Instead of a creator of a fictitous universe, Tolkien to me seems to be a chronicler of some dim and remote, and yet actual, once upon a time.For although my head assures me that The Lord of the Rings is of course just fiction, and that Middle-Earth is a place that never was and never can be, my heart whispers that maybe, just maybe, Tolkien saw a glimpse of the truth, beyond the great gray rain