I honestly think it's one of the greatest works of English language literature and think it will come to be recognized more widely as such in the coming century. Academics really didn't take it seriously because it's a work of fantasy, but the use of the English language is up there with the best I've ever seen in the history of literature.

My way of ingesting it has always been to make it about the language itself, the word-music. It feels dry if you're trying to read it like a novel, because then some sections are just descriptions of geography or deities. It should be approached sort of like Shakespeare. Who today can really parse Early Modern English in real-time without having studied it beforehand? Very few. But that doesn't take away the beauty of the words.