I'm not a scholar, I'm a reader. I judge books on their own merit, from the perspective of a 21st century human. Maybe it would be fair to say that this is an important book rather than a good one (by modern standards)? Kind of similar to how some games (Doom would be a good example) were absolutely ground breaking and incredibly important for the development of the medium, but simply aren't that fun to play these days. Maybe I'd have enjoyed it if I'd been born a few decades earlier, but progress has rendered it entirely obsolete in a way that Tolkien was immune to (arguably Bullforg is the gaming equivalent).
Fair enough?
Reminds me in a way of a discussion I had with a friend at the weekend regarding certain movies. I tend to watch certain films with an attitude that lets me enjoy them despite obviously being flawed. (There are exceptions. "Death Becomes Her" was a notable one that I
very nearly walked out of the cinema from. And once I've paid my monies[1], I don't like doing that at all.) He, meanwhile, is far more critical. He didn't like Prometheus, while I was "I see what they did there, *hur hur*" for a lot of it, and let the awkward stuff go by[2], even though we both knew that it wasn't an
actual prequel to the Aliens series.
An interesting
book to test out on (and back to "of an era", rather than merely different opinions of same-era works) is "Flatland" by Edwin A. (for Abbot) Abbot, from the 1880s. (Or is it "Abott"?) I never did quite work out at the time whether this was a book of its time giving 'of its time' assessments of the true worth of the two sexes and various classes, or whether it's a book written
ahead of its time, deliberately parodying the less enlightened prevailing views of the contemporaneous culture. (In hindsight, I err towards the latter.) Mathematically, it's much more clear cut as being very interesting (if you like that kind of thing), and I'd direct you towards Ian Stewart's modern 'sequel' called "Flatterland" (published 2001-ish) if it's your thing. (Erm, but neither of these "come after J R R Tolkien", so I'm definitely off-topic in
this regard.)
[1] When it comes to free things, like stuff on the TV (not that I watch much TV, these days, too busy), I find that I give up most on obvious collisions of misunderstanding of and Comedies Of Error (although Shakespeare's own Comedy Of Errors, I can stand). Like all those Connecticut Yankees In King Arthurs Court that keep getting rolled out where the guy is out of his own time... While he's still imagining (and reacting as if) he's in a re-enactment pageant, I'm cringing. If I can get past that, then I'm usually fine and enjoying the deliberate anachronisms, on his part, while ignoring the unintended ones, by the supposed medieval locale. Etc.
[2] Strangely, I thought (and watched it as if) it was a Christianity-based allegory (yeah, like I say C.S.Lewis does so much), but I've heard Far Right Christians claim that it's Atheist propaganda. Go figure.