It turns out you can’t photocopy the bound volumes of the Times and TLS in the London Library. They’re too fragile. Typing is hard on a reading pulpit, but I copied out the last three paragraphs (about half) of Alfred Duggan’s review of The Fellowship of the Ring, from August 27th, 1954. I don’t know that anyone else understood it to be an allegory of the Cold War, but it’s surprisingly little dated, except for the best joke. “Hobbledehoy” is now far less used than the pseudo-archaisms of Tolkein’s invention, like “hobbit”.
bq.. Frodo decides to destroy the ring; though it can only be melted in the fire that forged it, and this fire glows in the depths of the citadel of evil. He sets for with his dangerous burden, is joined by various brave and gifted magicians, dwarfs, elves and men, and by the end of the volume is about to enter, alone, the very capital of wickedness and danger. Duty has compelled him to undertake the task, and from a greedy young hobbledehobbit he has become a noble paladin.
Only considerable skill in narrative can surmount the difficulty of this complete change of tone within the limits of one book. It is a near thing, but Professor Tolkein just pulls it off. The facetious accounts of banquets in the shire leads on to gently beautiful descriptions of Rivendell and Lothlorien, the lush greenwood of the elves; later the grim record of the slaying of Balin, son of Fundin, the prince of the dwarfs who attempted to reconquer the underground realm of Moria from the sinister Orcs, echoes deliberately the matter-of-fact despair of the Sagas. The copious background and the excitement of thrilling adventure carry the reader safely from mood to mood.
Yet the plot lacks balance. All right-thinking hobbits, dwarfs, elves and men can combine against Sauron, Lord of Evil, but their only code is a warrior’s code of courage, and the author never explains what it is they consider Good. Lacking the Grail, lacking romantic love, even the world of Malory would seem empty. Perhaps, after all, this is the pint 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 its sound prose and rare imagination.