‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader? [Archive] - Page 2

The Saucepan Man

05-07-2004, 10:33 AM

OK. In light of all that I have seen from Tolkien’s Letters, the extracts from his essay ‘On Faerie Tales’, davem’s quotes above etc, I am happy to accept that, in his writings, Tolkien intended to expose his readers to his own (“TCBSian”) values and beliefs in the hope that they might find them applicable to their own lives. And I can accept that he sought to do this by offering his readers enchantment, the possibility of what he called “Eucatastrophe” and thereby a glimpse of what he saw as the “Truth”.

The real issue for me is that this simply does not happen for millions of his readers. Indeed, I am willing to bet that the majority of people who have read and enjoyed the Hobbit and LotR (certainly in the UK) have not glimpsed this “Truth” that Tolkien believed in and was trying to show them. They may well have felt the enchantment. They may well also have experienced intense joy and sadness. Yet they have not found this elusive “Truth”. If Tolkien were to address them via one of davem’s “conversations across time”, what would he say to them? Would he tell them that they hadn’t followed his instructions properly? Would he dismiss them as being unready to accept the “Truth” or disinclined to do so? Or would he blame himself for not having given proper instructions?

If his response was that they hadn’t followed the guidance which he had included for them in his text, does that not denigrate their reading experience? It implies that the reader has failed if they do not see in the text exactly what the author intended them to see. It suggests that they have read the book “wrongly” in some way, even though they may have enjoyed it immensely, been incredibly moved by it and perhaps even found it applicable to them in a way that the author did not intend (interpretations such as those by Stormfront and their like aside).

Similarly, if he dismissed them as not being ready, or inclined, to accept the “Truth” that he intended for them to see, does that not also denigrate their reading experience? Perhaps they don’t need to find it. Perhaps they have found their own truth within the text, which is sufficient for them.

And if he blamed himself for not giving adequate guidance, then I think that he would be being unduly harsh on himself. Whatever their faith, beliefs or values, many millions of people derive immense enjoyment from LotR. In their eyes, it is a wonderful book, and they do not need to find this encoded “Truth” to feel this way about it.

No. I do not think that Tolkien would have responded in any of the ways that I have outlined above. I think that, unless he found their interpretation personally repellent (per Stormfront), he would have been happy that these readers had found in it what was right for them (whether that be spiritual guidance, enchantment, applicability, or just plain old enjoyment). To do otherwise would involve undervaluing either their reading experience or his own skill as a story-teller.

Edit: Cross-posted again with Aiwendil who raises the same valid issues that I have sought to raise.

mark12_30

05-07-2004, 11:23 AM

Aiwendil

So the thread comes to the point where arguments must take the form of parables. I will not waste my time demanding better definitions for the terms being used or trying to make literal the arguments. I will simply ask two questions.

"Must?" I am unaware that (a) I issued any orders (besides "look or don't look" ;) ) or that (b) I would have any *authority* to hijack this thread by doing so. Per forum rules, the thread belongs to Fordim, and he may step in with the gavel (or axe) of his choice and and provide Thread Guidance at any time.

1. Is everyone sure that an end is not being confused with a means? Think about the sort of relation that obtains between applicability, eucatastrophe, etc. and a good story.

Actually, I think the whole process is rather cyclical in nature.

2. If "Truth" means, as I guessed before, something like "God", "heaven", "the divine plan"...

If we insist on strict definitions, now I have to ask you your definitions of those three concepts, as I suspect that they vary widely from mine! And won't that derail this thread!

However, I will (for the sake of peace, which I like, and argument, which I would far rather avoid) state that when I use the word Truth, with a capital T, I refer-- loosely-- to all that is true in a permanent sense. And that both encompasses those three concepts that you listed above "God", "heaven", "the divine plan" and extends beyond them into such simple things that include "Trees are more than a source of plywood and paper", "2+2=4", "The Sky is a big place," and "Most people prefer receiving kindness over cruelty." However, one can also argue that these simple truths (trees, sky, arithmetic, kindness) are also part of the Divine Plan and reveal something about the Heart of God. And one can also argue that discovering That is part of the journey into Truth. (So I have been steadfastly dodging this question for several pages now. And now I am going to start dodging it again, before someone down-rates me again for being Too Biblical.)

So: To simplify again, I'll go back to the spirit of "good is good" and say, "Truth is that which is always, eternally, true." And yes, you can blow philosophical holes in that with a 20-gauge. Enjoy.

and if a glimpse of this Truth is a critical part of your theory, where does that leave non-religious readers (like me)?

When pursued, Truth leads to Truth. I think the more relevant question is what are you pursuing? And that is entirely up to you. Free country.

Saucie

The real issue for me is that this simply does not happen for millions of his readers. Indeed, I am willing to bet that the majority of people who have read and enjoyed the Hobbit and LotR (certainly in the UK) have not glimpsed this “Truth” that Tolkien believed in and was trying to show them.

Interesting, Saucie; I have the exact opposite impression. I see fangirls sucked into fandom because Orlie is cute, and then before they know it, choosing to resist peer pressure because "I didn't think Aragorn would do drugs." In fact, I knew a sixteen-year-old girl whose firm decision to remain chaste til marriage (which came twelve years later!) was based on the sudden realization that "That's what Strider and Arwen would do." People look at Sam and Frodo, Gimli and Legolas, Eomer and Aragorn, and see the vaue of True Friendship. People look at Legolas and see the value of Loyalty. Etcetera, etcetera. Even Dominic Moynahan has started a "Save the Trees" program and is raising funds for it. Everywhere I look (well, almost) among LOTR fans, I see people who have been called higher. Some climb a little. Some climb a lot. Most do feel that tug.

So-- in answer to your question, "What would Tolkien say today?" I think he would look at the worldwide phenomenon that his books have started, and see the resultant changes-- large and small-- in people's lives, and turn to his TCBS fellows and say, "By golly, lads, it's happening. The love of real & true beauty, sanity, and cleanliness is being re-established. Appreciation for the glory of beauty & order & joyful contentment is growing. People want these things again. THey get onto their computers and talk about them at all hours, and then they try it later. THeir hearts are changing. They redecorate their silly rooms with elvish motifs, and in doing so, resolve to be kinder, and more gracious, and appreciate the stars more. They learn elvish, and in doing so learn the value of the spoken word. They flag at work, and think, 'Be like Frodo and just keep going.' They grow flowers, and wonder at their beauty, all because of elanor and niphredil. They learn to play instruments because they want to make elvish music.

"It's happening. Let's go have a beer and a pipe; we did it, lads."

At least, I think so.

Aiwendil

05-08-2004, 10:45 AM

The Thread is Still Alive

The Saucepan Man wrote:
I think that, unless he found their interpretation personally repellent (per Stormfront), he would have been happy that these readers had found in it what was right for them (whether that be spiritual guidance, enchantment, applicability, or just plain old enjoyment). To do otherwise would involve undervaluing either their reading experience or his own skill as a story-teller.

Yes. This is exactly what I've been trying to get at. If the purpose of his stories was to convince his readers of what he thought was the "Truth" (even if passively, by revealing it to them rather than forcing it on them) then we must assume that he would disagree with all with all interpretations that did not conform to his views and deem all readers' experiences "wrong" save the experience of this particular "Truth" he believed in. And I do not think that that was the case.

Mark12_30 wrote:
Actually, I think the whole process is rather cyclical in nature.

This is an interesting answer - neither the story itself nor insight into Truth is either the cause or the effect; or perhaps each is both. I think I like this answer, if only because it comes very close to what I've been arguing. As a story becomes very good, it becomes more like an allegory; as an allegory becomes very good it becomes more like a story. So the story itself and insight into Truth are in fact the same thing.

But this is not the impression I got from your earlier posts. Perhaps this was just a misunderstanding on my part. It seemed to me that you (and Davem as well) were suggesting that Tolkien's goal was to expose readers to this insight, and that a requirement for achieving this is a fully self-consistent, believable story. I got this impression most of all when you compared Tolkien's works to parables (in connection with self-consistency); for clearly in the case of a parable, the insight is the end and the story is a means. Did you mean to draw a distinction here?

I ought to point out that there is a very big (though perhaps subtle) difference between intending to actually change people's attitudes and beliefs and intending to change the state of literature - which is why I still don't buy the argument that the TCBS intended to convert people to its way of thinking, and that this remained Tolkien's goal later on. I have always understood their goal as a literary one: they were unsatisfied with the state of modern literature and desired to change that. This is more or less the attitude, at any rate, that Tolkien shared some years later with Lewis, when they decided that there were not enough of the sort of book they liked to read, so they would to have to write some themselves (the agreement that resulted in Out of the Silent Planet and The Lost Road). This is not at all the same as writing with the primary purpose of changing people's views about the world, or affording them glimpses of Truth.

If we insist on strict definitions, now I have to ask you your definitions of those three concepts, as I suspect that they vary widely from mine! And won't that derail this thread!

Well, I don't have strict definitions for them - but that's okay; I was merely guessing that you might have intended those concepts, in which case I would ask for your definitions.

And that both encompasses those three concepts that you listed above
and extends beyond them into such simple things that include "Trees are more than a source of plywood and paper", "2+2=4", "The Sky is a big place," and "Most people prefer receiving kindness over cruelty."

It sounds like what you mean by "Truth" is simply "the set of all true propositions". That's certainly a definition I can live with (it's the one I intend when I say "truth"). But if this is the case, I don't see why there's any need to be at all mystical about it. Why talk gravely about Truth being out beyond the mills (if I understand your millegory correctly), or about transcendent glimpses of Truth; why the capital T? For if Truth is just the set of true propositions, then a "glimpse of Truth" must just be the knowledge of the truth or falsehood of certain propositions. In such a case, there is no reason at all that each person should have to discover Truth for himself or herself. Nor is there any such thing as "discovering Truth", since that would mean omniscience.

So either of two things is true: 1. By "Truth" you do in fact mean "the set of all true propositions", and all the earlier mysticism was unnecessary or 2. you mean something else, in which case I still would like to know what it is.

And a further dichotomy: either 1. The definition of "Truth" does not critically depend on anything like God or religion or 2. it does.

Going with option 1 on both questions agrees with my view; choosing 2 in either case means there is still some disagreement, but one that I cannot identify.

I think the more relevant question is what are you pursuing? And that is entirely up to you. Free country.

I've got to admit that I have no idea how the matter of what I am pursuing has anything whatsoever to do with the nature of Tolkien's work.

Sorry if any of that sounds abrasive - it was certainly not intended to. I'm just trying to understand what you (and others) are saying.

davem

05-08-2004, 01:37 PM

Aiwendil

When you say:Quote:

'I ought to point out that there is a very big (though perhaps subtle) difference between intending to actually change people's attitudes and beliefs and intending to change the state of literature - which is why I still don't buy the argument that the TCBS intended to convert people to its way of thinking, and that this remained Tolkien's goal later on. I have always understood their goal as a literary one: they were unsatisfied with the state of modern literature and desired to change that.'

I can only repeat some of the quotes from T&TGW that I gave earlier:

When we have statements like 'the four would have to leave the world better than they had found it', ' To re-establish sanity, cleanliness, & the love of real & true beauty in everyone's breast.', 'I suddenly saw the TCBS in a blaze of Light as a great Moral reformer', ''The group was spiritual in character, 'an influence on the state of being', 'Smith had wanted them to leave the world a better place than when they found it, to 're-establish sanity, cleanliness, & the love of real & true beauty through art embodying TCBSian principles.' , ''had been granted some spark of fire ... that was destined to kindle a new light, or, what is the same thing, rekindle an old light in the world'

We can't simply reduce that to an attempt to reform literature. Its clear they were attempting a much greater kind of 'reform' - the reform of society as a whole. It is an attempt at moral reform of society. They are seeking to 'influence the state of being' of society.

Of course, Tolkien can later tell Milton Waldman that his 'crest has long since fallen' in the context of creating a 'mythology for England', & we can also take him perhaps to imply it had 'fallen' in other ways too, but we must accept that his motivations were originally greater than the mere reform of literature.

So, before we can ask 'the Book or the Reader' we must understand what Tolkien was attempting to do with the book, whether he had any message that he wanted to communicate. I think its clear that, in the beginning at least, he had a clear intention of moral reform of society, & that in Lost Tales at least he was attempting to set out his moral philosophy in mythological form. We can reject his moral philosophy & reject his values, but we can't deny their existence, & claim he wasn't doing what he has clearly stated he was doing.

As to whether we pick up on his values, or simply choose our own & take from his writings only what confirms our existing beliefs - well, clearly many do, & that doesn't make them 'wrong', but Helen has shown that many readers, who know nothing of that philosophy do pick up on it & are affected by it to the extent that they change their own moral stance as a result of reading it. Obviously, if Tolkien would not approve of the use & interpretation of his work by Stormfront, that implies he would approve of other interpretations of his work, which means he had some intention to affect his readers thinking.

He wanted to change people, to change society, because he thought it was 'wrong' & he had a sense of what was 'right' - so we come back to 'Truth'. Tolkien had a sense of what this 'Truth' was, & he was attempting to communicate that, & has succeeded with many readers. Within Middle Earth this Truth exists, God exists, so while we are wandering there, or if we are constructing fan fiction, we have to accept those things as givens. If a 'good' character in a Middle Earth fanfic was an athiest, that would simply be 'wrong', because Eru is 'real' within Middle Earth, & the 'Truth' is a fact. None of which 'proves' that God exists in this world, or that 'Truth' is a fact here in the primary world. But then we have to ask why we respond so strongly to those ideas - God, Truth - in that world, why the sense of 'rightness'? What, exactly, moves us, if not some sense, conscious or unconscious, some 'memory' or sense of 'recognition', why is Middle Earth so attractive?

I would speculate that we are responding in that way because that world feels 'right', whereas this world feels 'wrong', that world feels 'true', while there is a sense of 'falseness' about this one - but where does that sense come from? Why, as Lewis asked, would we feel such a strong need for something that doesn't exist? We only feel hungry because food exists, feel sexual desire because sex exists - if those things didn't exist we wouldn't feel desire for them, & their absence wouldn't feel like a lack, wouldn't be painful. So how can we explain the need for meaning, truth, if those things don't exist, & why do we feel that sense of contentment within Middle Earth, where those things are supplied, because they're supplied?

Yet, of course, Middle Earth mustn't be an allegory, mustn't exist simply as a means to supply what's lacking here, it mustn't exist for this world. It must exist for itself, & the characters do what they do for their own reasons, which relate solely to their own world, so we can choose to take from that world what we will. But we have to ask ourselves honestly what we are responding to in that world, what needs it is supplying, & why we respond as we do it, & why we choose to take what we do from it.

Why would someone who has rejected the spiritual dimension of life in this world choose to willingly frequent a world where the spiritual dimension is so much to the fore? Why would someone who is an absolute materialist, & finds spiritual, magical, supernatural beauty, goodness (&supernatural evil) to be nothing but silly superstition want to spend time in a world where those things, along with God, & Truth, are 'facts'. Surely, someone with that worldview would find Middle Earth stupid, offensive & wrong?

I'd have to ask both you & SpM why you are drawn to Middle Earth - is it for 'everything else' you find there, except those things? But you could find all that you claim to want, & nothing you find to be 'wrong' in a thousand other secondary worlds - yet, back you keep going to Middle Earth. Its almost like its supplying a need you have which you stubbornly refuse to acknowledge feeling.

I can't see how you can make this absolute break with what you find in Middle Earth & this world, to the extent that you won't even acknowledge the possibility that you are responding to something 'there' that you're missing 'here'. If you feel the poignancy of Frodo's departure, if you cry with pride & awe when Eowyn faces the Lord of the Nazgul, if you respond to the bravery of Beren & Luthien, & the Ofermod displayed by Turin, & are stunned by the Noldor drawing their swords in the light of the first dawn, what are you responding to & why are you responding at all, if not because on some level it feels 'right', & therefore 'true'? Some part of you is responding to something. The 'Book' is eliciting a response from you which as a 'materialistic athiest' you shouldn't feel.

But none of that is to try & convert you to anything. I have no interest in trying to convert anyone to anything, & I can honestly say that I've never posted anything on these boards with that intention. I wouldn't be able to - as I'm not a committed believer in any particular religion, though I admit I lean more towards some than to others, but I've studied many of them & learned from most of them.

I don't know how far this is off topic - the question, The Book or the Reader does seem to require that we at least state where we as individual readers are coming from, & in what way the book affects us, in order that we can say why we come down on one side or the other in the question.

This post is way too long, as usual.

Bêthberry

05-08-2004, 02:44 PM

Hmm. I 've been out of this for some time but would like to raise just a couple of points in terms of how to advance the discussion, as Barrow Wight would say.

Helen and SpM,

Sauce suggested that most or many readers in England do not find the spiritual element which Helen and davem claim exists in the books. In response, Helen said that, on the contrary, she finds many young girls who are indeed given to think along traditional lines of moral behaviour after reading the book.

So, what happens next in this kind or form of argument?

Helen, did you mean to imply that your experience disproves or invalidates Sauce's? Does Sauce's invalidate yours? (I don't think he would say it does.) What I mean by this is, if we have two contradictory experiences, how do we validate one over the other? Or do we have to? How do we advance the discussion? Surely both responses exist as legitimate responses. The point then is not to discount either one but to recognise that both exist. What is then the next step?

davem,

In your long post, you made this statement,

So, before we can ask 'the Book or the Reader' we must understand what Tolkien was attempting to do with the book, whether he had any message that he wanted to communicate.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting something about how to go about reading here. I would question this idea of "before we can ask". Just where do we understand or apply what Tolkien was attempting to do with the book? The book surely must be self-explanatory at some level if it is to be successful as a story. If we have to go to biography, letters, etc, before we read the books themselves, that is validating non-fiction over fiction, discursive prose over story, as much as if we 'apply' it retroactively after the fact of reading. And surely the point also becomes one of whether the book in fact does what the collateral prose says it was 'intended' to do. I mean, do we have to start, as readers, saying, "I must find a message here", before we start to read? Do we really have to read with a priori notions? Or do we have to 'interpret' with a priori notions to lay back on top of our reading experience? In short, you have not convinced me we 'must understand' what Tolkien intended; you have rather demonstrated that in discussion with his school chums he thought certain things. It does not mean that the stories were consciously written with those thoughts in mind. And, especially because Tolkien clearly revised and revised--"consciously so in the revision"--we are still left with what inspired him in the first draft. What is in the texts themselves? (have we been over this before?)

The Book or the Reader does seem to require that we at least state where we as individual readers are coming from, & in what way the book affects us, in order that we can say why we come down on one side or the other in the question.

I am going to go back to my second post here to suggest that there was a tradition regarding literature which Tolkien could have been aware of, a tradition where the writer consciously aimed to make his work one where meaning is held in the eye of the beholder--and this tradition was one which developed within the context of Christian exegesis. Tolkien, after all, did not write political tracts in his zeal to reform society morally. He did not join political organisations and marches. He wrote stories, believing in the value and worth of story telling and story reading. And stories are never definitive. Middle earth does not end. Tolkien says this in On Fairy Stories. The stories never end, but lead out. This is why I object to those who say, this spiritual truth is in the book and this is what the book is about. If he had wanted to make this truth explicit, he would have. He choose not to, but to use veiled allusions. Why did he do this?

This takes me back to Child's post, written before the May 1 party, where she argues that what we do is go beyond this magical first reading to consider its validity and in doing so reject such interpretations as that of the White Supremacists or Germaine Greer. I am going, for the sake of discussion, to go out on a limb here and say that both of those positions actually help enlarge an appreciation of Tolkien.

Clearly, Greer writes as she has always written, to be flamboyant. But what she responds to so strongly is the idea of an 'other' who is solely evil It is very easy to attack 'enemies' when, particularly under the duress of war and attack, we ascribe to them an incarnate evil. Stormfront equally wants to read within its own validating priorities. What the existence of these two positions does, I would suggest, is help us discuss--reaffirm--the moral vision in LOTR. I read a review recently of Wagner (Atom Egoyen's production here in Toronto) which suggested that Tolkien wanted to recover the glorious tradition of heroic, northern narrative from the stains of the Nazi tradition. (I am well aware of how Tolkien denied any conscious, deliberate debt to Wagner.) I would suggest that the very existence of interpretations which we feel are 'wrong' in fact work to help us clarify points about the texts which we might not really react to, given the very different perspectives which we bring to the table. This is why, I would argue, the terms 'right' and 'wrong' are beside the point. Even out of error, greater understanding can arise. It is like Frodo learning from Gandalf not to kill Gollem. Something good still might come out of all this.

I am writing in a hurry, for which many apologies, but I did want to add one final point. davem, you seem to suggest--and I have seen it stated elsewhere here in discussion on the Barrow Downs--that materialists have no moral or ethical basis, cannot differentiate good and evil, cannot ascribe to the belief in beauty and spirituality. I don't want to answer here for either SaucepanMan or Aiwendil, but I do want to suggest, humbly, that this is an unproven assumption. Speaking as someone who has lived lo these many years with an athiest, let me say that he makes manhood an honourable estate, as honourable as anything Aragorn is said to represent. There! I think I 've just made the same kind of argument which I was questioning Helen for making. My point, davem, is that materialism does not, by its very nature, automatically mean people cannot appreciate the concepts of heroic ideal or endeavour, sacrifice, self-discipline, pity, beauty, or fail to recognise good and evil.

Saraphim

05-08-2004, 06:14 PM

First off I just want to give props to mark12_30 for an excellent mill-metaphor.

Anyway.

Yet, of course, Middle Earth mustn't be an allegory, mustn't exist simply as a means to supply what's lacking here, it mustn't exist for this world. It must exist for itself, & the characters do what they do for their own reasons, which relate solely to their own world, so we can choose to take from that world what we will. But we have to ask ourselves honestly what we are responding to in that world, what needs it is supplying, & why we respond as we do it, & why we choose to take what we do from it.

In response to what I have read here and elsewhere on this thread, my opinion is that Tolkien's works have Truth in them. This elusive, mysteriously capitalized noun is different for everyone, and no one person will find or see it in the same way, for the obvious reason that everyone is different themselves.

If one has a depressing outlook on life, one will see sadness and destruction in The Lord of the Rings. It becomes something of a tragedy, when you look at the disparity of the elves to leave Middle-Earth, Arwen's immortal choice, the deaths of so many characters who may have lived in peace, and Sam's torn heart.

But if one reads it in a more chipper attidude, one sees growth, new replacing old, rest for those who have long since grown weary, and sacrifice for others.

Take this for example:

Yet the lies that Melkor, the mighty and accursed, Morgoth Bauglir, the Power of Terror and of Hate, sowed in the Hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days.

That's from the Silmarillion, the Voyage of Earendil. The truth I see in it is that every person has a seed inside that spreads hate and fear through our minds. We cannot get rid of it, and we must struggle with it in order to quell it. The 'dark fruit' it refers to is what happens when that seed grows and multiplies, infecting those around it with fear, hate, ect.

Perhaps no one else sees this the way I do. Or perhaps you all do. Or perhaps I'm grossly misinformed and I've wasted my time.

Child of the 7th Age

05-08-2004, 08:02 PM

Davem,

We are using terms like "spiritual" and "materialist" without real discussion of what these mean. I must agree with Bethberry. You seem to equate "belief in God" with spiritual, and lack of belief with "materialist". You imply these are two sharply defined, discreet camps, and that the former must necessarily be indifferent or hostile to the words, characters, and images that Tolkien evokes.

First, I feel this is a narrow view of 'spiritual'. There are spiritual paths that do not emphasize the role of the deity. How does one classify a Buddhist, for example, who devotes his life to following the Eightfold Path to enlightenment, which surely is a spiritual journey? Although the Buddha himself was a theist, his teachings are essentially non-theistic. The existence or non-existence of God is not a central issue here, but is left up to the individual.

Similarly, where does this definition leave those who seek to follow goodness because they regard it as the basis of natural law? Emphasis on deity is not central to their lives in the same way as it would be for a Christian. But are they not concerned with many of the same moral issues that Tolkien raises?

It would be possible to dredge up definitions of 'spiritual' that would get us around this impasse. Here, for example, is one:

The spiritual is a perception of the commonality of mindfulness in the world that shifts the boundaries between self and other, producing a sense of the union of purposes of self and other in confronting the existential questions of life, and providing a mediation of the challenge-response interaction between self and other, one and many, that underlies existential questions.

But there is another valid question: exactly where do we draw the line in saying a person can or cannot appreciate LotR, depending on the particular state of his or her belief. Perhaps belief in a deity is not enough. Would we need to say that it is necessary to be a Christian, or perhaps a Catholic to appreciate the themes of the book?

This can not be. People from many different backgrounds obviously have a love and appreciation of the writings. Conversely, I can point to friends who are devout Christians, and yet do not feel the magic in the book. Given this, perhaps it would be wiser to leave terms like "spiritual" and "materialist" completely out of the mix. They are imprecise, and have a different meaning for each of us.

It seems to me that the bottom line lies here. Tolkien's writings are filled with themes of goodness, self-sacrifice, and the need to stand up against evil. If a person respects those moral qualities and feels they should stand at the core of life, they are more likely to respond to the characters and story that Tolkien has sketched out. (Please note that I say "more likely" and not that they will respond.) If they do not cherish such themes, they will likely walk away from the book, because it would make no sense for a small Hobbit to give up everything and take on the chore of Ringbearer. Isn't this moral sense more important in determining our response to Tolkien's writings, rather than belief or disbelief in God per se? And I say this as someone for whom belief is personally important.

Davem - I have no doubt that part of Tolkien's desire to write was to bring about improvement, and not just in a literary sense. But I do not think that this was the only motive he had. The thing that strikes me about the man was how very complex his motivations were. In writing Hobbit and LotR, desire to improve the world was there, but so were a host of other influences: love of philology and ancient myths, the father who told bedtime stories to his children, the man who invented languages. The list could go on and on. And Tolkien's views of myth and its relation to theology changed drastically throughout his own life. (That, I think, would make an interesting thread.)

Moreover, a middle-age man does not look at things exactly the same way as he did when he was a young soldier returning from war. The influence and desire to reform the world is still there, but it would most likely be tempered by the more sober realization that change is hard to come by. My guess is that Tolkien was writing for himself rather than for his publishers, or even with the goal of reforming anyone. He was writing because he felt impelled to write, and his values and beliefs do shine through his words, not with the intentional design to convert anyone to a particular religious belief, but because those were the things that he himself held dear. And though he certainly desired a Christian or Catholic revival within Britain, he would have been too humble to claim such a goal openly for himself, at least by the time when he came to write LotR.

As someone who is neither a Catholic or Christian, I feel very comfortable in the pages of Tolkien. And I do see points where a Light shines through. I would perhaps regard that lLght one way, Mark 12_30 another, LMP or Aiwendil still another, and a committed Catholic like Joseph Pearce would see something else. We each bring our own background and experiences to the book, just as Tolkien indicated in his own preface where he discusses applicability. But those differences in perspective do not make any of us 'wrong'.

Tolkien had this amazing gift to go beyond our differences in culture and belief and show us things of goodness that all humans share. He depicted goodness and light in such a way that ,whatever our personal philosophies, each of us can sense the decency and goodness that should stand at the core of our world, and how very difficult it is to achieve that goal. In a world where we spend most of our time agruing over differences (which is surely not what any religion or philosophy asks us to do) , that gift is no small thing.

