Ringing the changes

The final instalment of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings opened in America on my birthday. I have long been a fan of J.R.R. Tolkein's fantasy about Hobbits and Sauron and the 'ring of power'.

Letter from America Josh Moody

I even remember telling a Cambridge don during my interview at Cambridge that Tolkein was one of the foremost literary geniuses of our age. He was a bit bemused by this ('fanciful' I seem to remember was his judgement of Tolkein's work) but I stand by my assessment. As a story, The Lord of the Rings is without parallel in modern literature, at least in the way it tackles the great themes of good and evil, suffering, heroism and adventure. Nothing in The Lord of the Rings is real; much of it is true.