Defects in LotR ? (Gasp)

[Diamond18]

Perhaps Tolkien himself was referring to the prose style, which can at times be turgid.

This reminds me of something I read last night. I came across a book at my library. I cannot remember the exact title, but it went something like, "Modern Literary Inrerpretations Series". This particular volume of the series was "Lord of the Rings." Each book in the series has an introduction by Harold Bloom.

I can only say that the intro was less than complementary. That part that stood out in my mind was the line (paraphrase) "I cannot understand how any mature or sophisticated reader could put up with thousands of pages of such quaint stuff."

I put the book back on the shelf and decided I didn't want to read it, if it was going to be filled with such insults as that.

But...perhaps this would interesting to discuss, being along the lines of defects in LotR. How would you answer the question put forth by Harold Bloom? (You just read my response!)