i read somewhere a while back that the consensus in literary circles is that tolkien was not a fiction writer (in so far one can reach a consensus on such a thing). the reasons they gave are pretty much what you say here. but his books became first a cult classic, and then...somehow...or the other...infiltrated mainstream consciousness.

he wrote during a time of great societal turmoil that marked the end of an age, and my personal theory is that the dense and turgid prose was actually exactly what people were looking for. the prose is exactly what a layman would imagine an ancient document about bygone worlds would read like, and if the world as u know it is collapsing around u, it can be very comforting to read something like that.

I'm learning a second language at the moment and have progressed to the point where i'm able to read one of the most famous books written in that language after 1950. It's like their culture's equivalent of The count of Monte Cristo basically.

The book is written in vernacular, and much of the humor would survive translation pretty well because it's broad or low comedy. it's not really subtle stuff.

what would be difficult to translate is the cultural background material. the reader would have to have a pretty good grasp of the government and social structure of the story setting or else it can be hard to enjoy. there isn't a whole lot of world building so to speak, like the writer just assumes you know what's what because people in that culture generally do know it.

But for the classics written prior to the 20th century, translations are absolute crap. So I was trying (and failing) to read one of their greatest classics written in the 18th century, and took me hours to get through half a page. I consulted THREE English translations all from extremely reputable sources, and they all read totally differently. It was even hard to tell they were working from the source material! It would be a total waste of time to read it in any language other than the original. Although translations can help with comprehension and be used as a guide/tutorial of sorts.

I read exactly 2 supermarket style romance books in my life, a jackie collins and another some historical romance one I forget. the jackie collins one was basically softcore porn strung along a paper thin plot, and the other one was hardcore porn re-imagining of the robin hood story. so yeah, totally random sample of 2 from the supermarket romance genre and both basically ended up being porn-y.

"They are poor for being kind of aristocracy in the United States."

Meg and Jo were working as governess and companion at the ripe ages of 15 and 16. That's not what aristocrats do, even the poor ones.

Poor US aristocracy is Lily Bart in House of Mirth.

in Louisa may Alcott's Little Women, the March family rations food and wears hand me downs and is suppose to be very poor, but they also live right next to the rich Laurences and could afford to hire a servant. it's like property and domestic labor had so little value in those days that the Marches never thought of downsizing to a smaller place in a less posh neighborhood :P

In Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, Jenny Wren lived in her own house (along with the non-parenting parent) one room of which she was also renting out to Lizzie. So I guess she was making bank stitching up dolls because at the same time you had Engels writing about the london working poor living eight to a one room hovel or some such thing and that is with a working male.

IIRC, it does not.

"If not, what do we think caused the rise to power?"

The usual I imagine. External threats (real and imaginary) coupled with internal chaos and extreme economic inequality. Mussolini was supposedly initially pretty popular because he made the trains run on time. Franco guaranteed private property rights for the wealthy landowners and church.

"Well. In my experience, I get a LOT of shit spoiled that way. "

Preach. One time I google'd a character from a book that got made into a movie to see what the actress who portrayed her look like, and front and center on front page "People also ask" section was "Why did X kill herself?" Another time it was "Why did X kill Z?" so yeah, learned not to do that anymore.