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Originally Posted by TLS
Perhaps, after all, this is the point of a subtle allegory. Against Russia, the western world can draw together, but if the Iron Curtain vanished the rulers of Yugoslavia and Spain and Britain would find it hard to agree together on the next step. Whether this is its meaning, or whether it has no meaning, The Fellowship of the Ring is a book to be read for sound prose and rare imagination.
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It's interesting that such a profound fallacy is followed up by a brilliantly simple summary. The prose is more than sound, but the imagination is certainly rare. I prefer this more balanced approach to the lavish praise and condemnation of other reviewers (you know who I mean). It's more useful to the new reader considering that first Tolkien purchase, although I'm not sure that this review would persuade me to part with twenty-one shillings. It's fascinating to see
The Fellowship of the Ring being received as just another book in a long line of 1954's publications, since I doubt it will be reviewed in that context again in my lifetime.