How? Because it's amazing. Vivid, atmospheric, homely, thrilling, funny, frightening, beautiful, dramatic, melancholy, and, in the final stretches, simultaneously triumphant but achingly sad. Yes there's a fair bit of description and a surplus of (rather wonderful) poetry, but saying it's too much is to my mind like complaining there's a bit too much water in the Pacific. Normally I'm all for brevity but in the case of certain writers -Tolkien, Tolstoy, Dickens, Melville, Austen, and a few others - I really wouldn't want anyone to edit them.

I've actually got an article coming up on here soon that details some of the key differences between the novel and the film. :)