/lit/ - Literature

The Lord of the Rings often wins polls for people's favorite novel of the 20th Century. But do you consider it a novel?

There's an argument to be made that it should be thought of as a romance, in the Medieval tradition, and therefore it is outside the bounds of what the novel should historically be understood to be.

Though of course to have an intelligent thread on this topic we'd need Anons who actually knew something about the history of the novel as an art form. I'm curious if there are any on this board, and where they weigh in on the debate.

Can I say something potentially controversial?

I think /sffg/ is a mistake and should be discontinued. I think ghettoizing discussion of science fiction and fantasy is a bad idea. You may not like the average sci-fi and fantasy book, but it's still a book, and having individual threads on this or that sci-fi or fantasy book, even if it's random and not popular, is a better use of space in the catalog than yet another religion thread or yet another thread about Nietzsche by someone who clearly hasn't read him.

Honestly I even miss the days of regular ASOIAF threads. Though there's nothing for that, the fat fuck is going to go to his grave never releasing another book.

>>21756156
It's insane to me how people don't notice this. The Lord of the Rings basically takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. It's after the War of Wrath, Beleriand has long since sunk into the sea. Numenor is gone. Gil-Galad is dead. Elendil is dead. Arnor is gone. The elves have been killed over and over and over and over, and now the last of them are faded shadows sailing away into the West. The dwarves are long diminished and unable to reclaim their ancient home of Khazad-Dum. Gondor is in ruins. Rohan hangs on by a thread.

Even the really wonderful and beautiful places of the world, like Rivendell and Lothlorien, are preserved by unnatural magics: by the Three Elven Rings, which will pass away when the One Ring is destroyed.

Middle-Earth in The Lord of the Rings is a wretched place. Even the evil beings are relics of another world. When the Balrog appears, or when Smaug shows himself in The Hobbit, we are being given glimpses of survivors from an older age, a grander age, that has passed away and will not come again.

Tolkien's world is one of endless decay.