My Tolkien Tantrum

There is no doubt that J.R.R. Tolkien’s works are elaborate and genius in nature. His books have garnered throngs of admirers and people who are not normally attracted to literature find his books exciting. The movies based on his Lord of the Rings trilogy have engrossed millions of dollars and bring to depiction the intense world of Middle-earth. His eloquent command of languages reveal him as a wordsmith and inspired the development of his fictitious Elvish tongue. In spite of these impressive accolades, Tolkien’s works are not appealing to me, although I am in awe over his talents.
My first reason for dislike is the genre in which he exclusively writes. Stories written as fantasies (or as Tolkien would assert, fairy-stories) seem too unrealistic for me to truly enjoy and “lose myself in the story”. To me, tales are best relatable when they occur in the realm of reality, with humans as main characters, not mythical creatures. Moreover, all of his works take place in the same dwarf-ridden, hobbit-inhabited Middle-earth (I am not even certain where this place is: truly in the middle of earth or in another dimension?). Perhaps I have a dull imagination, but my attention gets lost if I have to constantly remind myself to stay interested.
Even in spite of my distaste for fantasy, I can tolerate it if it is interestingly presented since fairy stories are new to me. For example, C.S. Lewis invents his magical Narnia stories, but they are not complex and inaccessible. The Narnia stories are straightforward and do not involve knowing complicated histories like in those found in Tolkien’s The Book of Lost Tales. The plotlines found in The Hobbit and Rings stories appear to be too complicated (as well as too long) for one who is not used to the fantastic genre. Since I am a novice at fairy-stories, the manner in which Tolkien presents the Middle-earth sagas are too intimidating and boring when compared to the relative ease in which Lewis presents the Narnia chronicles.
My final complaint regarding Tolkien is in his excessive wordiness. The main evidence for his loquacity is found in “On Fairy Stories” with The Tolkien Reader. He utilizes grand verbosity and the audience’s precious time in order to define something as trivial as the delineation of what is truly a fairy story. Chesterton, writing about the many complexities of human suffering – a very important and worthwhile subject -- was much more concise than Tolkien’s lecture on necessitating a dichotomy (non-fairy stories vs. fairy stories) within a genre. Tolkien asserts that the endpoint for fairy stories should be a representation of the Gospel. However noble this appears, it is far-fetched for a spiritual seeker to come to the understanding of God’s grace through stories that do not mention him. Nonetheless, the fact that many people enjoy his books is proof that he is a talented storyteller, albeit a wordy one.
For clarity’s sake, I acknowledge that Tolkien is a talented, ingenious writer. Yet the genre in which he writes, the complexities of his stories, and his extreme affinity for verbosity, are all off-putting to me. Perhaps my literary tastes are immature or unimaginative, but my personality disposition prefers realistic, concise tales.