Disagree.
Tolkien was very clear that he was happy for readers to find deeper meanings in his works. He just objected to writers ponderously enforcing allegory, as Lewis was prone to do.
One is the freedom of the reader, the other is the tyranny of the author.
If anybody is interested, I could talk all week about how Tolkien's world has deep inner meaning applicable to the great challenges of the 20th century.
For starters, his Dark Lords start off as good guys, sincerely trying to bring a little order out of chaos for the good of the people. When the people don't cooperate fully, they're forced to use more and more coercion to maintain progress towards the ultimate goal, again all for the good of the people. In the beginning.
The good guys, OTOH, such as Gandalf, never even attempt to force someone else to follow them, respecting that person't free will as a gift of God.
If that paradigm isn't relevant to the history of the 20th century, I don't know what would be.
"Tolkien was very clear that he was happy for readers to find deeper meanings in his works."Look at what you wrote . . ."for readers to find deeper meanings in his works."
"As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches; but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice of the Ring as the link between it and The Hobbit. The crucial chapter, 'Shadow of the Past', is one of the oldest parts of the tale. It was written long before the foreshadow of 1939 had yet become a threat of inevitable disaster, and from that point the story would have developed along essentially the same lines, if that disaster had been averted It's souces are things long before in mind, or in some cases already written, and little or nothing in it was modified by the war that began in 1939 or in its sequals". . .The only meaning beyond the storyline "resides in the freedom of the reader," not in the authors work. What was being discussed was the presence of any intentional deeper meaning, not the personal baggage of a reader.
". . . Other arrangements could be devised according to the tastes of views of those who like allegory or topical reference. But I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history, true or feigned, with it varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse 'applicability' with 'allegory'; but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author . . ."