New Republic Article

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

And had anyone heard the word twee before - where'd he get THAT one?)

I'd heard it. It describes something that I particularly loathe and despise: a state of being ingenuously innocent, sweet or lovable. That appearance of china-doll perfection, behind which one longs to see something sinister; some perversion or imperfection, even some sadness that would make the observed thing seem relevant or real. I know I'm not the only one because there are whole sites devoted to dressing Barbie dolls as crack whores, not to mention the world of San Futuro.
I cannot see how any of the above applies to Lord of the Rings. Some of the scenes between Sam and Frodo may seem a little sickly to the modern eye, but that's the fault of a world so cynical and jaded that it either cannot recognise or cannot believe real innocence when it sees it; everything must have a dark secret in the New Reality. I once read that one appeal of LoTR was that no-one could ever find out anything to detract from its heroes' goodness: there's no hypocrisy in them, no secret vices or sins to be found out later and destroy our faith. Some people find this cleansing and liberating, others clearly find it sickening. I know which makes me happy.

My time is short, so I won't go into my opinions of the article, which were pretty ambiguous anyway. At least the 'troll' has the courage to publish his own fiction. This puts him head-and-shoulders above those who merely comment on other peoples' work, whilst tacitly admitting the inferiority of their own by leaving it unpublished.