Tolkien's Fantastic Response

After reading Tolkien and the Great War, I love even more what Tolkien did in his body of work. The author, John Garth, argues that Tolkien's grand mythology is not an escape from real life but a different kind of response from that of his peers to life as he experienced it, including orphanhood, instability, deep friendship, true love, and the realities of war. Instead of disdaining and discarding everything from the past like the cynical modernists, Tolkien held tightly onto his love of ancient lore and language. I am again and again awed by his skill with language, his painstakingly created fantasy world, the consistent values he instilled into his work, and most of all his belief in the value of life even after living through some of the worst traumas that this world can offer.