NR reprints an old obit on JRRT as part of their anniversary...
Like his own Hobbits, Tolkien was an all but invisible man. He was orphaned at 18, became a philologist after serving in the Lancashire Fusiliers, and spent his life as a university professor. He also spent it as an artist of incomparable power. The Hobbit, published in 1938, was written, like so many splendid books, to read to his children. The Lord of the Rings set out that way; one son remembers receiving chapters of the great book when he was an RAF pilot. Publishers were not interested in the work, and it lay around until 1955.
Of The Lord of the Rings we can say easily that it is the best book of the century though the greatest is Ulysses, and Lewis' The Human Age is the book we deserve most to be remembered for. Its vision of harmony and simplicity, of honor and heroism, is an articulate symbol of our inarticulate yearning.
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