn't this kind of a relativistic condemnation of literature? If art is just some people's hobby--no more or less important than fly-fishing, stamp-collecting, or learning chemistry--and one is entitled to dabble in whatever hobbies he fancies w/o subjecting them to justification or prioritization, then how can you ground a claim that philosophy or history are somehow a better use of one's time than fiction?
 

I'm still waiting to find out what profound insights into the meaning of life you arrive at from studying math. My sense is it would make doing taxes easier, and end there.
 

If literature is like art, then how can it also be artistic pretension? Is art artistic pretension?

Literature is art and like the visual arts in that respect. It is the pretense of art that it is more important than it really is, i.e. that it can reveal great truths. (It probably can. It can also tell great lies.) I'm not knocking art, though. Art is great. I just don't think it's an adequate substitute for philosophy.

If, as a work of literature, LOTR is one of the world's greatest works of art, how can it not be a great work of literature?

The Lord of the Rings is not one of the world's greatest works of art. The world of Middle-Earth is.

Also, if Middle Earth's history is handled clumsily, how can LOTR be brilliant for its history?

Middle-Earth's history is brilliant. This history is clumsily handled in LOTR, far better handled in the Silmarillion and Professor Tolkien's unpublished notes.

And if, despite all this praise, you don't consider it a great work of literature, what is a great work of literature?

My praise was for the world of Middle-Earth. I consider none of Tolkien's writings to be great literature.

Is world-creation a criterion?

The people who argue this (and I grant that it is a feasible criterion) are presumably the ones who think LOTR is a great work of literature. I agree that if that is a significant part of one's criterion, then Tolkien's works in toto would certainly qualify as great literature.

Finally, isn't this kind of a relativistic condemnation of literature? If art is just some people's hobby--no more or less important than fly-fishing, stamp-collecting, or learning chemistry--and one is entitled to dabble in whatever hobbies he fancies w/o subjecting them to justification or prioritization, then how can you ground a claim that philosophy or history are somehow a better use of one's time than fiction?

Philosophy and history actually teach us things about the human condition. Art may (or may not) do this, but it is always seen through the lens of one perspective. This is not to say that art is valueless - one person's perspective can be quite valuable, particularly if it's the right person. But it's philosophy that art is trying to get at (when it is being pretentious, rather than just being beautiful or moving people with pity or terror). I believe it is more efficient, if less beautiful, to cut out the middleman if philosophy is what you're after.

I'm still waiting to find out what profound insights into the meaning of life you arrive at from studying math. My sense is it would make doing taxes easier, and end there.

The utility of mathematics is hardly restricted to taxes and accounting. It undergirds all of science and business. All of science relies on mathematical interpretation. It is true, of course, that science can be translated into English, but only at the cost of precision. Mathematics is just a language, a quite powerless language compared to English. Virtually nothing can be said in mathematics except statements about quantity, but what can be said is said very precisely.
 

I should add that even pure mathematics, normally studied for its beauty, is astoundingly utilitarian. E.g. the people who invented matrix mathematics did so as a kind of game. It was far too unwieldy to actually be useful at solving simultaneous equations. Then we invented computers and, to a computer, they aren't unwieldy at all. This sort of thing is common in mathematical history.
 

Phoebe - compound interest is of use when understanding why it is important to start saving early, or thinking about Malthus.

I ran aground in Rush - I could tell I was reading something chewy, but it seemed mostly gristle to me. Put the book down in the middle and never picked it up again. But that line about "...you are dealing with a liar from the black lagoon and it's time to start feeling in your purse for carfare..." - that's great.

I was struck reading about the reaction of Italian intelligentsia to The Leopard. They'd been waiting for some new great literature book to come out of Italy, something deconstructionist and, you know, experimental. And, goddamnit, here is something by an old Sicilian nobleman, with characters, and a plot line, and all this antique crap hanging off the story - and the whole country read it. They were furious. I thought it was wonderful.