Pretty much what I've been saying, including his insistence on stating his opinion as fact. But I don't think you'll get through to him any more than I did.
My opinion as fact? Take a look at this then consider throwing stones from glass houses which is all you have been able to display besides a basic ability to use a spellchecker:
http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtalphat.html#tolkien
"Tolkien, J. R. R., English, 1892-1973.
The Lord of the Rings (Trilogy). Recommended by: Harvard Radcliffe Time
The Hobbit. Recommended by: NYPL "
http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100rivallist.html
http://www.stanford.edu/~bkunde/best/bl-crank.htm
http://www.boulderbookstore.com/Radcliffe.html
While they are not every list, neither are other great works. If you want to get ultra conservative with a list of canon, you will only have 100 or so works, almost all before this century. Conservative and you have another 100 or so, moderate list and you can add 1-200 hundred more and so on, so one cannot find a concrete list and unfortunately they are interprative depending on your "Literary hardcoreness" mixed with temperment..ha
What language are you speaking? "Linguistics are great. Tolkien was a brilliant linguist. Neither makes a good story." Do I seriously need to teach you basic reading comprehension? Okay, to make it easier for you: neither being a brilliant linguist nor linguistics makes for a good story. Or storytelling abilities.
Haha, this is quite fun watching you get all bent and rebutting about the WRONG information in the posts! I will write in slow and well spaced sentences with the hope that you will comprehend my original points and rebuttals, and not the additional info I put in there that now I know I should not have even mentioned.
1. I pointed out that his style and story structure is based on the oldest and most revered works of wester canon originating in the Greek epics, Norse & Finnish Sagas, and Beowulf.
2. Since that is the case, QUIT REBUTTING ABOUT HIS LINGUISTICS ACCOMPLISHMENTS. You had originally said that he has no style, I replied that his style is derived from the epics and sagas and is modernized. It is not incredibly original and post modern etc. but that is not what he was going for, nor is it a requirement for a great work of literature biatch. Here just for you:
"First of all, the Tolkien "legendarium" (his word, of course) is a work of reconstructive myth and romance, closer in many respects to Chrétien de Troyes or Edmund Spenser than to the modern novel. Yet its moral point of reference is inescapably the 20th century world. "
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/04/tolkien/
Also, on the timelessness and relevancy of the works:
"J.R.R. Tolkien believed that myth is inherently true and material progress inherently evil. You could call that radical, reactionary or romantic, but it's a distinctively modern phenomenon. Modernity and the Enlightenment notion of progress have to exist before you can reject them, and once again we see that "The Lord of the Rings," for all the magic it employs to repopulate England with its ancient wraiths and spirits, belongs finally to the 20th century.
This is partly made clear by the presence of hobbits, those sensible if small-minded late-Victorian villagers, and partly by the "applicability" (the word Tolkien preferred to "allegory") of the War of the Ring to various events of the modern age, from the battle against Nazism to the Cold War and the atomic bomb to the Industrial Revolution and the backlash against it. (As I have already suggested, I find this latter parallel the most convincing of the three.) But Tolkien's modernity lies most clearly in his anti-modernism. To borrow a concept, perhaps outrageously, from German philosopher T.W. Adorno -- who might be considered a kindred spirit from a vastly different tradition -- Tolkien issued his own Great Refusal to the myth of Enlightenment, preferring the enlightenment of myth. "
http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2001/06/05/tolkien2/
You didn't provide any facts, actually, and nor do I need to offer a percentage: you were screaming that adoration for Tolkien is universal. It is, very obviously, not--some professors don't consider it sufficiently relevant or sufficiently good to merit a place in their courses.
Oh yeah sure there whatever you say "El Literature Authoritay Extraordinaire", I was "SCREAMING ADORATION FOR TOLKIEN" go Tolkien, go Tolkien, go Tolkien....No. I was saying his works are included in classic literature, in classic literature lists, on high school, and university reading lists. I did not say all university and all lists. But then again neither are other great recognized works of classic literature, read on to find out more.
You can say that about many of the greatest novels of the 20th century as well. I checked the reading lists for several universities online as well as lists on some of those webpages and the following examples of great works are mentioned about by about the same number of sources as Tolkien's works: Jack London's Call of the Wild, Longfellows collected poems, William Blake's Selected Works, Lord Byron Poems, Ralph Waldo Emerson Selected Works and Essays, Alfred Lord Tennyson's Idyll's of the King & Poems, Aesop's Fables, Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, even the Kalevala is only mentioned by 2 lists. Would you so much as to presume (like in every other post you have made-you like to presume) that these are also not Western classics? Again look on this and the subsequent pages:
http://www.interleaves.org/~rteeter/grtalphat.html#tolkien
I awiait your semi intelligent reply with great anticipation....
Again more presumptuous, preposterous, pompt, like a hot air balloon biatch. Just kiddin guy/girl, I am having fun with this argument so I am making it more enjoyable.
Wow, that's so retarded I have no words. You must be getting desperate.
Of course you have no words, its amusing to me but you are the object of the amusement so you look at it differently. You just remind me of some psuedo intellectual cyberhippies I went to university with, I was just making an amusing observation for myself.
Incidentally, even setting aside all the "literary snobs!1!!" whining, I don't even think Tolkien's fiction is good for entertainment. I've always found it deathly, absolutely, painfully dull.
Ok, so I'm wondering what true works of literature do you actually enjoy... This should be interesting (muhahah)