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Fellowship of the Ring first published today in 1954.
(According to my Children of Hurin illustrated calendar!)
54 years later.
Impressions?
Unparalleled?
Genre forming?
Lifting too heavily from the Eddas and Celtic lore?
Is it aging well?
How many times have you reread the novels?
How many editions do you own?
I've got quite a few!
I think I'll reread the trilogy for the zillionth time!
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Impressions? That long ago . . . wow,
Unparalleled? My first result from Google's "Define" feature was "radically distinctive and without equal." It's been ripped off a lot, so not radically distinctive. Without equal, though, yes.
Genre forming? Definitely.
Lifting too heavily from the Eddas and Celtic lore? No idea.
Is it aging well? I think so.
How many times have you reread the novels? A few. I didn't count.
How many editions do you own? One.
Own one edition of the main works (Hobbit, LOTR, Silmarillion) and a couple of the volumes of unfinished material that Tolkien never cleaned up for publication in his lifetime.
Best fantasy world/series ever, although there are others I'm really fond of. Read the main books about 5 or 6 times since I was 10-13 (my first go-through), and seen new things each time.
I think what I like about them is that the main characters and the world seem real at the same time as they are fantastic, the works address some moral and philosophical issues that are at the core of human existence without being polemical, and they capture the deep sorrows of mortal life while still being uplifting and full of hope.
I'd say there are very few works of 20th-century literature that are as deep or as moving as Tolkien's main works. The medieval fantasy genre owes almost everything to this work, and yet the work itself transcends the genre it established.
Tolkien: medieval fantasy as Led Zeppelin: heavy metal or Beethoven: romantic movement in classical music
(That is not to say that there is not plenty of medieval fantasy I enjoy reading, and some that I have found deeply moving and worthy of a second read.)
As to the borrowing heavily from myth and medieval literature, I see that as a virtue and not a vice: Tolkien took inspiration from material that was ancient and hard for us in the twentieth century to fathom, and did something new and creative with it while introducing us to the flavor of the original at the same time. While there have been other attempts at doing this in the twentieth century, notably with the Arthurian legends, none has succeeded in creating something so original as what Tolkien did.
Actually, it isn't a trilogy. It is one big book customarily published as three pairs of books.
I've read it 4 or 5 times, I forget. I didn't read it until I was in my 30's. Somehow I missed out on it during the heyday of AD&D in high school. It is my favorite book. Yes, there are silly songs and other issues in the book, but some of the passages are just perfectly written. My favorite is the description of the fell beast facing Eowyn of the fields of Pellenor.