**************************

Bethberry,

Yes, you are right. Something may be gained from a discussion of views like Greer and the neo-Nazis. (Poor Germain Greer! I've never liked her, but it seems cruel to put her in the same boat as those other folk.)

Yet, I am likely to learn considerably more by reading someone like Flieger or Shippey, whose perception and views on Middle-earth are far more acute.

Child of the 7th Age

05-08-2004, 08:16 PM

Addendum to my last post...

I would prefer the term "Light" rather than "Truth" when discussing LotR.

As far as I know, Tolkien never discusses "Truth" in regard to Middle-earth (with a big or little "T"). But there are many allusions to "Light" in the text. I think this term would be far more in keeping with the Middle-earth that JRRT presented to us. "Truth" implies a single correct body of knowledge, while "Light" does not carry that same meaning. It may also involve the reader's perception, an illumination or way of looking at everyday things that makes us see them in a new way.

Aiwendil

05-09-2004, 12:01 AM

I'll venture a quick response now, though I'm still interested to see Helen's answers to the questions I raised in my previous post.

We can't simply reduce that to an attempt to reform literature. Its clear they were attempting a much greater kind of 'reform' - the reform of society as a whole. It is an attempt at moral reform of society. They are seeking to 'influence the state of being' of society.

Okay; I suppose I'll concede that this may have been a goal. However:

1. Among the quotes you provided (and in other instances elsewhere) a desire is expressed to effect what is clearly a literary change rather than a social one. E.g., "Tolkien once compared the TCBS to the pre-Raphaelites, probably in response to the Brotherhood's preoccupation with restoring Medieval values in Art" (my emphasis). It is sometimes hard to tell whether in a given instance it is a real societal change that is sought or merely an artistic one. It is also sometimes difficult to distinguish Gilson's, Smith's, and Wiseman's views from Tolkien's.

2. Tolkien's opinion seems likely to have changed - we have statements in the Letters to the effect that he never expected any of his Silmarillion-related work to be enjoyed by anyone but himself (and Lewis); we also have his statement that the mythology grew out of his desire to provide a historical context for the languages he was inventing. And we have his agreement with Lewis that there was not enough fiction of the sort they liked to read, hence they would have to write it.

3. Even supposing something as extreme as that Tolkien thought that the value of literature consisted in its moral effect on the reader, Tolkien need not necessarily have been correct.

I believe it's in "On Faery Stories" that Tolkien discusses the phrase "the green sun". At first glance, this appears to be nonsensical. But no, Tolkien says; the phrase is a perfectly good one - so long as its user provides a thoroughly consistent context within which the phrase is to be believed. In other words, it's not strictly the realism of a work of fiction that matters; it's the believability; the internal consistency.

Tolkien had a sense of what this 'Truth' was, & he was attempting to communicate that, & has succeeded with many readers. Within Middle Earth this Truth exists, God exists,

It sounds, then, like you would, in answer to one of the two questions I posed in my previous post, say that "Truth" does depend critically on the concept of God. I just think we should be clear about this.

It also sounds like you firmly hold that the purpose of Tolkien's work was to communicate this "Truth" to his readers. Is this what you mean? If so, it really begins to sound as if (in your opinion) Tolkien intended to convert people with his work. If not - then what do you suppose the purpose was?

I would speculate that we are responding in that way because that world feels 'right', whereas this world feels 'wrong', that world feels 'true', while there is a sense of 'falseness' about this one - but where does that sense come from? Why, as Lewis asked, would we feel such a strong need for something that doesn't exist? We only feel hungry because food exists, feel sexual desire because sex exists - if those things didn't exist we wouldn't feel desire for them, & their absence wouldn't feel like a lack, wouldn't be painful. So how can we explain the need for meaning, truth, if those things don't exist, & why do we feel that sense of contentment within Middle Earth, where those things are supplied, because they're supplied?

I'll try to respond to this without letting this turn into a theological debate.

Basically, there are two flaws in that reasoning. First, it's a case of reasoning by analogy, which is at best a sort of induction (rather than deduction), which cannot prove anything. Second, it transmutes psychological evidence into a metaphysical conclusion (this is an error that comes up all the time - on both sides - in debates about free will, for example). Psychological evidence alone can never prove a metaphysical point.

But I really want to avoid a theological debate in this thread, so maybe we should cut this off there.

It must exist for itself, & the characters do what they do for their own reasons, which relate solely to their own world, so we can choose to take from that world what we will. But we have to ask ourselves honestly what we are responding to in that world, what needs it is supplying, & why we respond as we do it, & why we choose to take what we do from it.

Here it sounds like you hold that to communicate Truth was not the purpose of Tolkien's work. Does this not contradict your thesis about TCBS's goals?

Why would someone who is an absolute materialist, & finds spiritual, magical, supernatural beauty, goodness (&supernatural evil) to be nothing but silly superstition want to spend time in a world where those things, along with God, & Truth, are 'facts'.

I do not consider spiritualism, magic, supernatural beauty, goodness, or evil to be "silly superstitions".

I consider good and evil to be either absolute rational concepts or human inventions of great societal importance (for my views on moral philosophy see 'The Lord of the Rings' and Philosophy (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=508)).

I consider beauty (not the supernatural bit) to be a real thing and a concept of great relevance for human psychology and sociology, as well as for art.

I consider magic, spirits, and the supernatural to be non-existent - but not "silly".

I'd have to ask both you & SpM why you are drawn to Middle Earth - is it for 'everything else' you find there, except those things?

You mean for everything but Eru, magic, spirits, etc.? Certainly not (though of course I cannot speak for SpM).

If you feel the poignancy of Frodo's departure, if you cry with pride & awe when Eowyn faces the Lord of the Nazgul, if you respond to the bravery of Beren & Luthien, & the Ofermod displayed by Turin, & are stunned by the Noldor drawing their swords in the light of the first dawn, what are you responding to & why are you responding at all, if not because on some level it feels 'right', & therefore 'true'?

I don't see any reason that those things ought not to affect a person just because that person thinks that they are not "true". I'm sure there are complex psychological (which is to say neurological) reasons that those things are appealing. I do not see why a belief that certain things are "true" (though I must say that I am particularly hard pressed to guess what "true" actually means in this instance) should be a prerequisite for enjoying literature concerning those things. If it were, then wouldn't all those people that like Tolkien dislike the work of any author with a different idea about what "Truth" is. What I mean is that - if the reason I like Tolkien is that I am subconsciously aware that Tolkien's work is "true", why do I also like Isaac Asimov? Or Arthur C. Clarke? Or Douglas Adams? They each had a very different understanding of the "truth".

But I suppose you will still say that my enjoyment or appreciation of Tolkien's work is a result of some subliminal understanding of its transendent Truth; in which case we have come to an impasse. For when you assert something about my subconscious mind, how am I to argue save by denying it? Bethberry makes a good point about the personal evidence provided by Mark12_30 and The Saucepan Man:

So, what happens next in this kind or form of argument?

And I think more or less the same thing can be asked here.

Sorry that this became another longish one.

davem

05-09-2004, 02:12 AM

Bethberry
Quote:
davem, you seem to suggest--and I have seen it stated elsewhere here in discussion on the Barrow Downs--that materialists have no moral or ethical basis, cannot differentiate good and evil, cannot ascribe to the belief in beauty and spirituality.

I didn't intend to suggest that. I would ask what their standard is, by which they measure such things - isn't it from some innate sense of right & wrong, of false & 'True'? They hold to some 'ideal' of how things should be, & compare things as they are to that 'ideal'.

I don't think it is possible to define 'Truth' precisely, because we haven't reached the that 'state'. If there's anything in my idea of a 'harmonic' relationship between enchantment, eucatastrophe & Truth, that enchantment is the same thing as eucatastrophe but on a 'lower' level, & that Truth is the 'highest' harmonic, then enchantment is what we feel when we are initially exposed to 'Truth', we move forward in stages. I have to admit that I'm adapting some qabalistic concepts here into literary theory. Or perhaps we can bring in the idea of the three tier universe which we find in the Divine Comedy - Heaven/Truth 'reflecting' down through Purgatory/Eucatastrophe to 'Hell'/enchantment - by which I mean ones first experience of a 'mythological' otherworld - not a 'good' or pleasant enchantment, but an overwhelmingly powerful one. I would speculate that the form 'enchantment' takes, what exactly enchants us, & how, is down to the individual.

There is no requirement that 'enchantment' be pleasant or morally 'good' to be effective. Even in Hell, Dante encounters beauty & sadness & loss, but at the end he passes into the eucatastrophic experience of Purgatory, beyond which he encounters 'Truth', the Love that moves the Sun & the other Stars'.

In LotR we are exposed to enchantment, & opened up to the experience of Eucatastrophe, which in turn points us towards something else, the highest 'harmonic', or Truth. We are taken from the earth, the world of everyday materiality, to the 'Lunar' world, the world of Dream & fantasy - as with Astolpho's visit to the Moon in Orlando Furioso, which is Faery, the world of enchantment. We move on to the Solar world, of light, closer to the Truth, the source of the moonlight, which is the eucatatastrophic experience, & finally onto the 'stellar' world of 'Heaven'.

But to leave Dante & the medieval visionaries & return to Tolkien (as he would probably have wished, knowing his feelings on both Dante & Ariosto).

We don't have to know Tolkien's intentions for his stories to work on us - they can work on us in the way he intended even if we aren't aware of them. When we read his reasons & his explanations for what he wrote, we are as likely to respond by thinking 'Of course! that explains what I felt!' as we are to respond 'Why, that's not it at all! I never felt that!' I would say that the former response is more common.

Aiwendil, when you quote me:

It must exist for itself, & the characters do what they do for their own reasons, which relate solely to their own world, so we can choose to take from that world what we will. But we have to ask ourselves honestly what we are responding to in that world, what needs it is supplying, & why we respond as we do it, & why we choose to take what we do from it.

& respond:

Here it sounds like you hold that to communicate Truth was not the purpose of Tolkien's work. Does this not contradict your thesis about TCBS's goals?

I don't think I am. For the enchantment to work, the secondary world must be self contained, if it is not to come across as allegory & the spell fail to be cast effectively. Only in that 'enchanted' state can we fully experience eucatastrophe, when as Helen says, our guard is down. And the eucatasatrophic experience reveals something beyond itself. So, its impossible for me, Helen, or anyone to give you a precise, scientifically provable definition of 'Truth' here in the Primary world, because you're two stages away from it. I can explain 'enchantment', perhaps, or offer you the means to experience it - reading a particular book might help you experience enchantment. If that works, & you are sufficiently enchanted, you will be opened up to the eucatastrophic experience, which in turn will enable you to glimpse, far off, something else, but you can't see that 'something else' directly from here - its on the other side of the Mountains, yet you can see the 'Light' of it reflected through different forms/experiences.

Niggle cannot concieve of what lies over the Mountains from his shed. But in there he has a glimpse of a Tree, & sets out to paint it. He becomes enchanted. Then, when he
suddenly sees the REAL Tree (REAL, though not of this world - actually MORE real than any tree in this world) he experiences eucatastrophe, a glimpse that there is another kind of reality. Both the Workhouse & his time in Niggle's Parish are equivalent to Purgatory, but his glimpse of the Mountains leads him on to what lies beyond them. The point is, whatever lies beyond them can only be known once he has crossed over, not before. Niggle in his shed, painting his picture, could not know, let alone define whats on the other side. All he can know at that time is the Tree
he is trying to paint. Before he was enchanted by his vision he simply could not know or experience eucatastrophe, let alone give you or anyone else (including himself) a precise definition of it - he may not even have believed in it. But through enchantment he is able to be opened up to the eucatastrophic experience of the real Tree, & the Mountains beyond, which is what inspires him to seek out the way over them.

I can't explain it - we see 'as in a glass, darkly'. Meister Eckhart wrote that 'if we could see even a flower as it has its being in God, this would be greater than the whole world'.

I'm not interested in converting anyone to anything. I'm not a Christian, or a follower of any specific belief or religion, but I've always had a sense of there being 'something' more, which for the sake of convenience, I'll call Truth, because its more 'real' than this 'primary' world as far as I'm concerned. There's a great danger in overvaluing our rational, scienific world & dismissing the past, & 'primitive' beliefs. As someone once pointed out, we talk a lot about the 'ignorant past', but we're currently living in what our decendents will think of as the 'ignorant past'. People have always, at least up to recent times, believed in some ultimate Truth, some organising principle to the universe - they've even believed in fairies, & enchantment - even if they couldn't produce scientific evidence for them. I hold to what Chesterton called the Democracy of the Dead: 'Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the Democracy of the Dead. Democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; Tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.'

So as far as Tolkien is concerned: I won't rule out his opinion just because he happens to be dead, because thats undemocratic. He may not be right, but he has a right not to be ignored, & the same goes for Rob Gilson & GB Smith. Universal Sufferage, guys! The Legendarium was Tolkien's manifesto, & it means what he intended it to mean, & while we may take from it what we will, or reject it all entirely, we can't claim it means nothing at all, & was not intended to do what the writer has stated clearly it was meant to do. I just can't see how anyone can seperate the story from its meaning, or claim it means whatever they choose it to mean. Tolkien is the only one who can claim the Humpty Dumpty role here -'when I use a word it means precisely what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less'

(Well, I''m trying for the longest ever post without being boring - I think I'm on track with the first part)

Lyta_Underhill

05-09-2004, 12:20 PM

Aiwendil’s 2nd question post 261: If "Truth" means, as I guessed before, something like "God", "heaven", "the divine plan", etc., and if a glimpse of this Truth is a critical part of your theory, where does that leave non-religious readers (like me)?

Forgive me for jumping in here from the wild blue yonder once again, but, as I promised, I am trying to catch up! Per Aiwendil’s question number 2 quoted above, I do not believe that there is one single Truth that is the be all and end all of all inquiry into “true” things. When I read Tolkien’s works, I see myriad truths, all pointing to his authorly attempts to communicate his own aesthetic. This, I would agree with Aiwendil and SpM’s assessments of good storytelling, along with a peculiarly individual atmospheric that owes its effects to Tolkien’s storytelling skill and thus, by extension, to his translation of all that drives him, his own “truths,” or the TCBSian ethic, as davem related earlier.

SpM post 262: It implies that the reader has failed if they do not see in the text exactly what the author intended them to see. It suggests that they have read the book “wrongly” in some way, even though they may have enjoyed it immensely, been incredibly moved by it and perhaps even found it applicable to them in a way that the author did not intend

I think that many people get worried that they are “not getting it” when they read something that, nevertheless, moves them in a way that is different from those around them. This doesn’t IMO, mean that the person’s reading is necessarily inferior. The fact that the reader stepped onto the path and allowed Tolkien to lead them through Middle Earth on a perilous journey, speaks to enrichment beyond what they would have had had they not plunged in (i.e., a 'rousing good story'). At the risk of speaking in parables, I’ll relate something in my own life that I believe might have applicability to this question:

For two years (sadly I’ve fallen off), I practiced martial arts with a group, and there was a ritual at the beginning of every training session. We would sit upon our knees and utter “Shiken haramitsu daikomyo!” clap twice, then bow to the ground and clap once again. (The translation from the Japanese is roughly “May the light of ten thousand suns enter into me with my next breath.” ) It is a plea for enlightenment, and there is a meaning to the ritual of claps thereafter that, I was assured, was simple and plain for those to see who would. I studied the entire two years without EVER getting it, nor have I gotten it since. My husband got it right away, and, at my request, has never told it to me. If anyone here knows it, I also request you don’t tell me. I do not labor under the misconception that this simple truth is something that I MUST learn, but it is something that will be revealed to me if I end up needing it someday, or if a proper ray of light hits my slow brain. As Helen said earlier, "Look, or don't look." :)

The mistake, I think that some people make, is that once they hear there is a truth that is buried in a text or situation, they either MUST find it or dismiss it utterly. For me, it is sufficient to accept there are many truths that are beyond me or simply not applicable to me. Those that are applicable and are reflected properly into my eyes and brain by Tolkien’s works, enrich me beyond my capability of speech, but this is the sign of a good work. Every time I return to it, I see beauties and truths reflected through his words, and I know there are more to be seen if I look properly. Some others on this thread have expressed the desire NOT to know everything, so I think they know what I am trying, stumblingly so, to get across in my ramblings.

That all having been said, I am almost caught up now, but I figured it was better to speak than have to wait until late tonight or tomorrow, when I’ll get the time to read the rest of it; but rest assured, I will catch up! Until then,

Cheers!
Lyta

The Saucepan Man

05-09-2004, 07:12 PM

OK, a bit of catching up to do. But I’ll try my best.

Helen

However, I will (for the sake of peace, which I like, and argument, which I would far rather avoid) state that when I use the word Truth, with a capital T, I refer-- loosely-- to all that is true in a permanent sense. Well, that’s fine when we are talking about facts which can be objectively proved (like 2+2=4). My problem with the word in the sense that it is being used here is that it also encompasses concepts which cannot be proved, and which different people will view differently. Of those who believe in a God, for example, different people have different conceptions of what God is and how he (or she or they) should be worshipped. Morality too changes over time and will vary from one society to another, and also from one individual to another. I differ, for example, from a sizeable minority (if not a majority) of my fellow citizens in the UK in believing that it is wrong to take someone’s life in consequence of their commission of a serious crime such as murder.

I do agree that there are values (moral or otherwise) that a majority of people will happily subscribe to (although it does not follow that they are necessarily divine in origin). But no one will have precisely the same set of values. They will differ (often slightly, sometimes considerably) from person to person. And that’s why I have difficulty in accepting that there is a single, capitalised “Truth”. I would prefer to say that there are absolute truths (those which can be objectively proved), truths which the majority can subscribe to (for example, much of what we might describe as morality), minority truths (subscribed to by only a section of society, such as beliefs unique to a particular religion) and individual truths (one’s own personal and unique beliefs). Any one person’s “truth” is a mix of all of these things and, looked at in this way, no one person (Tolkien included) has a monopoly on the “truth” such that it should be regarded as a single, capitalised concept. As Saraphim said:

This elusive, mysteriously capitalized noun is different for everyone, and no one person will find or see it in the same way, for the obvious reason that everyone is different themselves. But that, to me, says that it cannot be a capitalised noun as if it were the same for everybody if only they would realise it. Rather, every person’s “truth” is individual to them, although they will share aspects of it with others, some with a minority, some with a majority and some (absolute, quantifiable truths) with everybody.

Interesting, Saucie; I have the exact opposite impression. I don’t dispute that Tolkien’s works have the various effects that you have stated. Nor would I disagree that aspects of what Tolkien would describe as his “truth” (the value of friendship and the ennoblement of the humble, for example) will resonate, to varying degrees, with all that read and enjoy his tales. That is why they (we) enjoy them so much. But I would disagree (and, as Bêthberry says, this is perhaps where we reach an impasse) that the majority of people who read the books find their lives changed by them in any profound way. And, while (if it is the case that he was, at least in part, seeking to promote his own truths within his writings, the case for which I now see as compelling) this might cause Tolkien some personal disappointment, I think that he would recognise that not every “truth” which he subscribed to will resonate with everyone and content himself with people finding their own “truths” within his works.

davem

So, before we can ask 'the Book or the Reader' we must understand what Tolkien was attempting to do with the book, whether he had any message that he wanted to communicate.But if this is how we approach it, then the answer will always be “the Book” because the individual’s own interpretation will be secondary to what the author was trying to achieve. Save to the extent that they are explicit or implicit in his text, however, I do not see the author’s intentions as automatically having any bearing on the reader’s enjoyment of the book. They will only be relevant to the reader if the reader wants them to be. But, if he or she does not want them to be, then (as I keep saying) that cannot devalue their own personal experience of the book. Nor can it, by itself, make them “wrong” in any way in their approach to the book.

So as far as Tolkien is concerned: I won't rule out his opinion just because he happens to be dead, because thats undemocratic. Nor will I. But, I won’t force anyone to accept it, as that too would be undemocratic.

As to whether we pick up on his values, or simply choose our own & take from his writings only what confirms our existing beliefs - well, clearly many do, & that doesn't make them 'wrong', but Helen has shown that many readers, who know nothing of that philosophy do pick up on it & are affected by it to the extent that they change their own moral stance as a result of reading it.Yes, there are clearly many readers who are affected in this way. But, as I said, I would not put them in the majority. And, as you say, those who aren’t so affected cannot be categorised as “wrong”.

I would speculate that we are responding in that way because that world feels 'right', whereas this world feels 'wrong', that world feels 'true', while there is a sense of 'falseness' about this one - but where does that sense come from? I would contest that there are many who regard Middle-earth as “true” and their own world as somehow “false”. By definition, Middle-earth is a fictional world, and therefore false, whereas we are confronted every day (often in unpleasant ways) with the reality of our own world. Middle-earth may seem real while we are engrossed in the story, in consequence of the story-teller’s skill and its internal consistency, but it remains a fiction when we put it down. I do of course agree that there are values enshrined within his works which will (to varying degrees) resonate with his readers, and which they may find applicable to their own lives. Of course that’s the case. Otherwise we readers would not enjoy the stories so much. But that’s a very long way from saying that every reader will necessarily accept every value enshrined within Tolkien’s works as true to their own life whether they realise it or not. We do not have to believe in the existence of God in our own world to accept the existence of the fictional character of Eru in Tolkien’s writings.

Why would someone who has rejected the spiritual dimension of life in this world choose to willingly frequent a world where the spiritual dimension is so much to the fore?To follow your argument to its extreme, we could not appreciate Tolkien’s works unless we recognised Eru as our own God and accepted the creation story as laid out in the Silmarillion as fact. At the very least, we would (as Child points out) have to subscribe to Tolkien’s own religious beliefs in order to enjoy his stories. Yet, there are very few who read and enjoy his works (even among Christians) who subscribe to his particular set of beliefs.

Why would someone who is an absolute materialist, & finds spiritual, magical, supernatural beauty, goodness (&supernatural evil) to be nothing but silly superstition want to spend time in a world where those things, along with God, & Truth, are 'facts'. Surely, someone with that worldview would find Middle Earth stupid, offensive & wrong?

I'd have to ask both you & SpM why you are drawn to Middle Earth I have never said that there is no spiritual aspect to my beliefs. There is much within Tolkien’s writings that accord with my own personal “truth”. And, just because I may not accept magical and supernatural concepts as true in my world, it does not follow that I find them silly and offensive. Moreover, even were I an atheist, I do not see why I should not enjoy Tolkien’s stories. As Bêthberry and Child point out, the fact that someone is an atheist does not preclude them from having moral values, from perceiving the difference between good and evil or from valuing qualities such as friendship, loyalty, courage and heroism. And it does not prevent them from recognising and appreciating such concepts within Tolkien’s works.

I didn't intend to suggest that. I would ask what their standard is, by which they measure such things - isn't it from some innate sense of right & wrong, of false & 'True'? They hold to some 'ideal' of how things should be, & compare things as they are to that 'ideal'.There are, as Aiwendil points out, a great many reasons why people should respond to the kinds of values that we are talking about that do not involve any belief (or an specific form of belief) in the existence of God in our world.

Child

I have no doubt that part of Tolkien's desire to write was to bring about improvement, and not just in a literary sense. But I do not think that this was the only motive he had. I am certainly persuaded that Tolkien desired to promote his own beliefs through his writing. And, as I hope is clear from what I have said, I believe that he has succeeded in touching a great many people who have found many of those beliefs to correspond to their own values, regardless of any particular belief-system that they may adhere to. And I accept that there are no doubt some (albeit I believe that they are in the minority) whose beliefs and values have changed in some significant way as a result of reading his works. But I would certainly agree that this desire to promote his beliefs was not his only motivation. The interests and experiences that you list all had a significant influence on his writing, in addition to his religious beliefs. And he was influenced also by his publishers and his readership. Had the Hobbit not been published and led to an outcry for a sequel, it is quite likely that LotR would never have been written, at least not in the form that we know it. In writing it, he must have been influenced by the recognition that it would have to “past muster” with the requirements of his publishers and the desires of those readers who had responded so favourably to the Hobbit. To a degree, therefore, he was writing it to satisfy them, although of course it had to satisfy him also.

Lyta

I think that many people get worried that they are “not getting it” when they read something that, nevertheless, moves them in a way that is different from those around them. I am not sure that this concerns the majority of readers, who simply get on with reading the book and responding to it in whatever way feels right. My concern, though, is that if we say that there is a “Truth” in Tolkien’s works and that if you cannot see it then you are not reading it correctly or you are not ready for the “Truth”, then we will engender just such a worry in people. And that is something which I would not like to see. (It may be different for martial arts, as the teachings that they involve have a very specific purpose. Literature, to me, is a very different kettle of fish.)

Well, if the posts of others were long, then this one is ridiculously so. If you are still with me, I apologise. :rolleyes: :D

davem

05-10-2004, 02:42 AM

'Truth' seems to have become an issue - is there such a thing as an objective standard, or value?

Lewis wrote a book on the subject - The Abolition of Man - Quote (refering to Coleridge's response to two people, a woman who said it was 'pretty' & a man who said it was 'sublime'.)

'The reason why Coleridge agreed with the tourist who called the cataract sublime & disagreed with the one who called it pretty was of couse that he believed inanimate nature to be such that certain responses could be more 'just' or 'ordinate' or 'appropriate' to it than others. And he believed (correctly) that the tourists thought the same. The man who described the cataract as sublime was not intending simply to describe his own emotions about it: he was also claiming that the object was one which merited those emotions. But for this claim there would be nothing to agree or disagree about. To disagree with This is pretty if those words simply described the lady's feelings, would be absurd: if she had said I feel sick Coleridge would hardly have replied No; I feel quite well.

He goes on:

The chinese also speak of a great thing (the greatest thing) called the Tao. It is the reality beyond all ppredicates, the abyss that was before the Creator Himself. it is Nature, it is the Way, it is the Road. It is the way in which the Universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly & tranquilly, into Space & Time. It is also the Way in which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic & supercosmic progression, conforming all activities to that great exemplar.... It is the doctrine of objective value, the belief that certain attitudes are really true & others really false, to the kind of theing the universe is, & the kind of things we are...And because our approvals & disapprovals are thus recognitions of objective value or responses to an objective order, therefore emotional states can be in harmony with reason... or out of harmoony with reason. No emotion is, in itself, a judgement; in that sense all emotions & sentiments are alogical. But they can be reasonable or unreasonable as they conform to Reason or fail to conform.

This thing which I have called for convenience Tao & which others may call Natural Law or Traditional Morality or the First Principles of Practical Reason or the First Platitudes, is not one among a series of possible systems of value. It is the sole source of all value judgements. If it is rejected, all value is rejected. If any value is retained, it is retained.

But you cannot go on 'explaining away' forever: you will find you have explained explanation itself away. You cannot go on 'seeing through' things forever. the whole point of seeing through somethiing is to see something through it. It is good that the window should be transparent, because the street or garden beyond it is opaque. How if you saw through the garden too? It is no use trying to 'see through' first principles. If you see through everything, then everything is transparent. But a wholly transparent world is an invisible world. To 'see through' all things is the same as not to see.'

