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Title: impressive but incomprehensible
Review: This book was given to me as a gift and I was pleased to get it because I know Prof. Flieger's reputation is high among academics. I'm a Tolkien fan and have read a number of other scholarly books about Tolkien. I don't think I'm a particularly dense person, I graduated from college, but just could not follow any of the arguments in this book. I've tried twice to read it but finally had to give up. I guess if you're breathing rarified air of Tolkien academia it might make some sense, but mostly it just struck me as words piled on words. I ddidn't come away with any new insights - just a sense of... HUH? I give this book two stars for effort - she obviously knows a lot about her subject, but this reads like an obscure doctoral dissertation. I just couldn't stick it out. Sorry.
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