More from Mr M.
http://www.corporatemofo.com/stories/Moorcock1.htm
As far as I'm aware neither Pullman nor Moorcock have been through the kind of experience Tolkien had on the Somme. Don't know if this is at all relevant, but it occurs to me that they would both be freer in their analysis of evil, not having seen it face to face – both Pullman & Moorcock have the luxury of playing with evil, with the idea of the devil as Byronic rebel against authority. Tolkien simply couldn't do that, due both to his wartime experiences & his religious background. His wartime experiences & the loss of his mother & his childhood idyll in Sarehole were obviously behind the 'idealisation' of the countryside, while his years in industrialised Birmingham were the cause of his hatred of industrialisation. Of course his personal experiences & beliefs would have shaped his fiction. Moorcock & Pullman miss the essential point that Tolkien could not have written in any other style or about any other subject in any other way. Their comments not only attempt to invalidate his work, but to invalidate his life & experiences as well. In short, what both are saying is that he should have shut the hell up, that if his life & his experiences meant he could only write what he did, he shouldn't have written anything at all.