The latter explains a great deal more than the rant (an old atheist friend's adoration of Elric, for example.) The essay is... unfortunate. Tolkien and his ilk, as it were, are derided for substituting sentimentality for humanity; Moorcock then goes on to defend Sauron on the grounds "anyone who hates hobbits can't be all bad." This shortly after accusing Tolkien and the others of hypocrisy. He apologizes for neglecting newer works on the grounds that his last substantial revision was in the late seventies (then proceeds to analyze works from the eighties for half the essay with no mention of Tolkien, apparently just an extended way of saying, "all this is so much better than that drivel".) Despite these revisions he still complains about a work featuring "a big bear who dies four our sins." Either this is a poorly worded indictment of bears slaying sins by the quartet, or he needs another revision; perhaps he was distracted by a focus on Tolkien "tak[ing] words seriously but without pleasure" (inexplicably, he cites the Silmarillion as an example, despite a diction that's lovely and can only be called "epic.") He calls Tolkien misanthropic and a favorable critic a snob, but his chief objection seems to be that Tolkien and others believe things he thinks naive and childish and this makes them Bad, not only them, but the ENTIRE CLASS of sub-humans they represent. You can see him bristling at charges of intellectualism Tolkien never makes (the man was Oxford Professor of English, for heaven's sake!) yet he exhibits all the classic signs of superiority taken for granted that makes the unwashed so annoyed with their patronizing intellectual who style themselves their "betters."

All that is small potatoes: To say TLotR ignores death not only misses the point of the Trilogy, but of Christianity. Though, once again, it seems obvious in light of this essay as well as his own fiction that Moorcock does that quite amazingly. Now, if you'll excuse me, I believe my mind needs a shower. At least one.