oh, write back and tell them we look like writers

Have any of you read J. R. R. Tolkien's work? I can't recommend it highly enough--I really--oh, it's just great, you ought to read it. I read a book a night, I just couldn't put them down.

I mean, The Hobbit was a good book, no denying that, I read it when it came out, but these Lord of the Rings stories of his are above and beyond in quality. There's a grandeur to them that I really wasn't expecting at all, because--well, The Hobbit is great, don't get me wrong, but it's great in an Alice in Wonderland kind of way. It's for children as much as adults, and it's a little jokier, I guess. Which is good, I've always loved Alice, but The Lord of the Rings has such a larger scale, and the storyline's just so rich--

The language just soars, and the characters are so--so well-realized. I don't want to ruin the ending for anyone, but when Eowyn's at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, she's--oh, I really don't want to give it away, because it's so satisfying when you get there, but it's genius. We ought to have more strong female characters like her out there, she's really just wonderful--I love when the women get to fight, too. And she gets to do so much--

[And she pauses, because she's starting to get a little carried away with the excitement of OMG EOWYN IS SO COOL, YOU GUYS, because of course Eowyn is Kay's favourite.]

In any case, they were excellent. I'm going to start them all over again tonight, they deserve a second pass. [And that way, she can read them aloud to Mildmay.]

((OOC: The Fellowship of the Ring is first published in the middle of 1954, so all of this is SO NEW AND EXCITING for Kay, all thanks to Ingrid making mention of the series back on Thursday. NB: I don't actually know much about LotR, so if I fuck up anywhere, it's decidedly an OOC mistake, not an IC one. DX))