: A good literarture don't must be original.
: You're right, it doesn't. But it at the very least needs
: to offer new insight into older themes. And Tolkien
: was fairly original in many ways. However, just as you
: don't have to be original to be good, original work
: doesn't guarantee good work. That being said, as I've
: said several times, I enjoyed Tolkien's books, but
: there's a very large gap between "good
: enough" and "great."
: Please don't claim that the characters of LoTR are
: stereotypical and two dimensional
: Actually, I think I was calling the characters static and
: one-dimensional.
: for ('tis not matter what you think) in this matter you
: "damn wrong";).
: Yeah. I guess you'd be the expert there.
: please never accuse me in a lack of taste...
: All right. I apologize for that lack of taste crack. It
: was unnecessarily smarmy. I think what I meant by that
: was not that you lack taste, but that perhaps your
: literary palate could use a little refinement.
: I just think LoTR is a great book, not the greatest in
: the world, but great.
: I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
: P.P.S. If you still disagree with me, please tell me
: what in your opinion a great book.
: Ultimately it's all a matter of opinion. But since you
: asked, a great book would be "Don Quixote,"
: or "Catch-22," or "Crime and
: Punishment." There are too many to list. But I
: would recommend you start with the classics:
: Dostoevsky, Eliot, Fitzgerald, Goethe, Melville,
: Moliere, Shaw, Faulkner, and see where they lead you.
: -Phil.
So our opinions about what must be a great book are matching. I never stated that Servantes (for example) isn't good writer. Our theme was LoTR. At any case I would also agree that we must agree on disagreeing.
Knight o' Death.
P.S. "Crime & Punishment"... hmmm.... I just searched few days ago for the book.