I still feel that you & Aiwendil are wanting 'Truth' reduced to a set of 'facts' which you can analyse & 'see through', rather than accepting that is the 'source' of 'facts' as well as everything else. We cannot see through the Mountains to what's beyond. We have to climb over them in order to see what's there.

Forget 'Truth' if you want & call it Tao as Lewis does. I can't help feeling that you are running scared of a belief - that if you were to accept that 'Truth' is 'real' then you would have to put down your Tolkien, pick up a Bible & head off to Church. Its not like that. Its simply about there being more going on that you can see, or that some 'scientific' theory can explain.

If you experience what Tolkien called 'enchantment' through his works, & because of that experience what he calls 'Eucatastrophe', you are glimpsing 'something', which can't be quantified & reduced to logical statements, only felt - a 'fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the Walls of the World, poignant as grief'....In such stories when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, & heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, & lets a gleam come through.'

So, if you don't like 'Truth', & don't want to follow Lewis's use of Tao, call it 'Joy'.

'And all the Host laughed & wept, & in the midst of their merriment & tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver & gold, & all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, & their joy was like swords, & they passed in thought out to regions where pain & delight flow together & tears are the very wine of blessedness.'

Ain't that the 'Truth'?

HerenIstarion

05-10-2004, 04:21 AM

davem for president! Or, another 'well said' for you (pity I can't rate it, as 20 persons haven't passed me yet)

But I sense your own opinion changed, davem, and I believe to the more right direction (me still holding there are more/less right interpretations out there). To quote HP's Gryffindor students:

'davem is our King (Queen?),
davem is our King,
He (she?) didn't let the Falsehood in,
davem is our King

Excuse this disgraceful bit of foolery on my part, but you came close to what I believe to be true but am not able to express as punctually as you do, probably due to pitiable lack of language-mastery

I can't help feeling that you are running scared of a belief - that if you were to accept that 'Truth' is 'real' then you would have to put down your Tolkien, pick up a Bible & head off to Church.

Now I can't help feeling that was a bit unfair, though :)

The Saucepan Man

05-10-2004, 05:02 AM

I still feel that you & Aiwendil are wanting 'Truth' reduced to a set of 'facts' which you can analyse & 'see through', rather than accepting that is the 'source' of 'facts' as well as everything else.On the contrary, I accept that truth cannot be reduced to a set of facts. The very essence of what I am saying is that truth is often intensely personal and cannot be analysed and objectively judged “right” or “wrong”. What I am resisting is the reduction of these individual truths to a single “Truth” which we all must subscribe to whether we like it or not. I, for one, would not like to live in a world where there was only one “correct” set of values, beliefs and interpretations (which we either see or we don't see) since, in its purest form (when all "see the light"), that world would require us all to think alike. If, for example, there were “correct” and “incorrect” emotional reactions, as the article by Lewis which you quote suggests, then I would dread the day when we all found the “correct” response. The world would be a very dull place indeed if we were all responding emotionally to things in the same way.

I can't help feeling that you are running scared of a belief - that if you were to accept that 'Truth' is 'real' then you would have to put down your Tolkien, pick up a Bible & head off to Church.I am not at all scared of belief. I have my own beliefs, with which I am comfortable. They are no doubt very similar to yours and many others posting here in very many ways. But they are personal to me, and I do not expect others to accept them as the “Truth”, or even their truth. They are simply my truth.

But really, I do think that my personal beliefs have very little to do with the issues under discussion, save to illustrate that we all respond differently (to a greater or lesser degree) to Tolkien’s works, something which I firmly believe we should be entitled to do without being told that we are somehow missing something.

HerenIstarion

05-10-2004, 05:13 AM

by SpM

What I am resisting is the reduction of these individual truths to a single “Truth” which we all must subscribe to whether we like it or not

Dangerous ground, that. Should we judge the truth of the maxim of 'murder (not war killing, or accident, but deliberate murder) is bad' on the ground that murderer him/herself, perhaps, has different code of conduct which carries along his/her personal truth of "murder is good"?

mark12_30

05-10-2004, 05:26 AM

Heren Istarion wrote:
Now I can't help feeling that was a bit unfair, though

H-I, I'm trying to figure out why, and to whom.

Given one of davem's previous statements:

I'm not interested in converting anyone to anything. I'm not a Christian, or a follower of any specific belief or religion

compared with this

I can't help feeling that you are running scared of a belief - that if you were to accept that 'Truth' is 'real' then you would have to put down your Tolkien, pick up a Bible & head off to Church.

...I'm not sure what davem is getting at. But a little red flag does go up, for me, since using that phrasing would have landed me in a cauldron, and so I instinctively re-phrase it. It looks to me (correct me if I'm wrong, davem) that what davem is getting at, is that if one is faced with accepting or rejecting Something (such as, but not limited to, "there is such a thing as absolute truth", ) one visceral reaction often seen in various individuals is essentially, if I choose to accept "this" then I must change (either a set of behaviors or a way of life) and I do not wish to change.

davem, would you agree or disagree with this rewording?

HerenIstarion

05-10-2004, 05:42 AM

Heren Istarion wrote:

Now I can't help feeling that was a bit unfair, though

H-I, I'm trying to figure out why, and to whom.

To Aiwendil and Saucepan Man. The statement was speculative (and in personal way at that), we can not judge what both of them fear or anticipate, unless they explicitly tell us so. And though Aiwendil admitted being an atheist, but that does not lead to that he fears to believe if argued into it by means of reason (he seems the type for such a way to me - now me being speculating in personal way, hum), but it does not follow he is scared. Nor are we their analysts, neither them our patients. Would not it be equally unfair of them to tell us that we were afraid to admit the harsh 'reality' of Godless world and were trying to find sort of a blindfold in religion to sooth our fear?

I hope that no one gets offended by this particular entry of mine, though :)

mark12_30

05-10-2004, 06:10 AM

OK, point taken.

The Saucepan Man

05-10-2004, 06:54 AM

Should we judge the truth of the maxim of 'murder (not mere killing, or accident, but deliberate murder) is bad' on the ground that murderer him/herself, perhaps, has different code of conduct which carries along his/her personal truth of "murder is good"?In many cases (although not all), I do not doubt that the murderer is acting in accordance with his or her personal values. Happily such individuals are in the minority since murder (as a general proposition) is regarded by the overwhelming majority of people as detrimental to society and therefore "wrong". Equally happily, I find myself in the majority on that one. :D

However, there are cases where deliberate murder is regarded as “good” by society itself. State-sanctioned murder, in the form of capital punishment, is regarded by many as morally acceptable. I cannot accept it as such. Different values. Different truths.

Now I can't help feeling that was a bit unfair, thoughI wouldn’t regard it as such, given that Aiwendil and I are perfectly capable of speaking up for ourselves. I hope that I have made my position clear. If not, then I doubt that there’s much more I can say on this question of truth and belief.

Would not it be equally unfair of them to tell us that we were afraid to admit the harsh 'reality' of Godless world and were trying to find sort of a blindfold in religion to sooth our fear?I would be more likely to point to the problems caused throughout history when one set of people claims a monopoly on the truth and asserts that there is something wrong with those who will not or cannot see it in the same way. :p ;)

Fordim Hedgethistle

05-10-2004, 08:17 AM

Greetings all. It’s been a while since I posted to the thread, but I have been watching the debate unfold with great interest. The discussion of Truth/truths is fascinating and I think central to what Tolkien was working through in his subcreation. To belabour a point I first may a while ago on this thread, I think that it is entirely appropriate to see the confrontation between the Nazgûl and the Fellowship as a confrontation between those who wish to defend the right of the Free Peoples to maintain their own sense of truth(s) against the false imposition of a totalitarian Truth by the forces of Mordor.

If that paragraph makes it look as though I am equating capital-T Truth with the project of Sauron – well, yes, I am. But please bear with me davem, Mark 12_30, Lyta, Child and H-I as I am not calling you Nazgûl (although I bet you’d all look totally cool in black) ;)

Sauron’s project, as far as I can figure it, is to force a situation upon the world in which his own personal vision of truth (through his ego I/Eye) becomes the vision of Truth. And that’s some really dangerous territory that I think this thread is beginning to slip into. In this ‘enchanting’ or ‘joyous’ or ‘through a glass darkly’ kind of truth-apprehension that we are celebrating here (and that many of us find in Tolkien’s works) there is a real danger that we will mistake a mirror for a window, and project onto others our own personal views.

In this intuitive moment of apprehension of Truth, there are two possibilities of what’s happening. First, we are engaging with Truth (whatever that might be) but we will only ever be able to do so from our own limited and individual perspective. So while we may ‘see’ Truth we can only ever bring it into our own lives – yoke it to the horizons of our own historical experience – as an individually-understood version or truth of that Truth. The other, rather more simple and disturbing possibility that we’ve explored, is that there is no Truth, and all we see is ourselves, and we then pretend that truth of our own making is the Truth (and this is the Sauron approach).

I believe that most of us here are proceeding in the first mode – that is, we gain some apprehension of Truth through and in the very act of imaginatively engaging with Middle-Earth (which is itself the record of Tolkien’s imaginative engagement with Truth), but where we need to be very careful is in saying that “we’ve glimpse the Truth” and either leaving it there or, worse, begin to work out what that Truth might be for other people. To do this is to slip back into a more Sauron-like mode, as we take our own limited and individual perspective and try to extrapolate from that to what other people might think of it.

As I said in my last post (way back in box 201), I believe that there is a way past or through these individual experiences of truth – and I believe that Tolkien, in the Fellowship, gives us a nice model of that. Actually, where I think we see a way past the fragmentary nature of the endless plurality of truths (or, the endless plurality of individual perspectives on Truth that we experience in our historical time as our own truths) is in chapters like “The Council of Elrond” where reasoned dialogue and stories, conversation, equality of relationships, debate and argument are used to navigate and negotiate through the complicated nature of the history that they are confronting, without ever really pretending to understand the nature of that history. The task of the Council, remember, is not to decide What Does The Ring Mean? But What Must We Do With The Ring?

It’s this process of debate, confrontation, negotiation, conversation that allows us to integrate our own truths (as perspectives onto Truth) into and with one another. The goal, then, is not to achieve Truth-as-Object (to look through some window and ‘just know’ that we are beholding Truth) but to find a way in which we can proceed in our explorations in a truth-full manner. And again, Tolkien has anticipated us: the point of the Quest is not, as Auden pointed out, to achieve the Precious Object but to destroy it. The whole purpose of the Fellowship is to rid the world of the dangerous and totalitarian idea of a single overbearing Truth with which to unite and bind all ‘lesser’ truths (“One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them / One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them”).

There is a unity of Truth, but it is not the unity that comes from singularity (“we all see the same Truth, even though we have different perspectives or versions of that Truth”); instead it is the kind of unity that we find in the Council of Elrond or amongst the Fellowship (“we are on the same journey with different paths, we have the same purpose but different ends”). Capital-T Truth cannot exist as a stationary object in the historical time of human experience, it can only be captured in and through the process of truth-full speaking that we enact as we engage with each others in reasoned and equal dialogue about our own truths (be those truths self-constructed or individual versions of the Truth).

mark12_30

05-10-2004, 08:53 AM

(although I bet you’d all look totally cool in black)

Thank you.

However...
Sauron’s project, as far as I can figure it, is to force a situation upon the world in which his own personal vision of truth (through his ego I/Eye) becomes the vision of Truth.

(a) Is it really that simple? Domination, subjugation and lust for power have nothing to do with it?

(b) If it is that simple, does that preclude Eru from having "his own personal vision of truth" or (alternately) does it preclude Eru's "own personal vision of truth" from being True?

and

(c) At what point have I (or davem, Lyta, Child and H-I ) stated that you must see the Truth as we see it? If the Truth is as large as I have proposed (and I have proposed that it is, indeed, infinite, since it "contains" an infinite God -- horrible choice of words, but to continue) then no human mind can possibly claim to have it all. At best, each of us gathers what glimpses we can. ("Five nearsighted hobbits approach an oliphaunt...")

I also stated that in my opinion those who claim to "have" or to have "mastered" the Truth haven't been pursuing it long enough to realize how big it is. So how do you extrapolate from that that I aim to impose my view-- Sauron-like, "own personal vision of truth (through his ego)?"

BTW, "beyond cloud nine " sounds like quite a nice place to be.

davem

05-10-2004, 11:43 AM

Ok, not wanting to be misunderstood, & I was maybe writing too quickly. When I said

'I can't help feeling that you are running scared of a belief - that if you were to accept that 'Truth' is 'real' then you would have to put down your Tolkien, pick up a Bible & head off to Church.'

What I meant was, it seems to me that you feel that if you acknowledged the existence of some ultimate Truth, you feel you would have to do something - as though the very existence of Truth, would require some response, some action. The way you both seem to fight against it makes it seem that way.

As I stated in my last post, I'm not using the term Truth in the sense of a set of moral tenets, a clearly set out Dogma which you have to sign up to. I suggested the use of Tao, following Lewis' use in his book, or 'Joy', following Tolkien in the fairy Stories essay. And I'm happy to use 'Joy' (capitalised again - sorry!) if others prefer it, as long as it is understood to be an absolute - as in the Book of Job, 38,7 :'When the morning stars sang together, & all the sons of God shouted for Joy'.

I'm not talking about a moral philosophy that you have to go along with, so there will never be a situation where everyone is required to believe the same things, & see the world in the same way. Indeed, the experience of absolute 'Joy', or Truth is beyond words - eucatastrophe, like enchantment cannot be explained - only explained away, & whatever lies beyond Eucatastrophe, the full experience of what we glimpse in that moment is even farther out of reach for the rational mind. In the Cloud of Unknowing the author writes that 'God' cannot be known by the intellect, & as far as I'm concerned you can substitute 'Joy' for God in the sense in which I'm using the term.

We can say, reducing all the references, & theories, about Tolkien's motivations, all the stuff about moral regeneration, all of it, to a simple statement of what he wanted to do in his work. He wanted to bring as much Joy to as many of us as possible. He had a particular view of the way to bring that about - in literature & in life, but it was all a means to an end. What he really felt was that there was a lack of 'Joy' in the world, that the world had become dirty & shabby & miserable & sick, & needed healing. So he wrote stories to bring us Joy - to give us access, through enchantment, to something that would make us Joyous, make the world we live in more magical, by showing us a world where magic & Joy &, yes, Truth, could be seen.

So when we leave Middle Earth we feel a lack - why? Because Tolkien has opened up a space in us, waiting for something to fill it, & we go looking for it, 'round the corner', where there may wait ' new road or a secret gate'. And we're looking for Joy, because we've glimpsed it, & feel, hope, it might just be out there, somewhere. We become seekers, questers. So, on one level, the Ring is all the 'dirtiness, shabbyness, misery & sickness' of the world & in ourselves, & if we can get rid of it - however hard the struggle is - we will be able to take the Ship into the West, to Avalon, where in Tennyson's words:

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,//
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies//
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns//
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea.

And before the materialists take up their big guns, that Joy can be found here, in this world, because its a way of seeing & experiencing the world around us, as well as what may happen after - if anything does. Its the 'harmonic' thing again - this world, enchantment, eucatastrophe & Joy, they're all the same, & they're all here, now, if we can change our way of looking. The Tao Te Ching says 'without leaving his own room a man may know the whole world'. If we can have a glimpse of Joy while we're still in this world, if even materialists can glimpse it ;), then its here, & its our fault we don't see it, live it, all the time.

What Tolkien is saying is that Joy is true - its the Truth, because its more true than anything else.

I don't know if this is enough, & whether there will still be demands for Joy to be reduced to a set of facts & figures which we can all debate. Joy is canonical, if we can say anything is, & any interpretation of Tolkien's works, any fanfic, must capture that - or at least the hope of it, if it is to be acceptable. So, any interpretation of Tolkien's work that doesn't produce that feeling of Joy, is WRONG. Because, under all the sadness & suffering & loss in his work, there is Joy, the striving for it & the sense of overwhelming grief when it seems beyond reach. All the struggles of all the characters in the book are struggles to find Joy, & all our struggles in this world are the same.

And why struggle on like that for something so seemingly 'ephemeral' & abstract as 'Joy'? Because its not either ephemeral or abstract - its 'True'. Its the one True thing, all the other stuff that isn't Joy is transitory, & its in the way & we have to get over it, or around it, one way or another, to get to what's True.

So, no-one need feel they're missing anything if they don't understand or agree with Tolkien's 'Truth'. Its not some big secret that you have to study years to get at, or read all his books & all the books about him. If you read just LotR & The Hobbit & enjoy them, you've understood it.

Fordim Hedgethistle

05-10-2004, 12:25 PM

davem wrote:

So, any interpretation of Tolkien's work that doesn't produce that feeling of Joy, is WRONG. Because, under all the sadness & suffering & loss in his work, there is Joy, the striving for it & the sense of overwhelming grief when it seems beyond reach. All the struggles of all the characters in the book are struggles to find Joy, & all our struggles in this world are the same.

What kind of an interpretative regime are we establishing with this? It seems to be utterly and inescapably subjective ("Hmmm, does this 'feel' like it's joyful? OK good, it does, therefore it's right!") -- which renders such subjectivity as the arbiter for other people's truth. What's more, it seems to me at least that this way lies, unavoidably, some kind of priestly-class of reader who is more 'able' or 'attuned' to this intuitive moment of 'Joy' -- and therefore more in touch with the 'rightness' or 'Truth' or whatever occasioned by the text.

Bêthberry

05-10-2004, 12:44 PM

Playing catch-up here! I would like to look back to Child's post # 268 and davem's post # 271. I think that ultimately my comments will point back to the idea Fordim has just made about the value and worth of discussion (which I think harkens back to my idea of 'interpretive community').

Child I thank you for the eloquence with which you have pointed out that there are many ways to seek this light. I would, however, like to comment on this well-taken point you made:

Yes, you are right. Something may be gained from a discussion of views like Greer and the neo-Nazis. (Poor Germain Greer! I've never liked her, but it seems cruel to put her in the same boat as those other folk.)

Yet, I am likely to learn considerably more by reading someone like Flieger or Shippey, whose perception and views on Middle-earth are far more acute.

I have no doubt that you (and I) will gain more from reading someone like Flieger or Shippey than reading the neo-Nazis. Who is to say, though, whether our experiece is greater or lesser than that of others. I can think of many readers, some beginning readers, some not so beginning, whose understanding of story and narrative might well be expanded greatly by considering how both Wagner and Tolkien were or can be appropriated by the neo-Nazis. For them, the enlightenment could well be far greater than that which you and I experience. For this reason, that there are many different kinds of reading experiences and many different ways to examine a subject, I hesitate to say that my experience reading Flieger is more successful or valuable than someone else's experience addressing the white supremacists. This, I think, relates to Sauce's point about the value of individual reading experiences.

davem,

When we read his reasons & his explanations for what he wrote, we are as likely to respond by thinking 'Of course! that explains what I felt!' as we are to respond 'Why, that's not it at all! I never felt that!' I would say that the former response is more common.

Even granted that this is so (which I do no think has been proven here), does that negate the experience of those who say "that's not it!" ? At most it proves that the position is uncommon or unusual, but it does not make it wrong. Many ideas in human history began with one or two voices having different experience and wanting to make that experience known and understood. The next step is, as Fordim suggests, to talk, to engage in a comparative process of understanding.

The Legendarium was Tolkien's manifesto, & it means what he intended it to mean, & while we may take from it what we will, or reject it all entirely, we can't claim it means nothing at all, & was not intended to do what the writer has stated clearly it was meant to do. I just can't see how anyone can seperate the story from its meaning, or claim it means whatever they choose it to mean. Tolkien is the only one who can claim the Humpty Dumpty role here -'when I use a word it means precisely what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less'

I find it strange that there is this tendency to equate the position of multiple interpretations with a Humpty Dumpty role or total chaos. The reader is in fact under the same kind of injunction which Tolkien made of the writer in "On Fairy Stories", that his understanding must be consistent. It must be consistent with the reader's own experience (and where this can be shown to be inconsistent, new understanding arises) and it must be consistent with the text. In Tolkien's case, that text is, as I said before, implicit rather than explict. As Child astutely observed, Tolkien was not Lewis. It seems to me, davem, that you draw conclusions from the text and then want to say this is explicit. This is, I humbly suggest, a "misreading" of the text based upon your insistence that there must be an authorising intention found in the text. Your argument, to me, does not recognise the indeterminant nature of much of Tolkien's narrative. You pull the strands together to create an overarching metatheory of meaning, but Tolkien's stories hold that only in potential and in part. He gave us the glass darkly. He didn't want it any other way. So, you see, my position does not in fact ignore what the writer meant.

EDIT: Perhaps another point is that we react to the way you phrase your points, davem. Look at this sentence:

So when we leave Middle Earth we feel a lack

That "we" certainly sounds all-encompassing and authoritative, but I am going to ask you to reconsider it. I don't think I have this experience you claim for all of us. What I feel when I finish reading Tolkien is little different than feelings of departures from other extremely well imagined worlds of fiction. It is narrative cessation--a post-reading desire comedown--not a sense that this world somehow fails. While you might well think that you are not enforcing your "Truth" on us, your style does not seem to suggest there are other possibilities out there.

And now I leave, taking my prism with me outside and dangling it in the sunshine, to watch the play of lights that dances around it.

Lyta_Underhill

05-10-2004, 01:23 PM

SpM's post 273: But no one will have precisely the same set of values. They will differ (often slightly, sometimes considerably) from person to person. And that’s why I have difficulty in accepting that there is a single, capitalised “Truth”.

Perhaps the capitalization could refer to the magnitude, rather than the universality of said truth. A Truth in one person’s life may be a truth (lowercase) or even a perceived falsehood in another’s.

By definition, Middle-earth is a fictional world, and therefore false, whereas we are confronted every day (often in unpleasant ways) with the reality of our own world.

Perhaps this is where the materialists and the spiritualists (to borrow and misuse a label) differ. Middle Earth is a created reality, a second reality or sub-creation. It is not materially existent in this world; however, the very fact that it is read by more than one person makes it a shared psychological or mental reality. A spiritually centered person will give more weight to what is in the mind and/or “soul” than one who needs a material proof to accept the “reality” of an idea. I do not mean to denigrate the materialist for needing such proof, nor should a spiritually centered person be belittled for accepting something for which there is no objective or material proof; but it seems that this very need redefines what the materialist thinks of as true and what he perceives as false, when compared to a spiritual person’s viewpoint. It appears, to me, to be a discontinuity in commonality of definition of “true” and “false.”

My own view is that everything is true, and many mischaracterize this viewpoint as being necessarily naïve or blind in its acceptance of absolutely everything. I do not, however, give everything equal weight or value when applied to my chosen worldview and goals, and I often reject that which I perceive to be wrong or evil according to my own set of tests, which probably hold a lot in common with others’ tests of same. It is my opinion that, to relegate an idea to the level of False (capital) is to fail to completely consider it from all angles, just as such is so for True (capital). This does not negate the logical true/false values, as those are defined based on the “initial conditions” of an experiment, and a definite material end point which can either meet a criterion or fail to meet it according to the test applied. (I thought I’d add that bit before Aiwendil jumps all over me for sounding like a constructivist again…I’m pretty convinced I am not, but I think I often sound like one. Perhaps it is my sloppy expression of concepts that I am always refining without fully forming to begin with…sorry if I sound flaky, but it is my nature!) ;)

My concern, though, is that if we say that there is a “Truth” in Tolkien’s works and that if you cannot see it then you are not reading it correctly or you are not ready for the “Truth”, then we will engender just such a worry in people.

That is what I was addressing with my notes on applicability to a particular reader. If a great “Truth” has no place in that person’s life, then it ceases to be something that he or she must see, now or eventually. But often, such truths become applicable, and a reader sees things that were hidden before. This does not make the first reading naïve or the reader dense. The meaning, or truth, simply does not apply at the time of reading. No matter how much another person tries to hammer at someone to find a particular “message” in a piece of literature, art, or martial art, it will not become suddenly clear or applicable until that person needs it and recognizes the need for it.

(It may be different for martial arts, as the teachings that they involve have a very specific purpose. Literature, to me, is a very different kettle of fish.)

I don’t really see a difference in the basic aims of martial arts and literature from the “art” standpoint—simply a different medium of expression, and certainly the test of good vs. evil must be VERY well defined against strict tests if one is to practice martial philosophy in the real (material) world, because there is a great responsibility to be borne if one is to wield the power of life and death, even in one’s own defense or in the defense of another who is in need. I can’t say that the specifics are very similar, but, in that both disciplines are “arts,” both strive to a perfect state of expression.

I think I shall stop here, as there is much left to do in the material world, but I am thoroughly enjoying this thread!

Cheers!
Lyta

Child of the 7th Age

05-10-2004, 01:33 PM

To belabour a point I first may a while ago on this thread, I think that it is entirely appropriate to see the confrontation between the Nazgûl and the Fellowship as a confrontation between those who wish to defend the right of the Free Peoples to maintain their own sense of truth(s) against the false imposition of a totalitarian Truth by the forces of Mordor.

If that paragraph makes it look as though I am equating capital-T Truth with the project of Sauron – well, yes, I am. But please bear with me davem, Mark 12_30, Lyta, Child and H-I as I am not calling you Nazgûl (although I bet you’d all look totally cool in black)

Fordim --

Ahem! That's the second time, you've hinted at a certain kinship I may have with the Nazgûl. As I read your posts, I feel a strong compulsion to go down to the Shire and dig up an RPG where I can fly around and instill terror in folk's heart!

I am, however, puzzled why I ended up with the MIB. Not that I can't appreciate a dark hooded cloak as well as the next fellow. I can't speak for anyone else lumped together in that group, but I thought I had clarified my position in my last two posts.

As far as "Truth" goes (with a capital 'T'), I have strong feelings that flow naturally out of my own personal experiences as well as my background as an historian. My preference is that we completely discard the term "Truth" in these discussions because I think it leads to a dead-end. I do not personally doubt that there is a core of Truth at the center of existence. But my own view would be similar to that expressed in Helen's last post. That Truth so transcends our personal experience that, whatever we may feel we think or know, can only be a partial and flawed approximation of what actually exists. We see through a glass darkly, and it would be presumptious of me to judge anyone or ask them to conform to my own opinions.

As I said before, if I want to talk about how I personally perceive that which transcends the corporeal or visible world, I would far rather employ the symbol and image that Tolkien used in his own writings -- that of Light. Light is both a reality and a perception. Unlike "Truth", there is no suggestion of a single, unvarying standard. By its very nature, light changes and shifts. There is an interplay of brightness and shadow. To me that is a closer approximation of how we individually perceive what lies beyond, and it is a response closer to Tolkien's own, at least what he has delineated for us in LotR. I am not comfortable with a monolithic "Truth" by which we judge everyone and everything a lá Sauron

In all his writings, Tolkien stresses the flawed nature of Man: the fact that the best we can hope for at this point in time is a "long defeat", with only an occasional, temporary victory. Even with his strong Catholic beliefs, I have little doubt that JRRT would say that it is simply impossible for Man, as flawed as he is, to see or understand the Truth in all its complexity. Whatever we see is a tiny piece of the whole and, since we are all looking from varying perspectives and backgrounds, it is no wonder that we all sense and describe something different.

