If Tolkein wrote his books today would they be as popular?

Doubtful.

If he'd written his books today, they'd have called his writing overwrought, clunky, possibly even that most horrifying of criticisms in our brave new postmodern world - “old-fashioned”, gasp.

As it is, a lot of the praise Tolkien here is purely owing to general public disinterest in the literature and society of the time.

His writing is stunning by postmodern standards- because postmodern writing is crap and the upper classes of Britain, pre-War, appear to have been, almost universally, literary virtuousos compared to English-users today.

His world-building owes much to the influence and work of those like McDonald and Lord Dunsany, both of whom seem to be virtually unknown among Quora's experts for some reason. Hell- Hindi High Fantasy AND Dark Fantasy predate Tolkien by over fifty years. Tolkien might've made it respectable for the snotty high IQ classes- but that only came in the 70s, decades after Oxford Dons were sitting down to discuss the Princess and the Goblin.

His characterization is, politely speaking, subpar. The movies improved his heroes significantly, which isn't something that can be said for many such adaptations. And the Silmarillion is no excuse; I've seen lots of answers on Quora dissing on GRRM- but the same folk seem to associate “dark & gritty” with “brilliance”. Jaime's character arc blows any amount of Turins and Maedhross out of the water; Iron Age poets had more multi-dimensional villains than Tolkien has.

And that's a huge part of the problem with the Silmarillion, in my opinion.

The basis of the entire text- the interaction between Feanor and the Valar- is so fundamentally against my personal morals and world view that when I first read the text, I simply couldn't make peace with the idea that we are supposed to see the guy as the villain. The same philosophical dissonance persisted throughout the text- for example, when the Elves screw over the dwarves and petty dwarves, and really disturbed me at points- until I realised the basic truth about the books- they were NEVER meant to be read by a Pagan.

Which is something I really should've realised earlier while reading LoTR- especially with all the parts where serpent-worshipping, tea-loving, elephant-riding “evil men" Hindus are busy playing lickspittle for the “Dark Lord”.

Of course it wasn't personal for Tolkien, given that he wrote worse about his African and Chinese expies.

Typical White Catholic world view, TBH.

Which makes it really ironic that Tolkien's mass popularity stemmed initially from the Counter culture lot in the West adopting his works as a flagstaff for European Paganism- something he really hated. Lel. I'd say the First Mover advantage really worked for him.

To be honest, Tolkien's popularity is emblematic of the general decline in standards when it comes to popular literature. This isn't just mere snobbishness on my part as some readers might imagine; I doubt anyone considered Tolkien a “serious” writer back in the 60s or 70s. Sanderson, of all people, is apparently an icon now, gods help us, and they tell us that Erikson and Abercrombie can equal the likes of Wolfe and Herbert. I suppose we ought to be grateful though; imagine the diversity hordes trying to stuff Magical HEMA and cringy rapey subplots into their works like Mr Red Knight and his ilk do.

Anyway it's clear that the Golden Age of Fantasy is over. I suppose we may as well be grateful for Tolkien after all…