From 2007, a review of The Children of Hurin in Asia Times by "Spengler" (David Goldman): Tolkien's Christianity and the pagan tragedy  (via JM)

I still have to get a copy of the book. Is the account of Tolkien's work and project correct?

With the reconstruction of the young Tolkien's prehistory of Middle-earth, we discern a far broader purpose: to recast as tragedy the heroic myths of pre-Christian peoples, in which the tragic flaw is the pagan's tribal identity. Tolkien saw his generation decimated, and his circle of friends exterminated, by the nationalist compulsions of World War I; he saw the cult of Siegfried replace the cult of Christ during World War II. His life's work was to attack the pagan flaw at the foundation of the West.

Tribal identity is the tragic flaw of the pagans? Not an obvious vice? Maybe this is a correct understanding of Tolkien's project, but it seems incorrect.th