Like Saucepan Man, I sometimes shudder at what humanity has managed to do historically all in the name of Truth: group after group coming forward and claiming to hold the ultimate solution and imposing that on others: religious, political, racial, you name it.... I think Tolkien was equally suspicious of any kind of moral, spiritual, or political coercion. The Shire, perhaps his ideal statement of community, is a laissez-faire enterprise where the mayor's most onerous duty is presiding at banquets. His Hobbit heroes, especially Bilbo and Frodo, are delightful non-conformists who would hardly fit into a regimented state. His good Kings of Gondor and Rohan did little more than act as military leaders and moral examples. Tolkien once described himself as an anarchist, albeit not the kind with a bomb. He would have objected to our faceless government bureaucracies as being another manifestation of the spirit of Sauroman, determined to bludgeon us into obedience and conformity.

Fordim - I do agree that at the heart of Sauron's evil lay his desire to compel others to accept his own personal view of things. Subjegation and domination, the extinction of the individual personality, were simply a way to implement that "Truth". Even his lust for Power presumed that there was an end goal or product that must be achieved at any cost.

Tolkien, the devout Catholic who personally paid homage to Truth, was also the great champion of diversity and the freedom of the individual to act with as few constraints as possible. Middle-earth is filled with a diversity of peoples, all with different ideas and cultures, and the author takes delight in each. There is no one universal pattern that his characters must emulate to achieve goodness. Each one in the Fellowship has a different path to follow. It is only Sauron and his ilk who insisst on an unwavering "Truth" (with a big T), a final solution that everyone is expected to bow down in front of. Sauron's insistence on "Truth" is not only an affront to all the free peoples of Middle-earth, but more critically an affront to Illuvatar who remains the final and only guardian of Truth, the only one who truly understands all the strains of the Music.

What Tolkien seems to be hinting at is that we should all be wary of anyone who proposes to understand Truth, especially all the Sarumans who are floating around in our modern world and who want to force their own Truths down our throats, since true knowledge of the Music can lie only with Eru. Gandalf alludes to a similar thing when he explains how the Ring would corrupt his own good intentions. In a desire to serve Truth, he would put his own perceptions ahead of others and even of Illuvatar's own plan, and that would lead to disaster.

So, let's be careful. "Truth" can be a dangerous, dangerous thing, a fact that JRRT recognized, since it can easily be turned into an instrument for coercion and the substitution of our own will for that of God's. In the end, we are flawed creatures who can understand only a few fleeting notes of the Music of creation.

mark12_30

05-10-2004, 03:06 PM

I am more and more puzzled by the aversion to the word "truth". In his essay "On Faery Stories" Tolkien is not the least bit shy about using this word, any more than we should be shy about using the word "joy" (as davem has recommended.) Refer to the epilog of "On Faery Stories."

Or refer to Mythopoeia (http://www.geocities.com/domachowski/mythopoeia.html) , the Word In Question is also used.

It has already been quoted in Letters.

C7A states:
So, let's be careful. "Truth" can be a dangerous, dangerous thing, a fact that JRRT recognized, since it can easily be turned into an instrument for coercion and the substitution of our own will for that of God's.

Then it's not Truth anymore, it's domination and subjugation. Substitution of our own will for God's is hardly what I'd call "Truth".

It seems to me that lack of humility and gentleness is a far, far greater danger than the use of the word "Truth"; let's not toss out the proverbial baby with the bathwater.

In the end, we are flawed creatures who can understand only a few fleeting notes of the Music of creation.

But that doesn't mean we should call it dissonance, does it? It is what it is: music-- even if we only hear a tiny peice of it. Calling it dissonance or noise or auditory stimulation makes us no wiser than calling it music.

drigel

05-10-2004, 03:34 PM

Canon is nessesary only for interesting discusssions taking place on this site, or the New Silm project

Aiwendil

05-10-2004, 03:54 PM

Apologies in advance for what is bound to be a long post, considering the amount of discussion that has gone on since my last one.

Davem wrote:
I didn't intend to suggest that. I would ask what their standard is, by which they measure such things - isn't it from some innate sense of right & wrong, of false & 'True'? They hold to some 'ideal' of how things should be, & compare things as they are to that 'ideal'.

As I said before, I don't think that this is the best place to launch into a discussion of moral philosophy. If we are simply talking about distinguishing false propositions from true ones - well, we have all manner of techniques for doing this - logic, mathematics, science, analytic philosophy, etc. Yes, I understand that this is not what you mean. But I am not just being deliberately obtuse. I hold that if "false" and "true" are meaningful, then these are the things one must engage in order to learn which propositions are true and which are false. But I don't think that this is the place to discuss the foundations of epistemology either.

I don't think it is possible to define 'Truth' precisely, because we haven't reached the that 'state'.
and later
I still feel that you & Aiwendil are wanting 'Truth' reduced to a set of 'facts' which you can analyse & 'see through', rather than accepting that is the 'source' of 'facts' as well as everything else.

I'm sorry; while I understand that you think that "Truth" can be a meaningful term and yet one that cannot be defined, I simply don't accept that. I don't know how to have a rational argument with someone who uses a term that (they claim) is by its very nature impossible to define. So unless there is something more that you can say about "Truth", the debate simply must stop there.

And here we come perilously close to entering into yet another big discussion for which this thread is not the place - philosophy of meaning. If anyone is actually interested in my views on that subject, and is feeling particularly adventurous, you may want to check out this monstrosity of a thread (http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?t=11358) at The Tolkien Forum. It began innocently enough as a discussion of absolute vs. relative morals, but around page 4 it becomes a rather intense debate between me and someone else. Anyway, I provide the link because I don't want to simply ignore the whole matter of the philosophy of meaning that arises in relation to the term "Truth", but neither do I want to take up pages talking about it.

I don't think I am. For the enchantment to work, the secondary world must be self contained, if it is not to come across as allegory & the spell fail to be cast effectively. Only in that 'enchanted' state can we fully experience eucatastrophe, when as Helen says, our guard is down.

Forgive me; I'm merely trying to narrow in on exactly what your answer to the following question is: was the primary motivation behind Tolkien's work the communication of "Truth" to his readers?

That is a yes or no question. It sounds to me like your answer is "yes". Am I wrong?

I provided some evidence in the opposite direction earlier:
Tolkien's opinion seems likely to have changed - we have statements in the Letters to the effect that he never expected any of his Silmarillion-related work to be enjoyed by anyone but himself (and Lewis); we also have his statement that the mythology grew out of his desire to provide a historical context for the languages he was inventing. And we have his agreement with Lewis that there was not enough fiction of the sort they liked to read, hence they would have to write it.

and
I believe it's in "On Faery Stories" that Tolkien discusses the phrase "the green sun". At first glance, this appears to be nonsensical. But no, Tolkien says; the phrase is a perfectly good one - so long as its user provides a thoroughly consistent context within which the phrase is to be believed. In other words, it's not strictly the realism of a work of fiction that matters; it's the believability; the internal consistency.

If your answer is indeed "yes" as I suppose, how do you account for these things?

So as far as Tolkien is concerned: I won't rule out his opinion just because he happens to be dead, because thats undemocratic. He may not be right, but he has a right not to be ignored, & the same goes for Rob Gilson & GB Smith. Universal Sufferage, guys!

Well, I'll accept a rational argument from anyone, living or dead. But I won't just concede the point to a dead person any more than I will to a living one.

Lyta Underhill wrote:
Every time I return to it, I see beauties and truths reflected through his words, and I know there are more to be seen if I look properly. Some others on this thread have expressed the desire NOT to know everything, so I think they know what I am trying, stumblingly so, to get across in my ramblings.

I agree with you with regard to beauty. That is, each time I re-read LotR or "The Silmarillion" or The Hobbit I discover ways in which it is aesthetically pleasing that I had failed to notice before. But I don't think I agree about the truths; or perhaps I just misunderstand you. It's not that I think there are "Truths" in Davem's sense in LotR which I am for whatever reason not interested in; I think that there are no "Truths" of that sort - moreover, I think that "Truths" of that sort do not exist.

The Saucepan Man wrote:
To follow your argument to its extreme, we could not appreciate Tolkien’s works unless we recognised Eru as our own God and accepted the creation story as laid out in the Silmarillion as fact. At the very least, we would (as Child points out) have to subscribe to Tolkien’s own religious beliefs in order to enjoy his stories. Yet, there are very few who read and enjoy his works (even among Christians) who subscribe to his particular set of beliefs.

This is a very good point. I repeat an earlier, unanswered query to Davem (and to anyone that shares his opinion): if the fundamental reason that a reader likes Tolkien is that the reader, consciously or not, recognizes the "Truth" of Tolkien's work, how is that the same reader can also like other authors with quite different views? If I like Tolkien because I subconsciously recognize the glimpse of Truth that he gives me, why are my other favorite authors Asimov, Clarke, and Adams?

HerenIstarion wrote:
And though Aiwendil admitted being an atheist, but that does not lead to that he fears to believe if argued into it by means of reason

Well, I don't think I actually used the word "atheist" - only because that can imply an equally unreasoned "certainty" that there is no god. As you suggest, I will certainly believe something to be likely if presented with a convincing rational argument to that effect.

Fordim Hedgethistle wrote:
The discussion of Truth/truths is fascinating and I think central to what Tolkien was working through in his subcreation. To belabour a point I first may a while ago on this thread, I think that it is entirely appropriate to see the confrontation between the Nazgûl and the Fellowship as a confrontation between those who wish to defend the right of the Free Peoples to maintain their own sense of truth(s) against the false imposition of a totalitarian Truth by the forces of Mordor.

I'm afraid I must disagree. Within Arda, there is very clearly a single truth about God, for example. Sauron isn't bad because he wished to impose his own beliefs on everyone; he's bad because the things he claimed were wrong (though I think what makes him really evil is that the things he did were wrong). It's not that Melkorism ought not to be forced on those that don't want it. It's that Melkorism is simply false.

Of course, all of that is intra-Legendarium.

Davem wrote:
I'm not talking about a moral philosophy that you have to go along with, so there will never be a situation where everyone is required to believe the same things, & see the world in the same way.

Then what are you talking about? I don't mean to be rude. I just mean that in my usage, "truth", "Tao", and "joy" are three very different terms with very different meanings. If I understand "joy" as it is in my usage, then when you say:

We can say, reducing all the references, & theories, about Tolkien's motivations, all the stuff about moral regeneration, all of it, to a simple statement of what he wanted to do in his work. He wanted to bring as much Joy to as many of us as possible.

I agree. But when I say "joy" I just mean pleasure, enjoyment. Clearly you mean something more. And I fear that either you must spell out precisely what this "more" is or we are at an impasse.

I don't know if this is enough, & whether there will still be demands for Joy to be reduced to a set of facts & figures which we can all debate.

Well . . . as you can see . . .

I'm sorry (I honestly am, because I enjoy this debate and don't want it to end), but no number of synonyms or analogies is going to suffice. I should point out that I understand that you think it means something more than just "the set of true propositions about the world"; I think I even understand how you think it means more. I just don't agree that it can mean more.

Bethberry wrote:
I find it strange that there is this tendency to equate the position of multiple interpretations with a Humpty Dumpty role or total chaos. The reader is in fact under the same kind of injunction which Tolkien made of the writer in "On Fairy Stories", that his understanding must be consistent. It must be consistent with the reader's own experience (and where this can be shown to be inconsistent, new understanding arises) and it must be consistent with the text. In Tolkien's case, that text is, as I said before, implicit rather than explict. As Child astutely observed, Tolkien was not Lewis.

Yes! This is something like what I was trying to say quite a while ago with my talk about what a "reasonable person" would mean, but Bethberry puts it in much better words.

I don't think I have this experience you claim for all of us. What I feel when I finish reading Tolkien is little different than feelings of departures from other extremely well imagined worlds of fiction. It is narrative cessation--a post-reading desire comedown--not a sense that this world somehow fails.

This is more or less my experience as well. I am naturally always just a bit unhappy that the book is over, but no more so than when I read any good book (or when I listen to a good symphony, or watch a good movie, etc.).

Lyta Underhill wrote:
Middle Earth is a created reality, a second reality or sub-creation. It is not materially existent in this world; however, the very fact that it is read by more than one person makes it a shared psychological or mental reality.

This is certainly true. But there is a great deal of difference between ascribing to something a psychological reality and ascribing to it a transcendent Truth.

As a matter of fact, most of the aspects of "Truth" that Davem, Helen, and others put on a transcendent, metaphysical level I put on a psychological one. It is for this reason that I don't think "echantment" is meanigless, for example, and for this reason that I think the notion of Faerie has some value.

This does not negate the logical true/false values, as those are defined based on the “initial conditions” of an experiment, and a definite material end point which can either meet a criterion or fail to meet it according to the test applied. (I thought I’d add that bit before Aiwendil jumps all over me for sounding like a constructivist again…I’m pretty convinced I am not, but I think I often sound like one. Perhaps it is my sloppy expression of concepts that I am always refining without fully forming to begin with…sorry if I sound flaky, but it is my nature!)

Constructivist! Constructivist!

Well, no. And sorry about last time, by the way. At any rate, I agree with you that no truth ought to be elevated to the level of "Truth" and no falsehoold to the level of "False" - though I suspect we come to this conclusion for different reasons.

Child of the Seventh Age wrote:
I do agree that at the heart of Sauron's evil lay his desire to compel others to accept his own personal view of things. Subjegation and domination, the extinction of the individual personality, were simply a way to implement that "Truth". Even his lust for Power presumed that there was an end goal or product that must be achieved at any cost.

Really? I don't think Sauron would have been satisfied if all the free peoples simply declared that they agree with him on all issues. The impression I get from the MT text on Melkor's motivation vs. Sauron's is that Sauron's fundamental desire was to impose his own sort of Order (there! I can capitalize words too) on everyone.

Mark12_30 wrote:
I am more and more puzzled by the aversion to the word "truth". In his essay "On Faery Stories" Tolkien is not the least bit shy about using this word, any more than we should be shy about using the word "joy" (as davem has recommended.) Refer to the epilog of "On Faery Stories."

I don't have the least problem with using "Truth" to refer to the set of all true propositions. I think that "On Faery Stories" can be understood perfectly well with this definition (whether or not it was Tolkien's). Note that "Truth" in my understanding could very well include propositions like "there is a God" or "that cataract is sublime" (though of course it does not have to).

Fordim Hedgethistle

05-10-2004, 06:23 PM

Mark 12:30 wrote:

I also stated that in my opinion those who claim to "have" or to have "mastered" the Truth haven't been pursuing it long enough to realize how big it is. So how do you extrapolate from that that I aim to impose my view-- Sauron-like, "own personal vision of truth (through his ego)?"

And Child threatened:

Ahem! That's the second time, you've hinted at a certain kinship I may have with the Nazgûl. As I read your posts, I feel a strong compulsion to go down to the Shire and dig up an RPG where I can fly around and instill terror in folk's heart!

To save myself from misunderstanding (not to mention Child’s wrath!) allow me to clarify my point somewhat (although I was very careful there to say that I don’t think anyone here is a Nazgûl – balrogs, maybe, but never Nazgûl! (hmmm. . .but would they be winged balrogs, or unwinged. . . :D )

It just seems to me that the instant we begin to locate the text’s meaning or value anywhere near its association with or embodying forth of Truth (no matter how we use that term, and Child, I agree with you this is very dangerous territory – perilous even) then we run the risk of putting ourselves into the role of the Nazgûl insofar as we render ourselves willingly passive before the text. No matter how much we might say that we can apprehend that Truth as our own and make it belong to ourselves as individuals, we still are saying that the ‘point’ of reading is to lay ourselves down on the tracks of the reading experience and let the Truth roar over us like a freight train.

This is why I want to locate the ‘truth’ of the text within the process that it begins between the readers of it. This way, the truths that we develop within the truth-full relation or manner of speaking that we construct in response to the text is one in which we can maintain an active and willed freedom. The Nazgûl are the Nazgûl because they have lost the ability to ask any question other than “What does Sauron want of us?” They are utterly passive before the Truth that they have accepted (or been forced to accept, or whatever). The Fellowship remains free because they locate the truth of their quest explicitly NOT in relation to what Eru wants (there is no divine injunction to destroy the Ring) but because of the relationships that they have with and toward each other, and the other peoples of Middle-Earth. They are free in their Quest because they are free to turn aside from it at any time, but do not. The choices they make are, and must always be, over and over and over again, active re-affirmations of their commitment to the truths that impel them on their journey and bind them together. The instant we forget this and announce that the meaning of the journey is bound in any way to some singular and static Truth at the end. . .well, we cease to engage in the active pursuit of reaffirmation between and amongst our community, and subjugate ourselves to what we imagine that Truth to be.

mark12_30

05-10-2004, 08:34 PM

...we render ourselves willingly passive before the text. No matter how much we might say that we can apprehend that Truth as our own and make it belong to ourselves as individuals, we still are saying that the ‘point’ of reading is to lay ourselves down on the tracks of the reading experience and let the Truth roar over us like a freight train.

Does this really sound like Tolkien's definition of eucatastrophe to you, Fordim?

If I expected to be "freight-trained" by his story, or if I had been, I wouldn't have gone back to it over and over again. And I don't see Tolkien's description of "Joy, wonder, and far-off glimpse of evangelium" as a freight train. Nor do I see eucatastrophe as the reader being passive before the text; rather, the reader has an open, receptive heart as he reads the text with his mind engaged.

I do not think that Tolkien was thinking of being "freight-trained" by the Truth. I certainly don't interpret it that way. If phrases like "sudden and miraculous grace" bring images of a freight train to mind then then I suspect it will take a long, difficult time for this discussion to come to any sort of conclusion.

HerenIstarion

05-11-2004, 02:47 AM

Truth/Joy:

Atrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

Actually the Elves believed that the 'lightening of the heart' or the 'stirring of joy' (to which they often refer), which may accompany the hearing of a proposition or an argument, is not an indication of its falsity but of the recognition by the fea that it is on the path of truth.)

SpM Majority/Minority re:

many cases (although not all), I do not doubt that the murderer is acting in accordance with his or her personal values. Happily such individuals are in the minority since murder (as a general proposition) is regarded by the overwhelming majority of people as detrimental to society and therefore "wrong". Equally happily, I find myself in the majority on that one.

Do you imply that truth lies in numbers, than? If yes, pray tell me then, why exactly standards of the majority (even though it be overwhelming) should be preferred and overrule the standards of the minority? I believe that, whatever arguments may be presented, in the end you will end up with merely 'because good is good' maxim.

davem

05-11-2004, 04:27 AM

Well, I’m stuck. It seems that whatever term I use to refer to some underlying ‘state’ of ‘reality I’ll be asked to reduce it to a set of facts & figures. If I use ‘Truth’, however much I repeat that I’m not talking about some set of rules & regulations, I just get asked what rules & regulations I mean, & told that rules & regulations are BAD. If I use the term Joy, it is immediately dismissed as meaningless, or conflated with pleasure. If I use the term God or Heaven I get accused of trying to convert people. I’d use the word Magic, but I suspect it would be interpreted to mean ‘conjuring’ & I’d be asked to explain the ‘trick’. ‘Light’ seems to be acceptable – yet this light must have a source.

Sorry, but I can’t reduce what I’m referring to to something which fits within a narrow definition, & can be argued about from a psychological perspective, or a deconstructionist one. If all anyone gets from reading Tolkien’s works is something that can be reduced to that level, then I will go all the way out on this limb & say they’re missing the ‘truth’ of the story.

When Eckhart tells us that to see a flower as it has its being in God would be a greater thing than the whole world – you either accept that or you don’t. I believe Eckhart, & all the other mystics, of all the different spiritual traditions saw something more than the rest of us. I also believe that when I read Tolkien’s stories I get a glimpse of what they’re talking about, & that at the moments of eucatastrophe I glimpse that state even more strongly, & that it points me to something more – but, sorry, no hard evidence, no statistical proof. I haven’t been wired up in a lab & the information fed into a computer available to download.

It seems to me that some posters here are coming at things from the perspective that any statement about Tolkien’s works or intentions is only valid if it corresponds with some theory about the world which they hold to reflect reality.

So, I can’t prove Truth, Joy, Love, (Spiritual) Light, Magic, enchantment, eucatastrophe, God or Heaven exist. Sorry.

But what has all this to do with Tolkien? He wrote about Truth (but we have to dismiss that, because there’s no such thing, & even if there were it would be BAD). He wrote about Joy, & said it was the purpose of Fairy stories to expose us to it, but that has nothing to do with anything. He wrote about Love, but that’s just a subjective emotional state, & all we can do is argue about the particular chemicals which cause it. He wrote about Magic, but that’s all primitive trickery. He wrote about God but lets not go there, or we could end up encouraging another Inquisition. We can’t allow these things in (or anyone, including the author, who tries to bring them in), unless they’re accompanied by a THEORY, officially stamped ‘APPROVED’. I can’t reduce to ‘facts & figures’ something which was written with the express intention of helping us break free from such things, so I can’t really argue this subject anymore. I can’t argue from the perspective of the facts & figures of this world, because that, for me, is what Tolkien was trying to liberate us from, in his own small way.

I said, a long while back in this thread, that a Tonne of Facts isn’t worth a gramme of Enchantment (or Truth, or Joy, or ‘God’ or ‘Light’ or whatever other term you want to choose). I still think that’s true, & I simply don’t find psychology or literary theory ‘enchanting’, I don’t find either of them in Tolkien’s works, & don’t think they’re at all relevant or helpful or informative, when it comes to understanding what his works mean to us, or why we respond to them as we do.

' A fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the Walls of the World, poignant as grief'....In such stories when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, & heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, & lets a gleam come through.'

Sorry, that's all I've got. I agree with it, I think its 'True'. I think its Joyous.

HerenIstarion

05-11-2004, 04:53 AM

Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor,
for the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever,
and the Dark Tower is thrown down.

Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard,
for your watch hath not been in vain,
and the Black Gate is broken,
and your King hath passed through,
and he is victorious.

Sing and be glad, all ye children of the West,
for your King shall come again,
and he shall dwell among you
all the days of your life.

And the Tree that was withered shall be renewed,
and he shall plant it in the high places,
and the City shall be blessed.

Sing all ye people!

Child of the 7th Age

05-11-2004, 07:53 AM

Davem

This will be hurried as I am due at work, but I think you are selling yourself short.

In the first place, would it be such a terrible thing if we politely agreed that there were some points we could agree on, and others that we could not? This thread has reached a total of eight pages. With all those reflections and differing opinions, it's scarcely surprising that it would be difficult to reach a consensus.

Secondly, if we look at the thread as a whole, I think that there is more middle ground here than you are seeing right now. This began as a discussion of the right of the reader to grapple with the text on his own and to come up with interpretations that Tolkien had not personally discussed. It was a celebration of the individual and his or her right to bring his own personal background and experience into the literary mix. In essence, we were doing exactly what Tolkien recommends in his preface: not being locked into an allegorical meaning etched in stone, but having the freedom of applicability, looking at the story through the prism of our unique backgrounds and experiences and applying those ideas. We had individual quibbles about the place of the Letters in this process, or how to respond when confronted with interpretations that seemed contrary to what Tolkien himself said (a lá Stormfront) but for the most part we could at least define a middle ground.

Now we come to the difficult part. The thread drastically switched gears. Instead of celebrating the individual, we began searching instead for those common things that readers see in LotR and Tolkien's writings. In a sense it was like grafting a rose onto a pear tree. This had not been Fordim's initial question or intent.

Still, for the most part, we could agree that there was an element of enchantment or faerie that Tolkien drew upon, and that the majority of readers could sense that in their reading. The problem came when we tried to pin that down and put a name on it.

My personal objection to "Truth" (with a capital T) is not that it doesn't exist in the world as a whole. And I would certainly agree that Tolkien was attempting to reflect truth in LotR, and that it stands at the core of much of what he wrote. Even Aiwendil said he could accept that statement if truth was defined in its broadest sense. My objection to using "Truth" was a practical one. The minute you begin to define that term closely, you leave some people in the room and some people outside of it. This is particular true if you define truth in such a manner to touch upon the existence of God. One person's particular definition of Truth may not be the same as another's.

Tolkien was exceedingly careful not to define things in an explicit manner in LotR. He did not do what Lewis did. He uses the pregnant passive in LotR to give us vague hints of a greater force at work, but he does not spell out any of this in detail, at least not in this particular piece of writing. He tells us in the Letters that he did this intentionally. I also think it was intentional that he did not refer to "Truth" openly in the story itself.

Why did he do this? Helen has already pointed out that he did use the term "Truth" in Mythopoiea and On Faerie Stories. Perhaps because in this particular tale he didn't want to lock himself into the same problem we are having here? The minute you start defining Truth in a precise way, people's defensive walls go up as they begin to consider what side of the fence they are on, whether they fit into that particular defintion of truth or not. Tolkien did want to point out the shortcomings in our dreary old world, and to suggest that there could and should be more to life than that. The last thing he wanted to do was to get people's hackles up, so that they would build a wall and lose sight of what the author was saying.

And I am afraid that's what may be happening here. I sense an underlying exasperation in some of these posts that goes beyond a mere intellectual exchange. So my objection to 'Truth' as a term is merely a practical one. Helen may be right that I am throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But I see people becoming defensive about their particular definition of Truth and how that fits into their personal life and beliefs. I don't think that's what we're aiming for. It would be preferable to find terminology that doesn't raise this problem.

Whether we like it or not, Truth does imply a set standard. That is why I feel more comfortable with the terms "Joy" or "Light" which don't seem to carry quite the same meaning.

Fordim does have a point. If you look at "Truth" from a totally different vantage, you could argue that LotR is about rejecting anyone who comes telling you the "Truth", who claims to know the certainties of life better than you do, who in effect supplants Eru's music with his own ideas and schemes.

And I would say that Sauron does do this. Aiwendil , it's interesting that you mentioned Myths Transformed, because my own view of Sauron and Truth stem directly from that. Unlike Morgoth who was merely a nihilist (or at least had become one by the end of the First Age), Sauron did have a clear vision of "order and planning and organization". It has become the great Truth in his life, supplanting the music and plan that Eru put forward. Saruman had a similar vision. That vision of "order as Truth" is also one that we see in a certain modern political ideologies.

Can we not at least agree on a broad statement like this? That most readers see a core of 'enchantment' or 'faerie' which Tolkien depicts or draws upon in his writing. That this may go by different names -- truth, Truth, Joy, or Light-- and that we each differ somewhat in how we define or regard this concept, since we bring our own experiences and backgrounds into the process of definition. But can we not also agree that this core reflects the crucial values and themes that Tolkien delineates in his story: concepts of goodness, self sacrifice, love, and hope?

Would that ledge be broad enough to hold most of the readers here, but defined enough to have a least some meaning? If something like that still doesn't work, we may have to politely agree to disagree, which has certainly happened many times before.

Sorry if this is incoherent. I am racing off to work.

Sharon

bilbo_baggins

05-11-2004, 08:08 AM

I do believe that this Thread has transcended anything Tolkien-related. How far will it go? How long will the faithful posters reply to each other before their collective creativity dies?

