Fairy Tales

One frustrating thing for one who loves literature is how the term 'good literature' is starting to connote books that have good morals and no offensive content, rather than meaningful, thoughtful books that are well-written. I'm sure this is partly due to the large quantity of vile content found in the entertainment industry. But if we 'fight back' with material that we deem acceptable simply because it's 'clean', we aren't likely to win enthusiasm from those who need good literature and good entertainment the most - including our own children.

Tolkien has a habit of making stories that are just plain fun to read. And a sneaky little tendency to make them exceedingly rich too - offering many levels of interpretation and withstanding rigorous study by philosophers, theologians, philologists and anyone else. But all the time they remain delightful - and offer a healthy dose of poetic knowledge even to the most superficial readers. Both of these stories are 'old-fashioned' in style.