50 years ago, J.R.R Tolkien left this world much changed for his having been in it. The anniversary is being celebrated with a requiem mass in Birmingham Oratory, where he once served as an altar boy, and by celebrations and gatherings around the world. There is even, improbably, an ongoing attempt to make the poor man a saint, which one can only hope goes nowhere.
A romantic Edwardian, steeped in Northern European folklore and Victorian literature, Tolkien was and is despised by large parts of the fashionable literary establishment. I have known very few neutral reactions to his work. People either love or loathe Lord of the Rings, which seems doomed to eternally inspire adoration or ire, and nothing much in between.
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