I do believe that question is unanswerable as the repliers on this thread have no intention of stopping. I'm reminded of some sort of endurance race for some strange reason:

"Yes, people, they're coming around the bend with davem and Heren-Istarion in the lead, followed closely by Child, Aiwendil, Mark12_30, and many more! Just look at them go! Will they ever stop? They're not slowing down, not a bit; no giving up in this race, folks! No one could even think of letting it slow down a bit, even if that means everyone would think more clearly and be able to reply to all the latest posts! How exciting this is!"

The argument of Truth (absolute or individual) is a spiritual one and a little socio-political. Do you really believe that any resolution can be acheived? Highly unlikely. Do you really believe that one will conform to your viewpoint? Unlikely in the extreme. Do you believe that we can actually reach some conclusions to this argument? Perhaps.

I hope I don't sound irritated or frustrated with the turn of events. I actually quite enjoy them.

I hope this sort of sums up the current flow.

mark12_30

05-11-2004, 08:30 AM

H-I-- I needed that. Thanks.

Regressing to the previous page: Here is a long overdue response to some of Aiwendil's questions.

Actually, I think the whole process is rather cyclical in nature.
This is an interesting answer - neither the story itself nor insight into Truth is either the cause or the effect; or perhaps each is both. I think I like this answer, if only because it comes very close to what I've been arguing. As a story becomes very good, it becomes more like an allegory; as an allegory becomes very good it becomes more like a story. So the story itself and insight into Truth are in fact the same thing. But this is not the impression I got from your earlier posts. Perhaps this was just a misunderstanding on my part. It seemed to me that you (and Davem as well) were suggesting that Tolkien's goal was to expose readers to this insight, and that a requirement for achieving this is a fully self-consistent, believable story. I got this impression most of all when you compared Tolkien's works to parables (in connection with self-consistency); for clearly in the case of a parable, the insight is the end and the story is a means. Did you mean to draw a distinction here?

I should clarify that I think the process is cyclical with extended or repeated exposure to the stories and to the insight. Receiving insight clarifies the story internally, bringing it into sharpoer focus; internalizing the story I thnk encourages further insight.

And that both encompasses those three concepts that you listed above and extends beyond them into such simple things that include "Trees are more than a source of plywood and paper", "2+2=4", "The Sky is a big place," and "Most people prefer receiving kindness over cruelty."

It sounds like what you mean by "Truth" is simply "the set of all true propositions". That's certainly a definition I can live with (it's the one I intend when I say "truth"). But if this is the case, I don't see why there's any need to be at all mystical about it. Why talk gravely about Truth being out beyond the mills (if I understand your millegory correctly), or about transcendent glimpses of Truth; why the capital T? For if Truth is just the set of true propositions, then a "glimpse of Truth" must just be the knowledge of the truth or falsehood of certain propositions. In such a case, there is no reason at all that each person should have to discover Truth for himself or herself. Nor is there any such thing as "discovering Truth", since that would mean omniscience.

So either of two things is true: 1. By "Truth" you do in fact mean "the set of all true propositions", and all the earlier mysticism was unnecessary or 2. you mean something else, in which case I still would like to know what it is.

And a further dichotomy: either 1. The definition of "Truth" does not critically depend on anything like God or religion or 2. it does.

Going with option 1 on both questions agrees with my view; choosing 2 in either case means there is still some disagreement, but one that I cannot identify.

Aiwendil, the beginning of the statement "those three concepts" referred to your provided list of three supernatural things: " God, heaven, and the Divine Plan" . Those things (each of which I consider heavily related, interrelated, and infinite) are included in Truth. So it follows that I hold to #2 in each of the multiple-choice questions above. However in the first question, So either of two things is true: 1. By "Truth" you do in fact mean "the set of all true propositions", and all the earlier mysticism was unnecessary or 2. you mean something else, in which case I still would like to know what it is. my answer is this: if I must write down a definition, I will point to the above that I already gave you: Truth includes your three concepts (God, heaven, and the Divine Plan) plus the set of all true propositions.

I think the more relevant question is what are you pursuing? And that is entirely up to you. Free country.

I've got to admit that I have no idea how the matter of what I am pursuing has anything whatsoever to do with the nature of Tolkien's work.
Perhaps it's a mystical phrase, although I associate it with the Declaration of Independance: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: we all pursue something in the attempt to be happy. For some, it's Entertainment. For some, it's Truth. For some it's Style. For some, it's something else.

If I'm not looking for something particular, then the odds of me finding that particular thing are the odds of either stumbling over it or of being led to it by someone else. So if I'm reading Tolkien looking for A Good Story, that's one pursuit. If I'm looking for Truth, that's another pursuit. And if I'm looking for justification for my own agenda, that's another pursuit. (The first two, I think Tolkien would not mind, and would indeed be pleased by. The third, he clearly had a problem with.)

The first time I read Tolkien (at age 12) I thought it was a rocking-good story. The second, third, fourth times I read it, it got even better. At what point did I try to be more elvish because I thought elves and elf-friends were beautiful... pure... shining... transcendant... angelic? I'm not sure when that started. But if I hadn't thought it was a good story, I wouldn't have enjoyed it or reread it, and I'd have missed the shining beauty that beckoned me then and beckons me still. The more I go back to it, the more it shines. Hence, circular; actually the mystics refer to a "spiral"-- ostensibly covering the same topics in the X. Y plane but going deeper (or higher) every time.

(I read the Narnia series over and over and over again as a teenager-- and it wasn't til years later I realized what it was "about". By the time the allegory "clicked" it was a whole cascade of "clicks"; the lights went on all over the house, so to speak.)

Well, the ramble is long enough at this point. Aiwendil, it's been a pleasure discussion these things; thanks; although (like davem) I fear that my definitions will be too vague to satisfy, at the same time, I find infinite things very difficult to contain in definitions. Let me know...

~*~*~

EDIT:

Hi, Bilbo. Glad you're enjoying it.

Hi, Child. :)

The Peacemaker wrote:

Can we not at least agree on a broad statement like this? That most readers see a core of 'enchantment' or 'faerie' which Tolkien depicts or draws upon in his writing. That this may go by different names -- truth, Truth, Joy, or Light-- and that we each differ somewhat in how we define or regard this concept, since we bring our own experiences and backgrounds into the process of definition. But can we not also agree that this core reflects the crucial values and themes that Tolkien delineates in his story: concepts of goodness, self sacrifice, love, and hope?

It's a good starting place, Cami. ;)

(Like neice, like uncle-- wanna bet she's hiding an arkenstone in her pocket?)

Son of Númenor

05-11-2004, 08:49 AM

I would say, Bilbo_Baggins, with no disrespect intended, that your post does a most inadequate job of summing 'up the current flow'. I personally am fascinated by the discussion, & encouraged by the multitude of allusions, analogies & philosophical insights being made, all of which add to my own rather delicate understanding of these concepts of canon, Truth vs. truth, eucatastrophe, & that most elusive of feelings - 'enchantment' - as they pertain to Professor Tolkien's writing.

The range & depth of this discussion stray far beyond my own credentials as a Tolkien enthusiast & literary analyst, but I would like to say that I sympathize with Davem when he says:If I use ‘Truth’, however much I repeat that I’m not talking about some set of rules & regulations, I just get asked what rules & regulations I mean, & told that rules & regulations are BAD. If I use the term Joy, it is immediately dismissed as meaningless, or conflated with pleasure. If I use the term God or Heaven I get accused of trying to convert people. I’d use the word Magic, but I suspect it would be interpreted to mean ‘conjuring’ & I’d be asked to explain the ‘trick’. ‘Light’ seems to be acceptable – yet this light must have a source.

Sorry, but I can’t reduce what I’m referring to to something which fits within a narrow definition, & can be argued about from a psychological perspective, or a deconstructionist one. If all anyone gets from reading Tolkien’s works is something that can be reduced to that level, then I will go all the way out on this limb & say they’re missing the ‘truth’ of the story. Trying to quantify & simplify the 'truth' that we obtain from Tolkien's works is bound to be a fruitless endeavour. While I do not feel that there is any ultimate Truth readily available for us as readers to extract from Tolkien's work, I do feel Tolkien imbued his works with a plethara of ideals & virtues - a wide spectrum of things that Tolkien wished to convey to the reader as 'truths' - 'rights' & 'wrongs' that he felt are inherent both in his world & our own.

I agree with Child of the Seventh Age that Tolkien's writing does not have to be relegated to the role of upholding & advancing any singular religious Truth. There may, however, be a Theme inherent in Tolkien's works consisting of many smaller ideals & author-perceived 'truths' which Tolkien hoped would be applicable to everyday life in the Primary World.

davem

05-11-2004, 08:53 AM

Sharon

I still think you're understanding Truth as implying a set of dogmatic 'Laws', dictated by force, on others who are made to believe them- whether they agree with them or not. I was using it in the sense of what is true about 'reality', or 'the ground of Being'. So, in this sense, the statement 'killing is wrong' is not part of that Truth, neither is 'Water is wet', or 2+2=4.

'Truth' is the origin of those & similar ideas, or call it 'God' or Light or Joy, in the sense in which Tolkien used it in Fairy Stories. It is the 'Source' from which all 'True' things arise, & the source of the 'Joy' which we glimpse at the moment of Eucatastrophe. And whatever others may say, it is 'real' to the extent that any profoundly moving experience is 'real'. No 'theory', literary or pyschological can account for it, or reduce it to its own terms.

And now, at the risk of being accused of 'crossing a line' in my 'psychoanalysis' of other posters once more, I can only say in response to Bethberry's:

"I don't think I have this experience you claim for all of us. What I feel when I finish reading Tolkien is little different than feelings of departures from other extremely well imagined worlds of fiction. It is narrative cessation--a post-reading desire comedown--not a sense that this world somehow fails. "

And Aiwendil's:

"This is more or less my experience as well. I am naturally always just a bit unhappy that the book is over, but no more so than when I read any good book (or when I listen to a good symphony, or watch a good movie, etc.). "

I'm surprised. Nothing more than with any other fictional world? Just another escape into a Never-Never Land? Maybe I am unusual, then. Middle Earth changed me. I'll never be the same person again. I suppose I may be in the wrong, perhaps overvaluing the stories & the writer, & in not subscribing to the 'right' theories, in pyschology, or literature, but if I am wrong I'm glad, because I like the fact that Middle Earth is a window on Truth & Joy to me, And that when I put down the book my feelings are closer to grief at the loss of something beloved than to 'narrative cessation'. From her previous posts, I 'd kind of assumed that it was so for Bethberry too. I don't know if its down to whether you experience that Truth or Joy, whether its that that determines whether its just another escapist fantasy to you or much more than that.

Again, I may be wrong in believing in the existence of Truth & Joy, but if that's the reason I experience Tolkien's stories in the way I do, & am affected by them in the way I am, then I'll choose being wrong.

mark12_30

05-11-2004, 09:39 AM

Son of Numenor wrote:
While I do not feel that there is any ultimate Truth readily available for us as readers to extract from Tolkien's work
SoN, that would be why the concepts of "glimpse" and "window" (and the resulting mysticism) is important-- not just to me, but apparently to Tolkien as well (See On Faery Stories.) Tolkien spoke of opening the reader to a far-off glimpse. Tolkien himelf rarely lectures. This is why Child's definition is incomplete for me, and based on his essay I would say it is imcomplete for TOlkien as well; but this thread is supposed to be geared towards the reader...

davem wrote:
Again, I may be wrong in believing in the existence of Truth & Joy, but if that's the reason I experience Tolkien's stories in the way I do, & am affected by them in the way I am, then I'll choose being wrong.

The other day I went hunting for the Puddleglum quote from the Silver Chair and found it here (http://phd.pp.ru/Russian/My/quotations/CSLewis.txt). In the meantime, reread the Epilogue of On Faery Stories, davem. Have a look at "Sing Now Ye People" that H-I quoted above. And relax. ;)

Aiwendil

05-11-2004, 10:00 AM

I think that, perhaps as a result of my incessant pressure for definitions and specificity, my essential argument has been to some extent misconstrued.

Davem wrote:
Well, I’m stuck. It seems that whatever term I use to refer to some underlying ‘state’ of ‘reality I’ll be asked to reduce it to a set of facts & figures.

I don't want "facts and figures". What I was interested in is whether this "Truth" is someting that I think is meaningful or not. I kept asking for a definition because I wondered whether there was in fact a definition that would satisfy me. And the point I've tried to make a few times now is that, as it turns out, there seems not to be.

The point is resolved, as far as I'm concerned; the resolution is that we disagree about the philosophy of meaning. That's all.

I was perhaps a bit insistent only because I thought (and I was wrong) that perhaps there would in fact turn out to be a general definition of "Truth" that we could all accept. Had there been, I think we might have continued our inquiry into the nature of Faerie and of "eucatastrophe". Unfortunately, as things are, we can go no further.

But I would still like to clarify some things.

If I use ‘Truth’, however much I repeat that I’m not talking about some set of rules & regulations, I just get asked what rules & regulations I mean, & told that rules & regulations are BAD.

I should point out that I do not share Fordim's opinion in this regard.

If I use the term Joy, it is immediately dismissed as meaningless, or conflated with pleasure.

I realized (and said so) that you would not equate Joy with pleasure. I was only pointing out that it is no use with me to define "Truth" by switching to "Joy".

If I use the term God or Heaven I get accused of trying to convert people.

On the contrary; as I said earlier, if God or Heaven is what you mean, please say so.

Sorry, but I can’t reduce what I’m referring to to something which fits within a narrow definition, & can be argued about from a psychological perspective, or a deconstructionist one. If all anyone gets from reading Tolkien’s works is something that can be reduced to that level, then I will go all the way out on this limb & say they’re missing the ‘truth’ of the story.

This is what, paradoxically, both takes us back to the beginning of the thread and brings us to the impasse I talked about. You say that I am missing the "truth" of the story. I say I am not. What more can be said?

It seems to me that some posters here are coming at things from the perspective that any statement about Tolkien’s works or intentions is only valid if it corresponds with some theory about the world which they hold to reflect reality.

Forgive me if this sounds rude - but you seem to be claiming just that; you have a theory about the world (that this Truth exists) and moreover about Tolkien's work (that its purpose is to give us a glimpse of Truth) and you claim that those who don't see this in Tolkien's work are "missing the truth of the story".

And I don't say that with any pejorative intent. Of course if you have a theory about literature you will disagree with statements about Tolkien's work that disagree with your theory. There's nothing at all wrong with that. I don't dispute your right to hold your opinion, or even your right to claim that I am wrong because I hold a different one.

But what has all this to do with Tolkien? He wrote about Truth (but we have to dismiss that, because there’s no such thing

As I said before, I think that "On Faery Stories" and the rest of his literary theory can be understood quite well with "truth" meaning simply "the set of true propositions".

He wrote about Joy, & said it was the purpose of Fairy stories to expose us to it, but that has nothing to do with anything.

I think this can be understood as a kind of aesthetic pleasure.

He wrote about Love, but that’s just a subjective emotional state, & all we can do is argue about the particular chemicals which cause it

Has anyone said that? As a matter of fact, I think it is a subjective emotional state, but what does that matter?

He wrote about Magic, but that’s all primitive trickery.

Again, I don't think anyone said that. In fact I specifically denied that I think magic and the like are "silly superstitions". I don't believe that magic actually exists, if that's what you mean; but I don't believe Hobbits or Balrogs exist either.

So, in this sense, the statement 'killing is wrong' is not part of that Truth, neither is 'Water is wet', or 2+2=4.

That's helpful, especially since it apparently means that you and Helen mean different things by "Truth" (she explicitly said that "2+2=4" and "The Sky is a big place" are included in Truth).

I'm surprised. Nothing more than with any other fictional world?

Of course I like some fictional worlds better than others.

Just another escape into a Never-Never Land?

That's putting it cynically. I think that The Lord of the Rings is an immensely powerful and deeply satisfying work of art; I think it's one of the greatest achievements of the human mind.

Son of Numenor wrote:
Trying to quantify & simplify the 'truth' that we obtain from Tolkien's works is bound to be a fruitless endeavour.

I think I ought to emphasize again, for Davem and for everyone, that I am not interested in quantifying anything. I am perfectly happy to carry on a discussion of these things on an abstract level.

I had thought this might be possible by defining "Truth" as the set of true propositions. For I thought that what was chiefly intended by it was some truth about God. If God exists, it is a fact that God exists, and the set of true propositions includes it. Obviously, we wouldn't agree on what those true propositions are, but structurally, "Truth" would be (in my view) a viable term. I understand now that such a definition is not deemed acceptable. Wherefore the impasse.

Mark12_30 wrote:
Aiwendil, the beginning of the statement "those three concepts" referred to your provided list of three supernatural things: " God, heaven, and the Divine Plan" . Those things (each of which I consider heavily related, interrelated, and infinite) are included in Truth.

A misunderstanding perhaps. As I've just said in response to Davem (and perhaps should have pointed out a page ago), "God exists" would be a true proposition (if God exists, of course). So I don't see how your inclusion of those three concepts necessitates your choice of option 2, that "Truth" is more than the set of true propositions.

Aiwendil, it's been a pleasure discussion these things; thanks

I've quite enjoyed it as well. As I've said, I fear that this is as far as the debate can go. Thanks to both you and Davem for a very enjoyable discussion (and for providing me with something to do while procrastinating about studying for finals).

Bêthberry

05-11-2004, 10:03 AM

A rather rushed response here, on several levels.

Helen and H-I,

I am very glad that you both found enjoyment in the verse H-I posted. It is a very interesting verse. However, to my mind, that post did not advance the discussion. That is, it did not suggest a new way of looking at the issue or a way to resolve a dilemma or impasse in the discussion. It, and this is simply my humble opinion, was rather more akin to cheerleading and that always makes me rather uncomfortable on a discussion forum, as if the spectators on the 'sides' of the discussion are calling out for their favourite team to win. A discussion is not, to my mind, a sporting event where we must draw sides and where one side must lose, winner take all. It is all of us engaged in a discussion of what our words meanand what are the consequences of our positions and what are our experiences and where do they meet and where converge. I regret if this statement offends, but I feel I must express this disappointment that the discussion apparently is about sides. I am, by the way, viewing this in rhetorical terms of how we handle discussion and not in terms of the content was intriguing.

And let me say here that Child's post provides an example of what I mean by 'advancing the discussion.' I will return to her post later today. For now, however, I think I need to address a crucial point.

davem,

Some of your wording here I think suggests where our impasse lies.

I suppose I may be in the wrong, ... but if I am wrong I'm glad, because I like the fact that Middle Earth is a window on Truth & Joy to me, And that when I put down the book my feelings are closer to grief at the loss of something beloved than to 'narrative cessation'. ... whether its just another escapist fantasy to you or much more than that.

Again, I may be wrong in believing in the existence of Truth & Joy, but if that's the reason I experience Tolkien's stories in the way I do, & am affected by them in the way I am, then I'll choose being wrong.

I cannot see where anyone has called you wrong for your experience of Tolkien, davem, not Fordim, nor Aiwendil nor SaucepanMan and certainly not myself nor Child. In fact, it seems to me that a great deal of effort has been expended towards defending the validity of any one's interpretation.

If you read Tolkien as a kind of religious text, then that is your experience and it is legitimate as your experience. I do not wish to denigrate it nor devalue it. However, reading Tolkien for me is not a religious experience--and I hope that some of my posts here have suggested just how much time I have spent reading texts in religious traditions. (In fact, you have never really acknowledged that I offered a Christian, spiritual tradition--different from that of your mystics--where meaning is held in potential.) I have felt great, overwhelming grief at parts of his work, grief that brought me to my knees (metaphorically speaking), but I will not say this is a religious experience. And I will say that I have found other writers whose reading is similarly affecting for me.

I will also say that you mischaracterise my postion when you suggest that reading Tolkien is either an all or nothing proposition. I have never said that reading him is merely escape or Never-never Land. That is your characterisation, not mine. The reason I think so highly of Tolkien's "On Fairy Stories" is that in fact it liberates fantasy from this niggardly attitude of 'mere escape.' But if you choose to see my reading in this light, then there is little I can do to help you see understand my reading. Will I say you are wrong? No, I will rather say that your own experience seems to leave you with little room for understanding the experience of others except as in complete opposition. The only words that are left, it seems to me, belong to Nienna and we are left with 'a long defeat.'

EDIT. I had meant to include this in the post. It refers again to something davem posted:

If all anyone gets from reading Tolkien?s works is something that can be reduced to that level, then I will go all the way out on this limb & say they?re missing the ?truth? of the story. .

The great irony here to me is that you are calling your reading the Truth of the Book where to my mind it is rather the freedom of the Reader, you as Reader, to to expound his reading. That you wish to suggest yours is the only correct understanding is, to my mind, unfortunate, because it devalues the experience of others, but , as I said, there clearly is a long defeat and no longer any purpose to continue this discussion. It has been ... enlightening. Thanks to all.

EDIT Wonders never cease! I was cross posting with bilbo_baggins and never saw his post until after I made this one. Horse racing! I was thinking of wrestling or some such sport. :p :rolleyes: ;)

mark12_30

05-11-2004, 10:15 AM

I am very glad that you both found enjoyment in the verse H-I posted. It is a very interesting verse. However, to my mind, that post did not advance the discussion. That is, it did not suggest a new way of looking at the issue or a way to resolve a dilemma or impasse in the discussion.

I disagree, Bethberry. It was a reminder that this is a discussion-- and not a war; that the things Tolkien wrote about of lasting value will be there for each of us after the discussion just as they were before; and that there is time to sing and something to sing about. That reminder was a breath of fresh air in a room which had gotten very tense. And without it I would not have continued the discussion today. Hence, it did indeed advance the discussion-- by lightening it up.

It, and this is simply my humble opinion, was rather more akin to cheerleading and that always makes me rather uncomfortable on a discussion forum, as if the spectators on the 'sides' of the discussion are calling out for their favourite team to win.

Why would an unedited, un-commented quote of pure, published, indisputably canonical Tolkien presented in order to lighten things up be upsetting on a Tolkien forum?

Lyta_Underhill

05-11-2004, 10:24 AM

Gee, Helen! You ought to start a mailing list and send inspirational tidbits to everyone to start out their day right! :) And many thanks to HI for the lift!

From the Epilogue of "On Fairy Stories," so helpfully pointed to by Helen: The Christian still has to work, with mind as well as body, to suffer, hope and die; but he may now perceive that all his bents and faculties have a purpose, which can be redeemed.
he may actually assist in effoliation and multiple enrichment of creation.
I think the perception here can be applied to more than just the Christian, as Tolkien enumerates here, at least in my experience. The "consolation" factor of the self-consistent second world with a coherent story to be told is of great value. For there is purpose and a clear path, clearer than that which is laid before most of us in the real world. One comes away from the story with the idea that there is applicability of the second world to the first, that some of Middle Earth is in your backyard. I do not, like some others on this thread, feel let down when I finish the story, but rather, I see aspects of the story in the primary world, so that the story seems never to end. The story is so well told that its images and concepts resonate within the primary world and seem to jump out into reality, and at times seem MORE real than the world I can see and touch.

This process of assimiliation or amalgamation of the reader and the book is complex, and rather than separating the two worlds, I think it draws them closer, to the 'edge of Faerie' if you will, so that one can walk in the two worlds simultaneously. Of course, there is the "head in the clouds" syndrome that one must avoid while driving at high speeds on the Interstate highways, etc., but while I walk in the forests, I absolutely believe in Ents. ( I still believe in them on the highway, but hardly expect to see them there!)

So, as to the question of the Book or the Reader? I think the answer is whereever the Book meets the Reader or the Reader meets the Book. It is a process, and I think Helen's idea of the cyclical process upon re-reading jibes with my experience of seeing new things and finding new applicability as years pass and re-readings mount. (See! I don't think I used the T word even once!) ;)

Cheers,
Lyta

davem

05-11-2004, 10:54 AM

Bethberry

I may have gone too far in my interpretation of your position, but

Quote: "I don't think I have this experience you claim for all of us. What I feel when I finish reading Tolkien is little different than feelings of departures from other extremely well imagined worlds of fiction. It is narrative cessation--a post-reading desire comedown--not a sense that this world somehow fails. "

And

Quote:I have felt great, overwhelming grief at parts of his work, grief that brought me to my knees (metaphorically speaking),

seem to me a bit contradictory. I wouldn't say I treat LotR as a 'religious' text, though, I would say that through it I am able to glimpse something else, something that moves me - & I mean that - something moves me. It is something external to me, that affects me deeply, & all the psychological theories don't mean anything, or explain anything in regard to it. I know its real. Just as I know that an experience I had a few months back was 'real' & True. I was walking along a farm track, between hedges, with big old trees along the way. The sky was clear & the stars were shining through the branches. I was feeling a little down, & though, as I said, I'm not a 'Christian', I began reciting 'Hail Mary's. After a few repetitions, the air seemed to become hazy, & I felt my Guardian Angel standing behind me, enfolding me with It's wings. It was absolutely 'real', & True. And before anyone decides to psychologise that, I don't care, & you'd be wrong, because I'm old enough to know what's real & what's not.

Tolkien's stories put me in touch with the same 'True', Joyous dimension of Reality
that I experienced then.

Also, when you state 'Quote':

I cannot see where anyone has called you wrong for your experience of Tolkien, [davem[/b], not Fordim, nor Aiwendil nor SaucepanMan and certainly not myself nor Child. In fact, it seems to me that a great deal of effort has been expended towards defending the validity of any one's interpretation.

I didn't intend to imply anyone had called my experience wrong - I was simply saying if my experience is 'wrong', 'incorrect', not in accord with 'Truth', as judged by some kind of 'objective standard' then I don't care & am happy for it to be 'wrong'.

Aiwendil

Sorry, I don't think there is any contradiction between what Helen & I are saying about Truth - I suspect you are being deliberately literalist.

Bêthberry

05-11-2004, 12:00 PM

I must say thank you to Helen--and to Lyta also--for making my point about encouragement much better than I could. ;) :)

The Saucepan Man

05-11-2004, 12:08 PM

Although I have been able to follow this thread over the last day or so, I have not had an opportunity to post. And since there is no conceivable way that I can respond to everything that has been said in the interim as fully as I would like to, I will simply attempt to summarise my position, briefly explore whether there might be any common ground between us and leave it at that for now.

I hope that it is abundantly clear from what I have been saying that I am not seeking to deny anyone’s experience of Tolkien’s works. Davem, I accept, of course, that you genuinely react to them in the way that you have described. I believe you when you say that you have found glimpses of “Truth” and “Joy” in Tolkien’s works. I believe Helen too when she says the same and I do not doubt that H-I and Sharon and many others besides have had very similar experiences. As far as I am concerned, all of your reactions are entirely valid, and I find each one of them fascinating. This is precisely why I keep coming back to this thread time and time again (and will continue to do as long as it lasts, even if just in the role of observer). However, I will not and cannot agree that your experience, or anyone else’s for that matter, is somehow more valid or right or truthful than mine, and that I am either somehow wrong for not experiencing the books in the same way or in some way afraid of opening myself up to that experience. Surely you must accept that others will experience the books differently, albeit no less validly, to you?

