Tolkien Love

"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater."  -spoken by Haldir in Lothlorien, Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

Oh, how I love the Lord of the Rings.
It is the most awesome book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Sure, there are places where you feel like you are slogging through the mud, weighed down by page after page of minute detail, or invented genealogies or mythologies. It can take patience to make it through the Council of Elrond, where the entwined histories of several characters are laid out; or chapters and chapters of Sam and Frodo trudging across the blackened earth of Mordor with no action, only endless dialogue.
But these are the things that make LOTR the amazing work of literature that it is, and definitely worth "slogging" for.
How could you ever appreciate the innate quiet strength and loyalty of hobbits without witnessing their journey, a journey that could not have been completed by even the most sturdy and honorable of men?
How could you understand the wisdom of the elves, or their love for all growing things, without understanding their way of life, without seeing their sorrow at the darkness creeping over Middle Earth?
(Disclaimer--I am not one of the crazies who believe that these characters are real. I know elves don't really exist.)
The point of all this rambling is to say this: Tolkien was a genius writer, unparalleled among today's authors.
The characters in his stories are so absolutely well-defined that you cannot help but to sympathise with them, or hate them, or be in awe of them, or whatever it is that Tolkien meant for you to feel about them.
Take Boromir, for example. If you have watched the LOTR movies that came out a few years ago, you probably aren't a big fan. He tried to take the ring. He was greedy for it to help his own country. But in the book, it is easy to love him, and recognize him as a valiant warrior from a great land who succumbed to the evil power of the ring. There is no way to portray the depth of detail Tolkien intended in a mere four-hour movie.
Contemporary literature can't hold a candle to the dedication and craftsmanship of Tolkien. Though there are works of modern lit that I enjoy, I always go back to good old Lord of the Rings.
I can sense this post becoming way too long, so I will wrap up by saying, "READ IT!" It really is awesome. As a matter of fact, I believe I can fairly say that it is EPIC. :)