In Which the Author Is Forced to at Last Admit That He Is Indeed a Hobbit

It seems J. R. R. Tolkien has been my constant companion these forty years. I first read The Hobbit and LOTR when I was about eighteen or nineteen. I liked the books and was disappointed that the fantasy fiction I tried to read afterwards could never quite measure up. I include C. S. Lewis in the “not measure up” category, since, to me anyway, Lewis always seems a bit condescending about what he thinks “children” want. Not that he’s a bad writer. Tolkien lives in a different universe completely....