If we are going to use capitalised terms such as “Truth” or “Joy” or “Light”, which clearly (in light of their capitalisation) have some meaning to the people using them beyond their common usage, then I think it is necessary for those using them to provide some sort of definition. Otherwise, how are those of us who see no such meaning supposed to be able to compare what it is that they are being used to describe with our own experiences and determine whether there is any common ground and, if so, where it might lie? And I most certainly do not require a definition by reference to “facts and figures” but rather by reference to emotions, feelings and concepts (as commonly understood).

Having said that, I think that I do now have a reasonable understanding of what people mean when they use these terms. And, like Aiwendil, I do feel that everyone means something slightly different by them, although that does not surprise me since everyone is different and will react differently based upon their own beliefs and experiences. Of course, I am aware that Helen, for example, would say that the “Truth” is the same for everybody and that it is just the “glimpses” of that “Truth” which vary. And that’s fine by me. I'm content to agree to disagree on that one because it is the “glimpses” that I would prefer to concentrate on. That, I think, is where we will find the common ground.

And, like Sharon, it seems to me that there is a lot of common ground if we only take the time to look for it. It is clear to me from reading the posts here (and elsewhere on this forum) that I am not alone in experiencing intense joy and deep sadness in Tolkien’s works. And the feeling of enchantment that those works engender is a common experience too. Tolkien champions the virtues of friendship, courage, humility, goodness and love, to name but a few. These surely are values which we can all appreciate and respond to positively in the characters who display them. Just as we can all appreciate the dangers of pride and lust for power and domination from those characters that display these characteristics. And I think that we can recognise the dilemmas that we are presented with in our own lives in the situations faced by characters such as Boromir, Denethor, Eowyn and even Saruman. And yes, we can be inspired to try and live our lives in a better way as a result of reading about these characters and the experiences which they undergo (although we shouldn't need Tolkien’s tales to prompt us to do so).

It seems to me we are all capable of experiencing these things when we read LotR and the other tales, whether we believe them to be glimpses of some over-arching “Truth” or “Joy” or not, and whether or not we believe in the existence of God. Of course, not everyone will respond to them (at least not in the way Tolkien presents them, even though they may share the same values). And we will all respond to them differently, based upon our own personal values and experiences. But I would hazard a guess that they are important features of Tolkien’s works to most, if not all, of those posting here. And I am sure that there is much more common ground between us too.

So, when I say that my experience of Tolkien’s works is different from davem’s, or Helen’s or Aiwendil’s or Bêthberry’s, I am not saying that it is entirely different. In very many ways, there are a great deal of similarities between each of our individual experiences, I am sure. All I am saying is that we should acknowledge the differences, accept that we cannot force the entirety of our own experiences on others and move on to find the common ground.

Now, where does that gets us in terms of “Canonicity v the reader”? As should be clear from what I have been saying throughout this thread, I am in favour of the reader (subject to the restrictions placed upon him or her by the text itself). But I am also in favour of groups of readers sharing (not imposing) experience and attempting to find common ground within the “interpretive communities” that Bêthberry talked of. Indeed, why would I be on this forum if I wasn’t?

(Oh, and yes, H-I, I believe that moral “truths” do “lie in numbers” in the sense that I believe that the basic framework of human morality is a consequence of the social evolution of man: the survival of the most socially effective morals. ;) But I doubt that is common ground. :D )

davem

05-11-2004, 01:54 PM

Having been justly taken to task by Legolas in a PM for my aside to Aiwendil, I suppose I must explain my accustaion of 'literalism'.

When I said that 'facts' like 'killing is wrong' or 'water is wet', etc are nothing to do with 'Truth' I meant simply that they are facts, which are 'products' of our response to Truth - ie, 'Truth', in the sense in which I am using it, refers not to moral codes or precepts, but to the source of those codes, the thing which inspires them in us. I just considered Aiwendil was conflating the two things. Helen was speaking of the 'consequence' of our experience of 'Truth', the moral values it inspires in us, I was referring to what inspires those values. Hence, in my mind at least, no contradiction.

Aiwendil

My problem in so far as coming to an agreement as to what Truth is, in an attempt to reach some kind of common ground, is that I cannot 'translate' my conceptions of Truth, Joy, etc into terms which would fit your world view, at least not without sacrificing what I mean by them, in order to make them 'fit' - & if I could, we wouldn't really be debating on common ground, we'd be debating on grounds that you had set out, & we would have to remain on that sharply defined ground, if we wanted the debate to continue, & wherever the debate went, it could only go where you allowed it to go. My world view includes the metaphysical as well as the physical, but yours seems limited only to the physical, so I would not be allowed to offer metaphysical 'proofs' - which by their nature can only be expressed through feelings & experiences.

But the point is, Tolkien accepted metaphisics, spirituality, Truth & Joy as 'givens', if you will not allow the term 'facts'. So, how can we discuss the meaning & purpose of Tolkien's writing if the ground of our discussion doesn't include those things as 'realities', given that Tolkien himself saw them so. If we limit ourselves to the physical, material world, that can be encompassed by current psychological & literary theories, whatever conclusions we may come to would not really be relevant, as central issues would have been rejected. We would be limiting the result to what you will accept before we even begin.

Look, Jung had as a patient a woman who believed she had really visited the Moon. Jung took the idea absolutley seriously, & was questioned about it. He responded that if that was what she believed, then the only way to understand her was to accept it as true.

What I'm saying is, whether you believe in such things or not, if you wish to understand Tolkien's works, you have to behave as if they're real. You have to accept the existence of Truth & Joy as facts. Just as you have to accept the Elves & Hobbits of Middle Earth as 'facts' if you are to fully imerse yourself in Middle Earth & be affected by it. For myself, I go further than simply accepting them as facts temporarily, based on my own experiences. Enchantment is a 'real' experience for me - I am in 'different' mental or 'spiritual' state. It is 'real', as all perception is 'real' - subjectively at least. I also experience Eucatastrophe as equally 'real' but more intense. & what I 'glimpse' while in that state seems more 'real', Truer, still. I call it Truth, because its the 'Truest' thing I know, & its that simple. So, how else can I define it, how can I fit it into your worldview? What terms or definitions can I use to make it fit, that you would find acceptable enough for us to have found 'common ground'?

I actually take statements like :

' A fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the Walls of the World, poignant as grief'....In such stories when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, & heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, & lets a gleam come through.'

as being literally True, that there is a such a 'real' True thing as 'Joy beyond the Walls of the World .. that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story & lets a gleam through.' And I accept it because I've experienced it, & it won't fit into your theory, so your request for a definition so we can meet on common ground can't be answered, because it won't fit into the ground you're allowing me.

None of that 'invalidates' your own, or anyone else's experience - I even tried to make my position clear yesterday when I said that if you experience 'Joy', are uplifted, moved, inspired, consoled, opened up, whatever, then you've got it, & there's nothing more to look for, no 'secrets' to uncover. Where I have difficulty with your position is your consistent atttempts to reduce all those things to brain function - but I accept it is my difficulty & not yours.

I have to say that you & SpM seem to get het up at claims that you are missing something, almost as if you're 'demanding' that I, or Helen, or H-I should 'reaveal' the 'secret' to you, or stop implying that there is such a 'secret'. Yet you claim to be so confident that you have understood it all in the way that you want, & that anything we could 'reveal' - if we deigned to let you in on the hidden meaning - would not interest you because it can't be True anyway, because there's no such thing as Truth.

So, here we are, us saying Truth exists, you denying it exists, but demanding that we tell you what it is anyway. If you don't feel you're missing out on anything why do you keep asking us to tell you what you're missing out on?

I can't tell you, because you're asking me to tell you in a language which doesn't have the words for me to describe it, & if I use the words that are there, what i tell you will be so limited the description won't describe it. But how can I not speak about things Tolkien accepted as facts, & wrote about, & are at the heart of his stories, & yet expect to get anywhere in understanding the man or his work.

You are demanding too much of me, I'm afraid, & I'm stuck. I can't give up on Truth & expect to get anywhere, because that's where Tolkien, imo, is trying to take me.

Mister Underhill

05-11-2004, 02:36 PM

I’ve been following this conversation with interest and rejoin it now, as always, with too little time and too little art.

Be that as it may, I’ll try to limit my focus to this, which jumped at me: As I said before, I think that "On Faery Stories" and the rest of his literary theory can be understood quite well with "truth" meaning simply "the set of true propositions"I – with respect – quite disagree with this.

Throughout “On Fairy-Stories”, Tolkien refers to “profound truths”, to “permanent and fundamental things”, to “underlying reality or truth”, to “Joy beyond the walls of the world” (capitalization Tolkien’s), to the “notes of the horns of Elfland”, which loudly proclaim certain moral truths. He likens “this fallen world” to a prison, and glorifies “escape” (via Fairy-Story) as a going home. To where? He says that “the maddest castle that ever came out of a giant's bag in a wild Gaelic story is not only much less ugly than a robot-factory, it is also (to use a very modern phrase) ‘in a very real sense’ a great deal more real.”

What does he mean by these things? A castle from a giant’s bag in a story more “real” than a factory?

Surely he means more than “the set of true propositions” about the world: 2+2=4, the earth is round, and so forth. Unless I mistake what you mean by “set of true propositions” – which I take to be limited solely to rational, provable, indisputable, factual propositions – Tolkien is talking about something far more abstract, something which is, indeed, transcendental. Truth beyond mere factual truth.

This sort of truth – Truth – resists pat definitions or pithy catchphrases. Whole lifetimes may be spent in search of its many facets, or in an effort to live in accord with it. It is, to steal Tolkien’s words, “incalculably rich”. There’s a reason for talk of “glimpses” and “windows” and “through a glass darkly”. To trace it back to God and Heaven doesn’t help much, since I think most would agree that these are only other names for great and incomprehensible mysteries which are never to be fully apprehended in this world, even if you believe in such things. Unless I am much mistaken, I think that Helen, davem, H-I, and others on the “spiritual” side of the debate would agree that Truth is something to be sought after with humility, not imposed on others through tyranny.

Yet both science and psychology allow room for the mysterious, and here we, perhaps, may find some common ground, for surely none of us are so naïve as to think that the workings of nature have been plumbed by science, nor all the motives of the human mind and heart charted and explained by psychologists. As Shakespeare put it, “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” Aiwendil:
I think that The Lord of the Rings is an immensely powerful and deeply satisfying work of art; I think it's one of the greatest achievements of the human mind.

Bethberry:
I have felt great, overwhelming grief at parts of his work, grief that brought me to my knees (metaphorically speaking)Whence comes this power? It is there, I think, where we may find the most meaningful common ground.

BTW, davem, I think it was Blaise Pascal who apologized for the long letter, because he had “not had time to make it shorter.” In defiance of Pascal, one last point:

Fordim, I think your Nazgûl/Fellowship analogy has finally worn out its welcome once and for all, because it leaves no middle-ground: neither reader nor author ascendant, but reader and author as accomplices, co-conspirators as it were. I cannot say it better than Tolkien, from “On Fairy-Stories” which I reread this morning for the sake of this thread: “Uncorrupted, it [Fantasy] does not seek delusion nor bewitchment and domination; it seeks shared enrichment, partners in making and delight, not slaves.”

NOTE: Cross-posting with davem has resulted in a bit of redundancy. For that I apologize.

The Saucepan Man

05-11-2004, 06:38 PM

Davem

My problem in so far as coming to an agreement as to what Truth is, in an attempt to reach some kind of common ground, is that I cannot 'translate' my conceptions of Truth, Joy, etc into terms which would fit your world view, at least not without sacrificing what I mean by them, in order to make them 'fit' - & if I could, we wouldn't really be debating on common ground What I was trying to say in my last post was that I do not see it as necessary to reach agreement on whether Truth exists and, if so, what it is, to meaningfully discuss our reactions as readers to Tolkien’s works.

OK, let me adopt H-I’s approach and try out an analogy here. It may not work, but let me try it anyway. Davem, say that you and I are looking at a sheet of opaque glass set in a wall. On the glass there are beautiful, beguiling patterns that shift and change in the light reflected on them from our side of the wall. You believe that the patterns are created by some sort of projector on the other side of the wall. I, on the other hand, believe that there is nothing beyond the wall and that the patterns naturally occur in the sheet of glass. We both accept that we cannot meaningfully discuss the source of the patterns, since we will never agree on the issue. Can we not still discuss the patterns themselves and our personal reactions to them, and perhaps even how they are affected by the light from our side of the wall?

In other words, can we not agree to disagree on the nature and existence of Truth and discuss what you would call glimpses of the Truth and I would call the themes, concepts and values that I derive from Tolkien’s works? It is here that I think that we would find a good deal of common ground.

So, how can we discuss the meaning & purpose of Tolkien's writing if the ground of our discussion doesn't include those things as 'realities', given that Tolkien himself saw them so.I think that we can discuss the meaning that we each see as readers in Tolkien’s writing without reaching agreement on Truth. I agree that in order to discuss its purpose (ie Tolkien’s intentions), I would have to accept his belief in Truth, even though I may not believe it for myself. But isn’t that what you are saying with your example of Jung’s patient who believed that she had been to the moon? Clearly he could not have believed that she had actually made such a journey, but he accepted her belief that she had for the purposes of the analysis.

What I'm saying is, whether you believe in such things or not, if you wish to understand Tolkien's works, you have to behave as if they're real. I’m not so sure that me behaving as if Truth is real is much different from my accepting Tolkien’s belief that it is real. Or, indeed, my accepting your belief that it is real. But then again, even if Truth were to exist and we are, as you say, all looking at it “as if through a glass darkly”, then won’t we all see slightly different things? Can any of us ever really fully understand what it was that Tolkien was trying to achieve, regardless of whether we actually believe in the Truth or are simply accepting his belief in it?

I have to say that you & SpM seem to get het up at claims that you are missing something, almost as if you're 'demanding' that I, or Helen, or H-I should 'reveal' the 'secret' to you, or stop implying that there is such a 'secret' … So, here we are, us saying Truth exists, you denying it exists, but demanding that we tell you what it is anyway. If you don't feel you're missing out on anything why do you keep asking us to tell you what you're missing out on?The only reason that I object to claims that I am missing something is that it suggests that you are without question right and that I am without question wrong. I don’t believe that I am wrong. Nor do I believe that you are wrong. I simply believe that we are both looking at matters differently, and that the way we each approach the issue is right for us. I have explained in my last post why I felt it necessary to try to understand what you meant by Truth. But I think that I have sufficient understanding of what you mean now to be able discuss it (without the need for quote marks ;) ), even though I may not believe it myself.

You are demanding too much of me, I'm afraid, & I'm stuck. I can't give up on Truth & expect to get anywhere, because that's where Tolkien, imo, is trying to take me.Now, about those patterns … :D

davem

05-12-2004, 03:12 AM

SpM

I can see where you're going with the sheet of glass analogy, but the problem with it is summed up by Tolkien's statement:

'In such stories when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, & heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, & lets a gleam come through.'

Its the 'rending the web of story' thing - or breaking the glass - the light comes through. We can't then argue any longer about the cause of the patterns. The light from behind is seen to be the cause.

Its fine just discussing the patterns on the surface, but if they are only the 'effect' of the light behind them, then by limiting ourselves only to what appears on the surface, & in effect denying the existence of the Light that causes them, we will fail to ever truly understand what is happening. This is what I meant by having to 'compress' my conceptions & understandings in order to make them fit into some 'common ground' - we'll never get beyond that common ground. Effectively, we're boxing ourselves in. If we limit everything to what can be explained by brain function, then we'll end up only with an 'explanation' that tells us how our own brains work. We're 'assuming that which is to be proved'.

The patterns on your glass may be beautiful, but the real question is what they mean - is there a reason for them being there, or are they just 'there'. Tolkien is saying that there is a definite reason for them being there, & that that reason is more important, more 'True', more real, & most importantly, more beautiful, than the patterns on the glass, because it is the light behind it, shining through it, that makes it beautiful & meaningful.

The Saucepan Man

05-12-2004, 03:25 AM

davem

05-12-2004, 04:22 AM

I didn't mean to imply that. I'm simply taking Tolkien's statements at face value, because they strike me as expressing what I feel about things.

The problem I have is with restricting what we can discuss to the 'lowest common denominator' - ie, what we can all agree on, & excluding everything which challenges our own belief system. If we exclude anything which will not fit with your & Aiwendil's worldview, then that would exclude a large part of what I consider to be important, & the discussion would become too restrictive for me - I would have to censor everything I wanted to say to fit it in.

Believe it or not ( & while it may have made some embarrassed or uncomfortable) my recounting of my 'encounter' with my Guradian Angel was to make a point. Was it 'True'? Well, I could explain it in terms of psychology & chemical reactions in the brain, & thereby find 'common ground' with you & Aiwendil. But if I did I would be denying the essential part of the experience - the emotional, the Numinous. Also, by reducing the experience to something that could be encompassed by psychology, I enable you to respond - 'There, I told you it was 'nothing but' psychology'. Any attempt to fully understand what I experienced, to my satisfaction at least, requires that any 'common ground' is wide enough to include the fact of Guardian Angels - though I have no 'logical' explanation of where they come from, other than to srart talking about 'Truth' again, or assign any logical 'meaning' to the experience beyond the simple fact of its intense 'reality' to myself.

The question, as far as discussing Tolkien goes, is: is our 'common ground wide enough to include 'Truth', Joy, Light from beyond the story, which can break through it, or not? If not, isnt it a bit like trying to discull Middle Earth, but refusing to mention the Elves?

That's not to say we can't discuss specific events or characters within the Legendarium, but this thread, intentionally or not, has come to be about 'meaning' - what Tolkien meant, what his intentions were, what, exactly, his philosophical position was.

The Saucepan Man

05-12-2004, 06:37 AM

You seem to be saying that you cannot discuss the themes and values within Tolkien's works in any way that is meaningful to you with anyone who does not accept the existence of Truth (or at least accept its existence for the purposes of the conversation).I didn't mean to imply that … If we exclude anything which will not fit with your & Aiwendil's worldview, then that would exclude a large part of what I consider to be important, & the discussion would become too restrictive for me - I would have to censor everything I wanted to say to fit it in.But isn’t that really just saying the same thing?

If not, isn’t it a bit like trying to discuss Middle Earth, but refusing to mention the Elves?Well, I can happily discuss my views on Elves and how their nature and experience within Middle-earth might be applicable to my life, my beliefs and values and my understanding of my world, without actually believing that they exist in my world.

… this thread, intentionally or not, has come to be about 'meaning' - what Tolkien meant, what his intentions were, what, exactly, his philosophical position was.Has it? It started out as an exploration of whether we necessarily have to accept Tolkien’s meaning if we accept his text, or whether we are free to impose our own meaning on it. Although it has clearly moved on and covered a wide variety of related issues, I still see that issue as being central to the discussion.

davem

05-12-2004, 06:57 AM

Well, If we're to debate whether or not the reader must accept Tolkien's meaning, or is frre to interpret the text in their own way, we have to have a clear understanding of what Tolkien did mean, before we can debate anything.

The next question, for me, is 'was Tolkien right'?. To the extent that he was 'right'/correct in his statements, including his statements about Truth & Joy, then that would not be an area for argument - we can only validly argue about interpretations, not about facts. We can't argue about 2+2=4, & say its all down to interpretation whether the answer is 3, 4,5,6 or 78,9374.

So, we have to seperate the 'facts' from the interpretations - ours, Tolkiens or anyone else's. If we can't agree what constitutes facts & what constitutes opinions, its difficult to debate what role/responsibility the reader has in relation to the text.

The Saucepan Man

05-12-2004, 07:08 AM

Well, If we're to debate whether or not the reader must accept Tolkien's meaning, or is free to interpret the text in their own way, we have to have a clear understanding of what Tolkien did mean, before we can debate anything.For me, that does not logically follow.

As I stated earlier, I am not at all sure that any of us can ever gain a complete understanding of what meaning Tolkien' attributed to his works, regardless of our beliefs. But, even though we can gain an approximate understanding, I see such authorial meaning as irrelevant to the reader's appreciation of the text unless the reader wants it to be relevant.

Bêthberry

05-12-2004, 07:37 AM

davem,

I'm a bit confused about a statement you made earlier today.

I'm simply taking Tolkien's statements at face value, because they strike me as expressing what I feel about things.

I don't wish to appear to be pouncing on something you said, but this confuses me as it appears to suggest my--perhaps Sauce's and Fordim's-- position as well (although I don't wish to speak for them and I could be wrong).

I read this as saying you give credence to Tolkien's statements because they accord with something you have felt or experienced prior to reading Tolkien: you grant his words authority because they agree with your experience. Thus, the 'test' (if I may use that word) of the validity or authenticity of Tolkien's words is your own experience.

This seems to me to describe quite well the position that it is the reader who ultimately ascribes value or meaning to Tolkien.

I wonder if we could look at the word 'magic' for a moment. My recollection (and I don't have "On Fairy Stories" at hand) is that Tolkien offerred a particular definition of his use of the word.

He rejected magic as the magician's sleight of hand in favour of something which satisfied 'primordial human desires' (relying on memory here), of 'imagined wonder'. Elsewhere, I think in the Letters (and they are not at hand now either) I recall he regretted using this word magic as it is easily misunderstood. He then elaborated upon his idea that he meant a perfect correlation between will and deed, an ideal sense of art where intention is satisfied by the --I would use execution but that word seems to me to express too cruel a summation. A vision of aesthetic perfection or ideal.

Perhaps this encompasses both your sense of mystical experience and Aiwendil's aesthetic satisfaction?

EDIT: cross-posting with SpM. I would simply like to say that I agree with Sauce that we can never finally ascertain what Tolkien meant. And, that, for me, to make any effort to determine that apart from a text like LOTR is to engage in an activity which predetermines the text. We can discuss the text in terms of our own experience.

Fordim Hedgethistle

05-12-2004, 08:01 AM

319 posts and 5 175+ views on this thread, and today marks exactly one month since I opened Pandora’s Box with it. As has been noted by many in the last few days we have covered a lot of territory in that time and moved around, through, over, away-and-back, past and perhaps even under my initial question (quite a humbling experience, actually).

Some quick thread facts:

25 posters have posted to the thread

SaucepanMan and Mark 12_30 are tied for the most posts at 49 each

By my rough calculation, we’ve put up somewhere in the neighbourhood of 200 000 words (or about 800 typed, double-spaced pages)

But at any event, that’s not why I’m posting. I thought that now might be a good moment to bring forward my initial post and address how I think it might be regarded given the thread’s evolution:

I’ve been noticing that most of the questions and debates that take place in this forum tend to turn on the idea of what Tolkien ‘intended’ when he wrote the books. That is, when it comes to something like the origin of orcs, or whether a particular character is a Maia or not, everyone goes scrambling to the various reference works to piece together the ‘truth’. More often than not, what happens is we find that Tolkien’s own writings are far from definitive and, even worse for those who desire absolute clarity, they sometimes are even contradictory (the origin of orcs being a good example; or, my personal fave and a perennial topic for heated discussion in these parts: do/can balrogs fly?).

It seems to me that this kind of an approach, while entertaining and extremely informative, tends to miss the point somewhat. Tolkien himself wrote in the Introduction to LotR that he “much prefers history, real or imagined.” Throughout his career as a creative writer, Tolkien saw himself as a historian who was ‘recovering’ these tales from a distant past. The historian can shape the narrative of history, but he or she cannot make that history. This only makes sense, I suppose, given that Tolkien was by training and temperament a philologist. He believed that the truth of any tale lies in its historical origins – more specifically, the historical origins of the words that have given rise to the tale.

Given this idea (which, again, was Tolkien’s own) of the writer-as-historian, then does this not mean that we – the readers – are not only able, but compelled, to seek always to reinterpret the tales from our own standpoint rather than continually try to figure out what the ‘first’ historian made of them? Tolkien can give us important clues and hints into the history and – more significantly – the moral fabric of Middle-Earth, as he was the world’s greatest expert on the material. But in the end, it’s up to the reader to really figure it out for him or herself. That’s, I think, the real strength of Middle-Earth over other imagined worlds: it’s open-ended and incomplete; it’s contradictory; it doesn’t make sense – it’s just like our own (primary) world.

The question that comes up out of all this (and if you’re still reading: thanks) is – how far can we go with our own re-interpretations of the works before we’re working ‘against’ them rather than ‘within’ them. I think it’s pretty fair to say that everyone here would agree that it’s at acceptable (even desirable) to interpret the women characters from a point of view that is more contemporary than Tolkien’s own. I think it’s also safe to say that we would all want to adopt an interpretation of the Dwarves that is radically different from Tolkien’s own (in a BBC broadcast recorded in 1971 he said that the Dwarves are “clearly the Jews”). But can we do something like criticize Gondor for maintaining an autocratic form of government (the King)? Are we allowed to re-interpret the Scouring of the Shire as the re-establishment of upper-class power (Frodo) after a successful revolution by the underclasses (albeit it supported by foreign insurgents)?

In a book that doesn’t really conclude, where does its truth end and our own begin?

From my perspective, I think that at the moment we have become a bit stuck on the horns of this sticky dilemma. davem has become the voice par excellence in celebration of the intensely personal nature of the reading experience – perhaps, the uniquely personal reading experience when encountering Middle-Earth (insofar as the story exists within the ‘frames’ both of fiction itself – the ‘not true but meaningful’ – and of its status as a subcreated world – ‘not true but meaningful within itself and according to its own internal rules and laws’.

I think that we all agree that this is an entirely valid and useful response, but it is a response that is itself too internalised to the reader to be shared in any kind of critically useful way with other readers. We might each have our own visionary/intuitive/religious/psychological/etc encounters with the work, but unless we can find another person who has precisely the same kind of reaction (which will never happen, insofar as we are all different people) then that encounter will forever remain personal and unique. This is good, and right and proper and, I daresay, the final and ultimate function of fantasy.

But this still does not get us anywhere down the difficult road toward the matter of reinterpretation of the text. I am not saying that personal encounters with the text – personal interpretations, say – aren’t valid (quite the opposite, see paragraph above), but that interpretation of a text as a critical act takes place only within a community. Sharing our personal experiences of the text (how it made us ‘feel’, the rightness of it all, the truth/Truth we gather from it) is an important part of a reading community, but not – I hope – the sum total of such a community. Or, at least, there are other kinds of communities possible.

I do think that we have gone just about as far as we can go with the debate that is currently going back and forth between davem and SpM (I feel kind of like a spectator at a tennis match as I read through their posts above – uh oh: I mean, a non-competitive tennis match!). Where I think we can refocus our efforts here is to ask, how can we begin to move beyond our personal and individual encounters with Middle-Earth and work toward some new reinterpretations of the text? The point of this is not, I think, to reach consensus or agreement, but to work through our own interpretations in response to other peoples’.

I suppose the tweaking I would like to give my initial post is this. I began by asking what claim or authority does the author have on the interpretative act of the reader in our encounters with Middle-Earth. Now, I think I would like to find out what claim or authority does the reading community have on the interpretative act of the reader in this encounter? Or/and: what claim or authority does the interpretative act of the reader have on the reading community?

