I know that part of the reason I read Tolkien when I'm ill is that there is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world, which is restful.
What's wonderful about Tolkien and Shakespeare is that they show up your own individual microscope. They're so infinitely vast. You can reinterpret them in so many ways.
Fantasy has had some problems with being too repetitive, in my opinion. I try to read what other people are doing - and say, 'How can I add to this rather than just recycle it? How can I stand on Tolkien's shoulders rather than stand tied to his kneecaps?'
I've always looked upon the Ducks as caricature human beings. Perhaps I've been years writing in that middle world that J.R.R. Tolkien describes, and never knew it.
My wife and I have this discussion all the time. Her primal influences are J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald. Mine are Rudyard Kipling, Edith Nesbit and T.H. White. So, we have certain structural differences in form and content right off the bat!
I really respect and admire Tolkien. I think he was the most honest of the Romantics.
When you succeed at creating your own world, whether it's in any realm - like Tolkien was able to do - and people are able to enter that world, it's a special thing.
Fantasy films tend to skew towards what Tolkien fantasy was, which is that the humans, the Hobbits, and the cute creatures are the good guys, and everything that's ugly are the bad guys.
When Peter Jackson made the 'Lord of the Rings' movies, I remember there was a concern that people who didn't read Tolkien wouldn't go see the first one. But the films were so good in their own right that the audience grew beyond the readership of the book.
I was a massive Tolkien fan. 'The Hobbit' was... my favorite book as a little girl, and the Silvan Elves were my favorite characters in the book.
