In a letter to his own son J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that his mother was a ‘gifted lady of great beauty and wit, greatly stricken by God with grief and suffering w.
Based on anecdotal evidence, complaints about the genre being “pure escapism”, “childish” and “uninteresting” are common. There are also reviews which accuse fantasy literature of being “formulaic”, “out of touch” and even “outdated”.
An upcoming card game based on The Lord of the Rings appears to race-swap major characters, including Aragorn, a central hero of J.R.R. Tolkien's fantasy saga.