(Special Note to Mister Underhill: note my total lack of reference to Nazgûl or Fellowship-readers! ;) )

(Second Special Note to Mister Underhill: there’s no room left for any other kind of reader insofar as I see these two ‘types’ as existing at either end of a very long spectrum upon which every reader moves as we encounter the text.)

davem

05-12-2004, 08:46 AM

Bethberry Quote:

'I would simply like to say that I agree with Sauce that we can never finally ascertain what Tolkien meant. And, that, for me, to make any effort to determine that apart from a text like LOTR is to engage in an activity which predetermines the text. We can discuss the text in terms of our own experience.'

Well, to that extent we can never finally ascertain what anyone ever means about anything.

We can take the letters, essays, the morality & worldview that comes through in the books, etc. We can take some statements at face value & accept that they express Tolkien's own values. Of course, we're then still having to assume things, but we won't be inventing our 'own' Tolkien from scratch. I don't see that involving 'predetermining the text' - if I understand you're meaning. I don't see this 'discussing the text in terms of our own experience' thing either - we can be changed by the text & emerge a different person. The text may change our 'meaning', rather than us imposing a meaning on it.

So actually, its not true to say :

Quote:I read this as saying you give credence to Tolkien's statements because they accord with something you have felt or experienced prior to reading Tolkien: you grant his words authority because they agree with your experience. Thus, the 'test' (if I may use that word) of the validity or authenticity of Tolkien's words is your own experience.

Reading LotR changed me. I'd never paid any attention to the natural world before reading it, I never had much interest in 'spirituality' - up to discovering LotR at 16 my reading matter of choice had been comicbooks. I was changed by Tolkien's works, they gave me my first 'glimpse' into something beyond materialism. But everytime I go back to them I find more in them, I find confirmation for my experiences. Everything I read in Tolkien's writings - fiction & non fiction. I don't feel myself to be so 'important' in this context - Tolkien has taught me something - & from everything I've read of his, he's taught me exactly what he intended to teach me. I don't believe I've imposed my own meaning on his stories, & that my own meaninbg has just happened to coincide with what he intended by pure fluke.

If I misinterpret something you or another poster here writes you, rightly, take me to task - I'm not free to decide that what you post only means whatever I take it to mean - & I don't distinguish between 'fact' & 'fiction' when it comes to meaning. I think Tolkien's meaning is pretty obvious to everyone who reads his works - until they start 'analysing' it, & trying to work out what it means. I suspect only really 'clever' people struggle over what it all means, & what Truth is, & Joy.

Quote:Perhaps this encompasses both your sense of mystical experience and Aiwendil's aesthetic satisfaction?

Er, no - it doesn't really, does it? Mystical experience is 'spiritual' & aesthetic satisfaction is 'sensory' (unless you believe they have their origin in the same 'state' - 'Truth' perhaps? 'Truth is beauty & beauty, Truth'etc. But I don't think Aiwendil would accept the reality of Mystical experience, unless he was allowed to translate it as meaning the same thing as 'aesthetic satisfaction', & so could say 'There, its all simply 'aesthetic sastisfaction'. I have to seperate the two & keep them seperate, otherwise the 'common ground' is false, & we're simply agreeing for the sake of not arguing, & I don't see where that gets us. Mystical experience is experience 'of' something. At least Tolkien believed that to be the case, & I think its a central question as to whether thats a 'fact' that we're dealing with, as Tolkien believed, or an interpretation. The two are simply of a different order to each other. Don't we need to know whether we are interpreting a 'fact' or interpreting an interpretation. Aren't Facts 'canon' ? If so, then Truth & Joy are canonical, aren't they?

bilbo_baggins

05-12-2004, 09:54 AM

Fordim does such a better job at summarizing the thread than I do... :)

I suppose I might just be repeating facts, but the reader is his own authority. How he interprets the facts of Tolkien's literature is his own business, and what he makes does not necessarily become canon. Everyone can have their own view of M-E. Tolkien was a human, therefore, he was not perfect, and anything he made can not be completely exact.

To Conclude this quick reply: There is no "Tolkien Canon", some magical reference one may pull out and show to others that their beliefs may coincide. It is completely impossible.

But do not lose hope; individual interpretation is not the end of complete interpretation. Many people agree about major ideas in Tolkien, things pretty much unchangeable: ie, Frodo loses one finger in the destruction of the Ring. Some will disagree on minor things: ie, Gollum's fall was chance/purpose. We all agree that he fell, therefore we have some ground for harmony and agreement.

Perhaps we can overlook the minor differences we struggle with and create the new interpretation that Fordim suggests.

davem

05-12-2004, 10:54 AM

Fordim

Quote:

'Now, I think I would like to find out what claim or authority does the reading community have on the interpretative act of the reader in this encounter? Or/and: what claim or authority does the interpretative act of the reader have on the reading community?'

This is the reason I was asking for a consensus on what the 'facts' are in regard to Tolkien's Legendarium, & what constitutes 'interpretation' - either Tolkien's own, or a reader's. The reading community cannot, imo, have any claim or authority on the interpretive act of the reader, unless it has come to a consensus as regards what 'facts' are to be interpreted. I suspect that it is the 'common ground' issue again. I consider many things to be 'facts' or 'givens', which other posters consider to be 'interpretations' or subjective experiences.

I think we would be approaching too close to 'orthodoxy' vs 'heresy' if we moved too far down this road of the 'authority' of the community over the individual, or vice versa.

I think, even after all this long discussion we still haven't achieved a consensus, or created what could be called a 'reading community', so I can't see what this 'authority' would be. Have we 'authorised' a view? If the text only means what the reader decides it means, or experiences it as meaning, then there can never be a 'community interpretation' to make a claim on the individual reader - there would only, could only, be a lot of individual readers - never a community.

Bêthberry

05-12-2004, 12:07 PM

Really now Fordim, I think there likely will be as many sporting metaphors as we have readers and imaginations willing to create them. ;)

Your question reminds me, Fordim, of Calvin's own dilemma when people began interpreting the Bible differently, after he had assumed there would be consensus of understanding.

davem,

If you will, a few points, although I am increasingly becoming convinced this is futile, particularly after your suggestion we all know what Tolkien means; it is only the 'clever' ones who create confusion. What's the point of discussion here, among a community of people who enjoy reading Tolkien, if we simply say that we would all agree if only we didn't talk about it?

Reading LotR changed me. I'd never paid any attention to the natural world before reading it, I never had much interest in 'spirituality' - up to discovering LotR at 16 my reading matter of choice had been comicbooks. I was changed by Tolkien's works, they gave me my first 'glimpse' into something beyond materialism. But everytime I go back to them I find more in them, I find confirmation for my experiences. Everything I read in Tolkien's writings - fiction & non fiction. I don't feel myself to be so 'important' in this context - Tolkien has taught me something - & from everything I've read of his, he's taught me exactly what he intended to teach me.

With all due respect, and in no way to diminish the power of your experience or epiphany (a word which I use with complete and utter respect, as, indeed was theway I regarded your story about your Guardian Angel), this seems to me still to be valorising Tolkien based on the effect reading him had on you. It is the radical change upon your understanding which the text produced in you that allows you to revere Tolkien so highly. Having then had this awakening, you return to the texts to 'repeat' it, so to speak.

"he's taught me exactly what he intended to teach me" Logically, this seems to me to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Er, no - it doesn't really, does it? Mystical experience is 'spiritual' & aesthetic satisfaction is 'sensory' (unless you believe they have their origin in the same 'state' - 'Truth' perhaps? 'Truth is beauty & beauty, Truth'etc. But I don't think Aiwendil would accept the reality of Mystical experience, unless he was allowed to translate it as meaning the same thing as 'aesthetic satisfaction', & so could say 'There, its all simply 'aesthetic sastisfaction'. I have to seperate the two & keep them seperate, otherwise the 'common ground' is false,

Sorry, I could very well be dense here, but I don't see why you have to keep them separate. Tolkien, I thought, in OFS, clearly explained fairy as the satisfaction of primordial human desires, to survey 'the depths of time and space', 'to hold communion with other liveing things', 'the realisation of '"imagined wonder"', "An essential power of Faërie is thus the power of making immediately effective by the will the visions of 'fantasy'." He was, and I speak humbly here, as humbly if not more so than Tolkien was, offering a racially new explanation of the value of Christianity.

He was valorizing it upon his understanding of the importance and significance of story and story-making to mankind. Fantasy is not important, he was saying, because it reproduces the experience of Christian story. Rather, that for him God redeems "the corrupt-making creatures, men" in "a way fitting to ... their strange nature." "For the Art of it has the supremely convincing tone of Primary Art, that is, of Creation."

This seems to me to place aesthetics upon a far more important level than you would wish to acknowledge. It is, I would humbly suggest, a psychological reality of our species. It accounts, I think for the fact that even those who do not "believe in" or accept your Truth can still experience satisfaction upon reading Tolkien's work. It seems to me that Tolkien in effect explains the significance of Christianity through the esthetic experience.

*takes a deep breath in hopes this does not offend as such is not my purpose*

Fordim Hedgethistle

05-12-2004, 12:19 PM

I'm not sure why it would be necessary for there to be consensus to have a community. . . in fact, that sounds rather like a dull community to me (or a cult!). We all live in communities that share the same basic values but with radically different opinions, beliefs and interpretations of those values. In my local community, we hold theft to be wrong: some of us for religious reasons, some for legalistic, some for civil, etc etc etc. We don't agree, but we are a community.

Like it or not, we are all members of a community in this thread too (now there is magic at work for you! :D ). We all share the same sense of enchantment at Tolkien's work, but we experience it in different ways. We can either all lay back and say "Wow, what an enchanting work! This is how it enchants me, how does it echant you? Oooooh interesting") or we can simply acknowledge our existence as an enchanted community and attempt to move beyond that to a greater understanding of the text that we share, of our own community, etc etc etc.

I fear davem, that for whatever reason, you seem unwilling or unable to move beyond this initial sense of wonder and engagement. This may very well be a better or more true response to the text. But, well, being a 'clever' person I don't find it very productive.

mark12_30

05-12-2004, 01:14 PM

Fordim, I think it can be related back to the Pursuit of Happiness question... Yes, we are all members of the comunity of this thread. But what are we pursuing that keeps bringing us back to this thread? I won't speak for too many people here... :rolleyes: Some of us return to the thread over and over again, because (I think) the question of canon arose and we debate often, so we were drawn in in case the debate rules changed. (raises hand) Maybe lots of us were drawn in for that reason.

But why did we stay?

I stayed, because I wanted to explore the enchantment/ eucatastrophe connection to the Story, and the connection of that to the writer. Why? I write. I desire to see my readers enchanted and experiencing eucatastrophe. So the relationship of enchantment to author's intent matters to me as an author. (I don't think I'm alone among those who have traversed this thread.)

Others here may read more than they write. Perhaps they seek the enchantment itself in what they read.

Perhaps others (and here I am guessing wildly) have other curiosities, analytical, theoretical, psychological, academic.

If some traversing this thread are simply seeking the enchantment, that may be (excuse me) the reason why they are here (I know, I know!! This is how I think, bear with me.) It may be what they are called to do at the moment. If that is the case, then the enchantment is enough. It is the perfection of the moment, with no analysis needed.

Vive le enchantment.

davem

05-13-2004, 03:36 AM

Bethberry

Quote:'This seems to me to place aesthetics upon a far more important level than you would wish to acknowledge. It is, I would humbly suggest, a psychological reality of our species.'

Yes, I accept it is, but I think 'mystical experience' is more than a 'psychological reality' - which is all Aiwendil's worldview would allow it to be. I would have to conflate the two for them to fit into any 'common ground', so there would bve no point in distinguishing them, the terms would become interchangeable, & the 'dimension' I'm speaking of would cease to exist. In short, I simply don't believe that while my 'epiphany' (though strangely enough, at the time it felt perfectly 'normal') was 'psychological' in nature, it wasn't simply psychological in origin.

Fordim

Quote:'I fear davem, that for whatever reason, you seem unwilling or unable to move beyond this initial sense of wonder and engagemen't.

Why would I want to move beyond it? Tell me what I'll find if I leave it behind, & if you can convince me its 'better' I'll try & move 'forward'.

Quote:'This may very well be a better or more true response to the text.
But, well, being a 'clever' person I don't find it very productive.'

But what do you want to 'produce'? What are you looking to end up with? Is it something other than, or better than, 'wonder & engagement'?

Do you see ther Legendarium as having to be 'for' something, or like a puzzle to be solved, rather than as a thing to be experienced for itself, & perhaps to open us up to the possibility of wonder, enchantment, eucatastrophe?

HerenIstarion

05-13-2004, 04:12 AM

One day off, and a wagon-load of posts for me to catch up. But there was a good read on them, and I feel the urge to type I haven't experienced for months before Evil Things thread came to the surface, and which has become even more intense with this particular one, reaching the state of some kind of itch in my fingertips

First of all, my apologies if I sounded like a cheerleader with my post #296. It had indeed the cheering up of certain people in mind, who started to sound a bit bitter to me, so I wanted a bit of Joy around for their enjoyment. I'm sorry if it looked as deliberate 'side-taking', but, well, being of certain views and beliefs, I naturally tend to support people of similar mindset. That does not, definitely, imply my disrespect of any kind or form with regards to opinions of those of the different mindset (even if I fail to make it seen clearly), and the form of cheering up I chose seemed appropriate at the time of choosing. My apologies to those who found it appalling.

Now to essentials - I should say we are already past Tolkien in our discussion and touching here and there on the basic facts about the reality. The whole issue of Truth/truth is grounded not on difference of appreciation of the text, but difference of entire outlook, be it materialistic or religious. Being of the latter, I have a logical (yes, justified and made logical by the fact of my belief) ground to conclude that some statements about the world are more true than others. (and the truth does not lie in numbers, but in relation of each statement to the ultimate Truth), Said Truth with capital T, at Aiwendil's bidding, and not only, I am willing indeed to name as God)

Before I proceed to what I'm going to say, I would be allowed to made a disclaimer: what follows is not posted with the intention to force my views (or such a 'horrible' thing as religion is) on anyone, Eru forbid :)). I just hold that I owe you all one, for what forms the ground of Tolkien understanding for me, is rooted, as I've said, in the basic Fact about the world I hold to be true. And, as I believe it to be true, I would be glad if I succed in convincing some in its truth.

So, I hold that the world we live in is created by omnipotent and benevolent Being. I also hold that Evil found in the world is not due to some flaw in said omnipotency or benevolence of the Creator, but because of Freedom given creatures to do as they will, for without such a Freedom they can not be loved in a 'proper way', or indeed would be not worth loving, but mere 'things', or 'items'. I hold also that the creatures, given the ability to do so, indeed have 'gone wrong', abused their freedom and are now ina state which is technically defined, (or merely known, choose whichever you like) as Fallen. but measures to correct such a situation are already taken (Eucatastophe). Despite the fact of being fallen, creatures retain the built-in standard of Good and Evil against which their actions are measured and which is the basic ground for all moralities of all societies throughout history we have a notion of. Furthermore, I hold that, though some of our actions may be well the subsequent to us being half animals, and having instincts, or developments of such instincts, the act of choice we make when acting, and preferring one over the other is not instinct in itself, but the application of combined Freedom/Built in Standard of Good and Wrong. So, much asked for definitions would be (clumsily, no doubt, but I try my best to be honest) as follows:

1. Truth – recognition of createdness of our world by God, as well as built-in moral low, standard of Good and Evil, which enables us to distinguish those and bring ouserves in conformity with Good and unity with God
2. Joy – natural state of unfallen, and state to which redeemed will be returned of unity and harmony with God. The enjoyment and aestetical pleausure associated are natural parts of it, but not the end of it. The end is Truth, i.e., said unity and harmony with God. The feeling of Joy usually convoys the recognition of Truth
3. Light – traditionally vaguely defined substance what corresponds with two previous terms. May be used separately to mark or even replace each.
4. Eucatastrophe – the correcting push, bringing stray humanity back to confomity with the Truth. Accompinied by feeling of Joy, as of enjoyment and recognition, which is indicator of the turnover in the direction of Truth.

Furthermore, I hold that all of the above is arguble logically, even if by means of a 'mere' syllogism. Try that one out:

If the world is a result of random development, the conscious mind of a man, is, likewise, result of enourmously long chain of over-numerous accidents, and thinking process which takes place in said mind is equally accidental and random. Therefore, any conclusions that mind comes to, are all based on billion years worth of fortuity, and chances of it reflecting the affairs 'as they are' are ridiculously small. Indeed, if my mind is random, why conclusion I make with it should be true? (The whole modern cosmogonic theory, coming down to 'in the beginning there was nothing, which exploded' sounds like quite a funny joke to my ear)

Now invert that last paragraph. What is the result? It comes that, only when one admits that universe, and, therefore, one's mind is created by already consicous Being, one's minds claim to possesion of an ability of digging the truth out is based on anything more than a whiff of a wind.

Following all of the above, I hold that some interpretations of anything (including Tolkien) are more right than others, being in closer proximity to Truth in both senses (recognition and built-in standard) (With that admitting that some maybe 'righter' than mine, of course)

Therefore, I can argue that truth lies not in number of people holding this or that statement to be true, but in conformity of the statements itself to the one Big T, if I am allowed to joke about it in such a crude way. And, though I hold that 'sky is blue' and 'water is wet' type of 'truths' also form a part of the Truth, it is essentially about what is Right and what is Wrong. And if to murder is wrong, it is not because certain number of people believe it to be so, but because it is simply so. If 95 out of 100 held murded to be good, it nevertheless would have been bad, because it is simply bad.

As I have fleetingly mentioned above, the rightenss/wrongness of interpratation does not stand in the way of enjoyment. So, there is no claim of mine to state that any feelings, thoughts, inspirations any of you experienced while reading Tolkien are of less value than the next man's, that is, mine.

Furthermore I hold that Tolkien deliberately constructed his stories as to reflect, retell the Truth (again, in both senses), but, instead of using mere statemens just as I did, used a more subtle way of Joy. Inherent standard of Good and Evil enables us to glimpse those, even if uncounsiously so.

But, and very grave 'but' at that, as sub-creation is yet another expression of Man's likeness ot God, Tolkien's [sub]creation may be enjoyed without such a directed revelation, without statement of belief, as things in themselves, artworks. But, another grave 'but', to evaluate those as merely artworks is wrong, but, third grave 'but', only if one making evaluation aknowledges the truth of the Truth, Joy, Light and Eucatastrophe. If he/she denies such a Truth, than he/she may be content to consider LoTR as mere artwork, and is right in doing so..

But, as I've said, I do believe my approach to be more right than some, yet, I would repeat – it does not imply disrespect, or animosity, or any other hard feeling towards those holding different opinion, though, I'm sorrowed to admit, I hold it to be superior approach, as I believe it to be more correct, or more true one.

Confession's over, shoot who will..

Child of the 7th Age

05-13-2004, 07:49 AM

Heren Istarion,

I think it is logical and admirable for you to set down the personal beliefs and standards that guide your reading of Tolkien and your personal life.

If we're honest with each other, we would probably all admit that we consider our own particular religious and/or philosophical beliefs, whatever those may be, to be the very "best" possible, at least in the sense that they most perfectly explain what we see and experience in life. If we did not regard them as the "best", then why would we ever adopt them? Like you, Heren, God stands at the center of my existence, and I personally see those same ideas reflected in Tolkien's writings. Yet, if we were to discuss the specifics of that belief, my personal perspective would probably not be identical to yours. And the same is true for everyone else posting on this thread. Even if a number of us could agree on the centrality of God in our view of the world and in Tolkien's own writings, our personal conceptions of who that God is and how best to honor him would vastly differ.

Your post hints that the great dividing line on this thread should be seen in those terms: who does or does not view the Truth (and Tolkien's writings by implication) as reflective of the glory and wonder of God. As central as God is to my being, I do not see it that way. This is a community of readers. We may discuss many things and there are times when a poster may dramatically change his or her mind, based on the words that are put forward on this site. But the one thing that is a given, that is unlikely to change because of such a discussion, is our personal outlook and perspective, how we see ourselves and how we regard the Truth, what place we feel God does or does not occupy in the universe. Those feelings and perspectives are a given, and they are unlikely to alter because of anything that is said here.

So where does that leave us? Basically, we have two options. We can each go forward and stress the uniqueness of our personal beliefs, setting down the reasons why those are the "best" set of beliefs to help us understand Tolkien's writings, and why other perspectives are inaccurate or faulty. One danger with this is that we can can end up splitting hairs.

Is it, for example, enough to be a theist, or even a Christian to understand what the author is saying? Someone who is a devout Catholic could argue that you or I can not truly understand what Tolkien means because we do not share this particular subset of his beliefs, and this subset was obviously very important to him. (Please excuse me Heren if indeed you are Catholic! :) Someone else who is Catholic could come along and maintain that it isn't enough to be Catholic per se. To understand Tolkien, one must share his particular mindset in regard to the Catholic Church, i.e., the precise feelings he had concerning church reform, women showing up in church wearing slacks and sporting curlers in their hair, or the role of the Church in the world. We can split hairs further and further, until we end up in separate trees throwing coconuts at each other. :eek:

The second option is to acknowledge that folk on the Downs do not see the world in exactly the same way, to honestly admit that each of us considers our unique perspective to be the "best one" (because truthfully who doesn't?), but, at the same time, to agree that there is a common ground where we can share and discuss and respect each other's ideas. And this means that personal belief in God, or even seeing the aspect of the numinous in Tolkien's writings, is not a critical prerequisite for a fruitful discussion of the author and his works.

Again, I will reiterate: Tolkien was not Lewis. His primary purpose in writing was not to convert anyone to Christianity or Catholicism. In the course of writing, he did reflect the personal truths that he saw in both Christianity and Catholicism, because that was central to his soul. And he was certainly trying to open us up to the value of goodness, self sacrifice, and fellowship. For those who do believe in God, or at least something beyond, there are obvious hints of light and the numinous. (Personally, these are some of my favorite parts. I have been chasing after Frodo the Elf-friend for over thirty-five years!)

I guess that is one reason this thread is "getting" to me, despite my persistent efforts of late to ignore it. For me, one of the prime messages that comes through in Tolkien is this: people of differing backgrounds, whose culture and beliefs vary widely can come together to fight evil and form close personal bonds. Most of the free folk of Middle-earth did not even know who Eru was, but Tolkien still expected them to stand up and be counted. Whether you were an Elf who understood all the tales of Eru and Valinor, or you were a Hobbit who lived a moral life without any wider grounding of intellect or belief, you still had a part to do, and that part was valuable.

Everything I know about Tolkien's personal life suggests that, despite his strong religious convictions and his desire to pass on the truth of Catholicism to friends, he could also be accepting of differences and was not judgmental in this one sense. His comments about his Jewish friends at the University, his response to the publisher who questioned his Aryan background, and his closeness to Lewis prior to the latter's conversion all reinforce this impression. Tolkien openly vented against stupidity and a blind adherence to the dictates of modern culture. Yet, even in his Letters, he did not denigrate anyone for a lack of belief or claim that such people would have trouble understanding LotR.

If Tolkien can depict the Fellowship and the alliance against Sauron in this positive manner, given all their diverse cultures, beliefs and levels of awareness, why can we not engage in a discussion of the books, without saying that others who don't share our particular beliefs are somehow deficient in how they interpret things or interact with the text?

Heren, I don't mean that you said or implied this in your last post, but there are places on this thread where I do get a sense folk are saying we can't have a fruitful sharing of ideas unless we all approach the text as believers in God. This is frankly not the mindset that I get when I read the messge of LotR.

Snowdog

05-13-2004, 11:54 AM

Fordim Hedgethistle, I read with interest your opening post, and I have to say that I have always taken it as such:Given this idea (which, again, was Tolkien’s own) of the writer-as-historian, then does this not mean that we – the readers – are not only able, but compelled, to seek always to reinterpret the tales from our own standpoint rather than continually try to figure out what the ‘first’ historian made of them? Tolkien can give us important clues and hints into the history and – more significantly – the moral fabric of Middle-Earth, as he was the world’s greatest expert on the material. But in the end, it’s up to the reader to really figure it out for him or herself. That’s, I think, the real strength of Middle-Earth over other imagined worlds: it’s open-ended and incomplete; it’s contradictory; it doesn’t make sense – it’s just like our own (primary) world. Henceforth, I write bits and pieces of the 'missing' record, and have fun doing it. The limiting factor is to stay within the bounds of the defined world (no balrog/elf breeds, etc.). The world has should be taken on its own, without theological interference from our individual worlds.

Good thread! More later.

Aiwendil

05-13-2004, 09:05 PM

Davem wrote (back in post 310):
When I said that 'facts' like 'killing is wrong' or 'water is wet', etc are nothing to do with 'Truth' I meant simply that they are facts, which are 'products' of our response to Truth - ie, 'Truth', in the sense in which I am using it, refers not to moral codes or precepts, but to the source of those codes, the thing which inspires them in us.

Ah! I'm glad you said that. That is I think something like the definition I was asking for. "Truth" means "the source of truth" where the uncapitalized is understood in the conventional sense - is that it? That's certainly a definition I can live with - of course in another context I would still dispute whether "the source of truth" makes any sense. But I can certainly suspend that doubt and accept the term as a well-defined one.

My problem in so far as coming to an agreement as to what Truth is, in an attempt to reach some kind of common ground, is that I cannot 'translate' my conceptions of Truth, Joy, etc into terms which would fit your world view, at least not without sacrificing what I mean by them, in order to make them 'fit' - & if I could, we wouldn't really be debating on common ground, we'd be debating on grounds that you had set out, & we would have to remain on that sharply defined ground, if we wanted the debate to continue, & wherever the debate went, it could only go where you allowed it to go.

I understand that, and that's why I said earlier that we had come to an impasse. For if I were to simply accept your Truth/Joy/Tao, we would be debating on grounds that you had set.

The reason I was so interested in hearing your definition of "Truth" is that I wanted to know whether it was a term we could both accept and simply use even if we thought it meant different things.

Since metaphors are so fashionable in this thread: imagine a Jewish theologian and a Christian theologian discussing some subject. They may very well have occasion to refer to "God" in this discussion. Now, each one means a different thing by "God". The Jew means a singular omnipotent being; the Christian means the Trinity (forgive me if I'm oversimplifying this, but you get the point). But, unless they are debating these specific differences, they can quite comfortably use the word "God" with each other and as if they were referring to exactly the same thing. Their ideas about the meaning of the term "God" are different, but they are similar enough to allow discussion involving "God".

But now take a Christian and an ancient Greek "pagan". The Greek also has a word "god". But he or she means something quite different. There will be few topics that the two could discuss in which they can use the word "god" simpliciter.

I was hoping that our disagreement about Truth was like the Christian and the Jew rather than the Christian and the mythologist. That is, I was hoping that we could accept some broad definition for Truth and leave the exact contents of the definition unspecified. It appeared earlier that we cannot in fact do this. So, to be honest, I am a bit confused about why you continued (back in post 310, again) to argue in favor of your concept of Truth. As I see it, you indeed belive that:

If we limit ourselves to the physical, material world, that can be encompassed by current psychological & literary theories, whatever conclusions we may come to would not really be relevant, as central issues would have been rejected.

. . . then I'm afraid there is simply no more to be discussed, for in such a case your definition of "Truth" differs in a way crucial to the subject at hand from any definition I can accept.

