dear oh dear oh dear

More worryingly, the English cowpat arcadia of Hobbiton and the Shire, tolerable in The Hobbit, is unbearably twee at the start of The Lord of the Rings. Even Auden conceded that it was "a little shy-making."

But finally it is what is left out of The Lord of the Rings that makes one wonder if this is really a book for adults. Tolkien invented his own mythological world, but it lacks the dignity and the sinew of a real mythology, for it is without religion and essentially without sex.

excerpted from:
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/012802/jenkyns012802_print.html