You wrote:
My world view includes the metaphysical as well as the physical, but yours seems limited only to the physical, so I would not be allowed to offer metaphysical 'proofs' - which by their nature can only be expressed through feelings & experiences.

If by "metaphysical" you mean something like "supernatural" or "not reducible to logic and physics" then you're right. I don't want a proof of anything; but again, if Truth is in your view necessarily not reducible to logic and physics, then we have no common term.

I have to say that you & SpM seem to get het up at claims that you are missing something, almost as if you're 'demanding' that I, or Helen, or H-I should 'reaveal' the 'secret' to you, or stop implying that there is such a 'secret'. Yet you claim to be so confident that you have understood it all in the way that you want, & that anything we could 'reveal' - if we deigned to let you in on the hidden meaning - would not interest you because it can't be True anyway, because there's no such thing as Truth.

So, here we are, us saying Truth exists, you denying it exists, but demanding that we tell you what it is anyway. If you don't feel you're missing out on anything why do you keep asking us to tell you what you're missing out on?

Well, I hope I've at last made my position clear (as I've been trying and failing to do in the past two or three posts). I am not demanding that you "reveal" anything to me; I simply wanted to know what you mean when you say Truth - just as, if I started using some term like "goomak" in the discussion, you'd want to know what I meant by it. That's a completely separate issue from that of the viability of reading Tolkien's literary theory with Faerie and Truth as psychological objects rather than metaphysical ones.

In connection with this last point, Mister Underhill wrote:
Surely he means more than “the set of true propositions” about the world: 2+2=4, the earth is round, and so forth. Unless I mistake what you mean by “set of true propositions” – which I take to be limited solely to rational, provable, indisputable, factual propositions

I'm afraid you do misunderstand me. The set of true propositions could (a priori) be as abstract as one likes. It could include truths that cannot, even in principle, ever be tested. It could include transcedent truths, if such things exist. And so on.

Now, as for my claim that "On Faery Stories" and the rest can be read with purely psychological definitions for "Truth" and so on - certainly this is not what Tolkien intended, or what he believed. My point is that nonetheless I think his theory is a perfectly coherent and sound one even if one replaced his transcendental truths with psychological ones.

HerenIstarion

05-14-2004, 01:32 AM

To post #329 by Child of Seventh Age re:

You are probably right.

And, to lift the heavy lid covering the pan of bubbling and boiling emotions, I would present (again, for your enjoyment ;)) the following:

Question: Why did the chicken cross the street?
Answers:

DESCARTES: to go to the other side.

PLATO: For his own sake. On the other side of the street there is the truth

ARISTOTELES: It's part of the chicken's nature to cross streets

KARL MARX: It was historically inevitable

CAPTAIN KIRK: To get where no other chicken had ever got before

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: I had a dream where all chicken were free to cross streets without having to justify their decisions.

RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the street - I repeat - the chicken never crossed the street.

SIGMUND FREUD: The fact that you worry about why the chicken crossed the street reveals your strong inner feeling of sexual insecurity

BILL GATES: We precisely have just finish to elaborate the new program "Office Chicken 2004" that, on top of crossing streets, will also be able to incubate eggs, archive important documents, etc.

BUDDHA: asking such a thing is to reject your own inner chicken nature

TONY BLAIR: the chicken was going on a humanitarian mission

CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY: The reason is in yourself, but you don’t know it yet. Through a small contribution of 1500 Euros, plus the rent of a lie detector, we will run a psychological test that will help us discover the reason

BILL CLINTON: I swear on the Constitution that nothing sexual ever happened between me and that chicken

EINSTEIN: The fact that it is the chicken who crosses the street or the street which moves beneath the chicken is relative.

ZEN: the chicken might be crossing the street in vain, only the Teacher knows the noise of its shadow against the wall

STALIN: the chicken must be shot immediately, as well as all witnesses of the scene plus 10 people chose by hazard as they did not try to prevent this subversive act

GEORGE W. BUSH: the fact that the chicken crossed the street in all impunity despite the UN resolutions, represents a serious attack to democracy, justice and freedom. This proves beyond all doubt that we should have bombed this street a long time ago. With the objective to guarantee peace in the region and to avoid that the values we treasure are once again attacked by such terrorist actions, the government of the US has decided to send 17 warships, 46 destroyers and 154 frigates, with the land support of 243,000 soldiers and 843 bombers, which will have the mission, in the name of freedom and democracy, to destroy all sign of life in poultry in the 5000 KM around the area, and ensure, with some targeted missiles, that anything vaguely resembling poultry will be turned to ashes and will never again be able to defy our nation with his arrogance. We have also decided that afterwards this country will be ruled by our government, which will create new poultry according to safety standards, handing all powers over to a cock democratically elected by the US ambassador. In order to finance such operation, we will take total control of the entire cereal production of the region for the coming 30 years, with local citizens benefiting from a favorable tariff over part of the production, in exchange of their complete cooperation. In this new land of justice, peace and freedom, we can assure you that never again will a chicken attempt to cross a street, for the simple reason that there will be no streets and that chicken will not have paws. God bless America.

Probably, it would be good for myself to remember chicken in question, each time I put my hand on the branch of a tree with the intention of picking up a coconut :D

cheers

davem

05-14-2004, 03:31 AM

Aiwendil

I'm not sure there would be such a difference between the Christian, the Jew & the Pagan in their concept of the ultimate nature of Deity. I think there is a consensus of a kind to be found between Christian, Jewish & Pagan Mystics. My 'singature' is a quote from a Pagan Neo-Platonist Philosopher, & I don't think many Christians or Jews would find a lot to argue with in it. A Christian mystical text like The Cloud of Unknowing could be accepted by Pagans, Christians, Jews & Moslems quite easily.

If we take a Pagan idea - a 'saviour' figure appears in the world, one of his parents is human (usually the mother) his father is divine. He lives a short life, performs great feats or miracles, is killed, often sacrificed for others, & is brought back to life & goes to spend eternity with his divine parent. Often his death involves some kind of piercing - with a spear or an arrow. He is symbolically a 'child' of both worlds - uniting both in himself, & becoming a symbolic 'bridge' between the worlds, enabling his followers to enter into paradise through him. We can find variations of this idea across the world - though not in a 'pure' & perfect' a form as in Christianity. Certainly Achilles is a demiGod who is killed by being pierced with an arrow, so is Krishna. Lugh, in Celtic myth is killed by a spear, & resurrected by his uncle Gwydion.

To relate this back to Christianity, I came across an interpretation - can't remember where - of the Crucifixion. Christ is 'transfixed' on the cross, & pierced by the spear. Symbolically, He hangs between & so unites, earth & sky, he unites in himself God & Man, creator & creation, life & death. There is an eclipse, so even day & night are symbolically one at that point. We have an 'image' - all the 'opposites', the 'fragments' into which creation was broken with the Fall, constellate around the Crucified Christ, who becomes a new 'centre of gravity' for the broken Creation - so the nails are shown going through his palms, & he 'actively' grasps them, rather than through his wrists. He pulls the universe back together.

Ok, sermon over! but the point is, seen in that light, with so many 'Pagan' images & symbols being contained in the Christian story, a Pagan philosopher would have had a great deal of common ground with a Christian, not just in the idea of a Deity (most Pagan Philosophers understood the gods to be 'aspects' of a single Deity, who was beyond human comprehension), but even in details of their beliefs. The similarities between Christianity & Judaism are obvious.

In other words, I'm not sure that your analogy works. Then again, not being a Christian myself (though having sympathy with it) the interpretation of the crucifixion I've just given may be totally heretical, & I expect Helen & H-I to put me right on it if it is wrong!

But we still haven't solved the problem of interpretation of Tolkien. I would say that a proper interpretation of Tolkien's work, a proper understanding of what he was attempting to achieve, requires us to take into account the metaphysical dimension as a fact. If we don't, then the interpretation we end up with will be missing something that I, H-I, Helen, Child & others feel is of central importance, so it won't work for us. I suspect, though, if it did contain the metaphysical dimension we require for it to work, you would find it unsatisfactory. So, as you say, impasse.

Of course, I'm still waiting for Fordim's answer as to what he wants to 'produce' by this process of interpretation & what he wants any consensus of meaning to do - maybe its just for its own sake - like the revised Sil which you're invovled in.

Its funny to have come so far with this if that's all we're looking to end up with.

Mister Underhill

05-14-2004, 08:13 AM

My point is that nonetheless I think his theory is a perfectly coherent and sound one even if one replaced his transcendental truths with psychological ones.Hmm. Is the sum of this and your Christian/Jew analogy all to say that you believe in God (in the broadest possible sense of that word) -- but only as a set of psychological principles? I admit that I am still confused.

bilbo_baggins

05-14-2004, 08:41 AM

...I am still confused (Mister Underhill)

If I may say such an over-used cliche: "join the club!" :smokin:

davem

05-14-2004, 08:55 AM

MrU

I have to agree that the idea of God as a set of psychological principles is the kind of thing that sounds fine, but simply doesn't work - especially in the context of what Tolkien is describing in Fairy Stories - how would eucatastrophe work? What is the 'gleam' that comes through? Where does it come from? Tolkien's concept can only work if there is an objectively existing 'spiritual' dimension which fantasy opens us up to, which can affect us.

If its proposed that its some 'unconscious' process or 'function' which is somehow 'activated' by the reading of a particular kind of fiction, or exposure to specific images, then I can't see how that fits in with any current psychological theory, & would, I suspect, be dismissed as nonsense.

No, I can see either dismissing Tolkien's theory altogether, or accepting it at face value - & that requires acceptance that we are dealing with something much more than simply psychological processes.

The Saucepan Man

05-14-2004, 09:06 AM

When I said that 'facts' like 'killing is wrong' or 'water is wet', etc are nothing to do with 'Truth' I meant simply that they are facts, which are 'products' of our response to Truth - ie, 'Truth', in the sense in which I am using it, refers not to moral codes or precepts, but to the source of those codes, the thing which inspires them in us. (davem)

"Truth" means "the source of truth" where the uncapitalized is understood in the conventional sense - is that it? That's certainly a definition I can live with …(Aiwendil)Yes, me too. Indeed, I think that it is a very good one (assuming that it is acceptable as a broad proposition to all). If this is the definition that we are using, then I would say that I do have a belief in the existence of Truth, although it is neither strong nor central to my life. In fact, it would probably be more accurate to say that I recognise the possibility of the existence of Truth. Just as I recognise the possibility of glimpsing truth in LotR, although I have not glimpsed it there myself. I readily accept that I have experienced enchantment in LotR, but I have never experienced Eucatastrophe in it, or indeed in any other form of art, if I correctly understand that term to mean a religious experience. To put it another way, I do not have what is often described as “Faith”. Is that wrong? Am I somehow “missing out” on something? No, I don’t feel that either is the case, since I am perfectly content with my current state of belief. I do not feel the need for anything more. Of course, I do not preclude the possibility that I may someday glimpse Truth, if it exists, since I do not preclude the possibility of its existence.

Now, I hope that finally clarifies why it is that I have taken the position that I have on certain discussions within this thread.

Now, I think I would like to find out what claim or authority does the reading community have on the interpretative act of the reader in this encounter? Or/and: what claim or authority does the interpretative act of the reader have on the reading community? (Fordim)

The reading community cannot, imo, have any claim or authority on the interpretive act of the reader, unless it has come to a consensus as regards what 'facts' are to be interpreted … If the text only means what the reader decides it means, or experiences it as meaning, then there can never be a 'community interpretation' to make a claim on the individual reader - there would only, could only, be a lot of individual readers - never a community. (davem)I agree with your first point here, davem, but not your second one. Of course, neither the reader nor the interpretative community can have any automatic claim or authority over the interpretative act of the other. But that does not, to my mind, render interpretative communities valueless. What I was trying to say in my previous posts is that we can still discuss Tolkien’s works and reach consensus (or something approaching it) on a range of issues. But their value is much greater than that. By sharing our thoughts, interpretations and experiences in relation to his works, and listening to those of others, we can, I think learn a lot about ourselves and even be persuaded to change our views (if not our beliefs) on certain issues. By exposing ourselves to what others have to say, we open up the range of possibilities available to us, and some things which we had not thought of before, or on which we previously had different thoughts, may just “click” into place. If nothing else, this thread has certainly increased my knowledge, and will probably influence the way that I read LotR next time I pick it up (although that’s not to say that the way I read it was wrong before ;)). And it has also made me think very deeply about the spiritual aspects of my own beliefs and, though it may not have changed them, it has helped me to define them a little better within my own mind. And though I did say that they are not central to my life, it does not follow that they are not of interest to me.

The sentiments which I am trying to express here are, I think, similar to those expressed by Child in her last post, upon which I make no comment save to agree wholeheartedly with everything said within it (and that’s not cheerleading, it’s admiring and agreeing. :p )

If the world is a result of random development, the conscious mind of a man, is, likewise, result of enormously long chain of over-numerous accidents, and thinking process which takes place in said mind is equally accidental and random. Therefore, any conclusions that mind comes to, are all based on billion years worth of fortuity, and chances of it reflecting the affairs 'as they are' are ridiculously small. (HerenIstarion)But the evolution of physical attributes is not random. Creatures evolve in such a way that they are admirably suited to their environment. Why should moral precepts not evolve in the same way? Of course no creature is ever ideally suited to its environment, but then again can we say that any society has an ideal moral code? OK, you may not accept evolutionism, but there is to my mind a sound rational basis behind it. And I do not see it as inconsistent with a belief in Truth, since Truth can still be the source of the process if not the outcome.

And finally:

TONY BLAIR: the chicken was going on a humanitarian mission (HerenIstarion)A most enjoyable post overall, H-I. But I have to say that, to my mind, Tony Blair and humanitarianism go together about as well as Sauron and pink fluffy bunnies. :rolleyes:

Lyta_Underhill

05-14-2004, 09:06 AM

davem post 333: I would say that a proper interpretation of Tolkien's work, a proper understanding of what he was attempting to achieve, requires us to take into account the metaphysical dimension as a fact. If we don't, then the interpretation we end up with will be missing something that I, H-I, Helen, Child & others feel is of central importance, so it won't work for us. I suspect, though, if it did contain the metaphysical dimension we require for it to work, you would find it unsatisfactory. So, as you say, impasse. So authorial intention is brought back to the fore in this way! ;) And it seems that what Aiwendil might be saying is that this particular authorial intention may be co-opted the same as any other, from metaphysical to psychological. It is yet another interpretive act of reading. Personally, I think the way Tolkien wrote many passages leaves such interpretations wide open, that Eru was implied, intentionally, but that He wasn't forced upon the reader, just as the denizens of Middle Earth were not universally aware of Eru's existence or, if so, what part He played.

The closest we come to explicit naming of Eru in LOTR is Faramir's custom at meat in Henneth Annun, when he looks to the West:
we look rowards Numenor that was, and beyond to Elvenhome that is, and to that which is beyond Elvenhome and will ever be. This suggests, at least, an infinite and unseeable reality, at least from where Faramir is standing. Or, it could be read as a simple psychological ritualization of wondering "where the Sun goes" when it passes West each night, mysteries uncounted, unexplained and far away, the suggestion of their own smallness and the relative 'bigness' of the world (and beyond!). I'm sure there are other ways to read it and probably most of them are more erudite than those my own coffee-soaked brain comes up with. Tolkien suggests something beyond Elvenhome and only gives us a glimpse through a long held custom, thus, even in the sub-created reality, there is the remove of "it is said," rather than a direct revealed Truth. (The sayer, however, is linked back to the old and noble Numenorian race, thus giving his words the force of history in the eyes of one who listens to him). This, I think, gives the reader lots of freedom to interpret and does not necessitate the reader identify Eru explicitly, but Tolkien does place Him as a concept in Middle Earth, explicitly in other writings. So, Eru is intended in a certain way, but not forced through authorial heavy-handedness in the text of The Lord of the Rings.

Personally, the reduction of transcendent and metaphysical concepts to psychological ones is frightening to me, threatening to pull ALL reality inside my own limited brain and reducing my worldview to sadly solipsistic in nature, but then, that's my own view, and perhaps that of some others in the world. Maybe that is why we argue against it, because we do not wish it to be. (I am no psychologist, but I would think proving something true or false in that realm to be tricky at best and the results to be statistically scattered, rather than absolute.)

The concept that one thing can be proven False because another is True does not ring 'true' with me (except in the very fine logical true/false way for simple tests against an arbitrary standard), and I think many interpretations can be made of Tolkien's work, even beyond what he intended in his initial writing of it, but the fact that they are interpretations does not remove the truth from them, but merely removes them from authorial 'canon,' if you will and along that long string of communication towards the reader. I hope that made sense! :)

Cheers!
Lyta

The Saucepan Man

05-14-2004, 09:17 AM

Aiwendil

05-14-2004, 09:26 AM

Davem:

I think that, on anything like a traditional interpretation of Christian theology and Greek mythology, the two would have quite different conceptions of the term "God".

But the whole Christian/Jew/Pagan thing is quite beside the point (and consequently not worth arguing about). I was simply making an analogy. You can take it or leave it; I don't care.

Mr. Underhill wrote:
Hmm. Is the sum of this and your Christian/Jew analogy all to say that you believe in God (in the broadest possible sense of that word) -- but only as a set of psychological principles? I admit that I am still confused.

I'm not sure what it could mean to believe in God as a set of psychological principles. But I honestly don't think that my own beliefs (or lack thereof) have very much to do with Tolkien. All that I meant to say is that if you read "On Faery Stories" with my definitions of Faerie and Enchantment and Truth (i.e. that they are psychologically important concepts) then I think you get quite a sensible theory.

Lyta_Underhill

05-14-2004, 09:52 AM

But Lyta, isn't there a difference between accepting the metaphysical elements contained expressly or impliedly within the Tolkien's stories (such as LotR) and accepting the metaphysical implications of his theories (such as that expressed in OFT)? Certainly there is a difference; I was referring to the reading experience of Lord of the Rings in particular, really, as a self-contained work; the supplemental and subsequent work by Tolkien explicates his position on the meaning of the story and of his own philosophy of sub-creation, but I don't think it negates the reader's freedom to interpret it in his or her own way as well. The theories put forth by Tolkien in other writings, and the more mythological bent of the Silmarillion and supplemental post-mortem offerings do not need to enter into the reader's experience with Lord of the Rings, but, of course it is all the more explicit in the First Age writings. (I think a reader is still granted the option to dismiss the Ainulindale in its literality if he or she so chooses, and to do so puts the reader as perhaps a revisionist historian inside Middle Earth, if you will but doesn't invalidate the experience.) What the reader believes Tolkien's Eru to be representative of in his or her own life is another matter and is subjective, although the reader can choose to be affected and perhaps enlightened by Tolkien's other writings, accept them or reject them, or accept some of them conditionally; it is all optional for the reader. There are many other ways to read a work, even one so well-documented as the History of Arda.

We can, therefore, accept Faramir's words at their value (which is nebulous and provocative of thought even inside Middle Earth), and we can take these words into the primary world and interpret them there as well. "Faramir believes in God; Faramir believes there is some realm beyond; Faramir values that realm and it informs him in his daily life; Faramir is a crackpot who performs a silly ritual; Faramir's rituals help him deal with the reality of constant war by taking his mind off it...etc. etc..." Insert Joe Smith next door for Faramir (not that I think there are any Faramirs where I live!) But one can accept Faramir as a noble character or crackpot, or what have you and see Faramir reflected in the primary world, just as one can see other concepts or characters reflected. The reader's perception of the concept or character does not necessitate that he or she accept Tolkien's definitions in secondary writings as you said, SpM, nor that the reader accept the expressed motivations behind the works as his or her own motivations.

Cheers,
Lyta

HerenIstarion

05-17-2004, 02:28 AM

SpM

But the evolution of physical attributes is not random

That's what I tried to point out ;)

davem

05-25-2004, 05:44 AM

Not really an attempt to resurrect this thread, but I've just come across this article, which seems to sum up a lot of what has been said here:

http://www.touchstonemag.com/docs/issues/16.8docs/16-8pg42.html

(of course, if this sparks off the debate again, that would be cool).

HerenIstarion

05-25-2004, 06:20 AM

I have strong suspicion people are just having a time-out, getting their breaths back for another nine page dive ;)

Thanks for the link, read first, comment later

*heads off in the direction of Touchstone...

edit:

Thank you again, there was a good read on it. Should we stress on:

And does so effectively. I know a number of teenagers, contemporaries of my oldest daughter, who have no religious background at all, and yet who are completely caught up in the mythos of Middle-earth. Through this mythos, symbolically embedded in the story, young people are unconsciously absorbing any number of spiritual nutrients which may serve them well in later life. They will have learned to see the world in a certain way, as it is seen by Christianity.

?

davem

05-25-2004, 09:00 AM

Should we stress on:

...They will have learned to see the world in a certain way, as it is seen by Christianity.

?

Clearly Tolkien's wish & intention. And I suppose Caldecott is correct also in her analysis of Pullman's intentions, & of his desired intentions. What strikes me most strongly is the way Pullman, even in a 'fantasy' story, cannot let go of his athiesm. He's basically undermining fairy story, by deliberately denying any possibility of eucatastrophe. He eventually cuts this world off from magic, & from any possibility of 'liberation'. So, he strands us, here, in this one world, this one life. And all we have to look forward to is cessation.

Tolkien seems to be offering the exact opposite.

So, can we class both writer's works as 'fantasy' - HDM is not 'fantasy' in the sense in which Tolkien uses the term, because Eucatastrophe is completely absent. Indeed, Pullman seems to have created a story in which eucatastrophe is impossible. He seems almost to see enchantment & eucatastrophe as part of the 'childish' innocence which has to be outgrown & left behind. Yet the world he offers to the 'wise' adult is simply bleak & ultimately hopeless. Pullman seems incapable of accepting the possibility of enchantment even in a story. His 'fantasy' worlds have to be as bleak as the 'real' world, as far as he is concerned.

Tolkien's secondary world, as well as his vision of this world, are equally 'enchanted'. So, a fanfic set in Middle Earth, if it is to be 'canonical' must contain & express that hope, & eucatastrophic possibility, while a 'Pullmanic' fanfic must be free of all enchantment, & even of the possibility of it.

To bring this back to the subject of this thread, I think we have to say that 'enchantment' & 'eucatastrophe' are central to Tolkien's canon, & have to be seen as present in everything he wrote, rather than as things which can be ignored, or seen as peripheral. Its really in a comparison with Pullman's work that we can see this clearly. The total absence of enchantment & eucatastrophe in Pullman's world(s) shows their presence in sharp relief in Tolkien's world. It also shows them as being at the emotional core of Tolkien's creative work.

I think it also explains why HDM left me cold. Tolkien is attempting to get us to see the world in a certain way, from a certain perspective - a'Christian' one, as Caldecott will have it, & that seems to go to the core of his purpose - as if that was the 'canonical tradition' that he was working within, & attempting to conform his writings to. Pullman is working within a different canonical tradition - equally biased - though no doubt he would claim more objectively 'true'.

Both writer's visionsare quite 'dark', but what seems to anger Pullman as regards Tolkien's vision, is that Tolkien holds out the possibility of Light breaking through.

I don't know if I've strayed away from the subject of this thread here, but I think maybe its easier to explore the relationship of reader to book if we compare different writers work.

Bêthberry

05-25-2004, 09:35 AM

This is an interesting approach here,davem, to develop the discussion by comparison with other fantasy writers. However, I think the comparison with Pullman, as represented by the Touchstone article, is perhaps not the only way for a Christian to interpret the Dark Materials trilogy.

I am copying something which Rimbaud sent to some of us, a review of the stage production in London, England of Pullman's trilogy. I think Rimbaud got this from the Guardian but I am not sure. It is written by the current Archbishop of Cantebury, the spiritual head of the Anglican Church and strikes me as being far more astute or perceptive about literature and faith than the Touchstone article, but this is simply my opinion.

'A near-miraculous triumph'

Archbishop Rowan Williams reveals how it felt to see religion savaged and God killed in His Dark Materials

Wednesday March 10, 2004

In the interval of the second part of His Dark Materials, I found myself surrounded by a lively school party from Essex wanting to know what I thought of it so far. Was I shocked? No. But wasn't it about killing God? Yes - but which God is it who gets killed? Is this what a believer would recognise as the real God? This set some animated discussion going: some of the group had noticed the scattered hints that "the Authority" in Philip Pullman's story had arrogated power to himself, or that he was not the actual creator.

And that is the kind of discussion that I think the drama ought to provoke. Nicholas Wright's version of Pullman's story in fact brings into sharper focus some of these issues. It is clear very early on that there is a plan to overthrow the Authority and that the Church is aware of this and determined to prevent it. What takes Pullman a long stretch of very subtle development to uncover is here foregrounded almost at once. But what kind of a church is it that lives in perpetual and murderous anxiety about the fate of its God?

What the story makes you see is that if you believe in a mortal God, who can win and lose his power, your religion will be saturated with anxiety - and so with violence. In a sense, you could say that a mortal God needs to be killed, from the point of view of faith (as the Buddhists say: "If you meet the Buddha, kill him"). And if you see religious societies in which anxiety and violence predominate, you could do worse than ask what God it is that they believe in. The chances are that they secretly or unconsciously believe in a God who is just another inhabitant of the universe, only more powerful than anyone else. And if he is another inhabitant of the universe, then at the end of the day he just might be subject to change and chance like everything else. He needs protecting: churches are there to keep him safe.

I read the books and the plays as a sort of thought experiment: this is, after all, an alternative world, or set of worlds. What would the Church look like, what would it inevitably be, if it believed only in a God who could be rendered powerless and killed, and needed unceasing protection? It would be a desperate, repressive tyranny. For Pullman, the Church evidently looks like this most of the time; it isn't surprising that the only God in view is the Authority.

Like some of the Gnostic writers of the second century, Pullman turns the story upside down - the rebels are the heroes. Unlike them, though, this is all done to reaffirm the glory of the flesh, the actuality of here and now. The Harpies guarding the land of the dead find peace and nourishment only in stories of the actual, the everyday, in the wonder of the utterly ordinary. The scene where Lyra pacifies these monsters (far more frightening in the book than the play, because the book can show how they activate the inner devils of self-doubt or self-loathing) by talking of children's games in Oxford is intensely moving.

The dramatised version also highlights and simplifies the most ambitious metaphor in the books: Dust. Dust is precisely the glory and vitality of the ordinary; if you try to live in more than one world, Dust drains away, from the individual and from the world as a whole. So the knife that cuts doors between the worlds has to be broken. The whole story is about the triumph of Dust, of the glory of the everyday. Dust is threatened from one side by the Authority and the Church, who fear the everyday and its contingency, who fear even more the risk of error and tragedy that are part of the everyday, part of adult experience. They want to prevent real decision-making, with its potential for loss and betrayal. But Dust is also threatened by those who want to obliterate the consequences of once-and-for-all decisions, and once-and-for-all death, by making possible an endless retreat into alternative worlds. Dust is somewhere between repression and empty or uncommitted liberty, a danger to both - between premodern absolutism and the postmodern aversion to history and personal psychology.

Pullman is very much a celebrant of a kind of modernity, in that sense. What he does for the religious reader/spectator is to prompt the question of how this sort of modernity (a word that theologians these days often don't like) may converge with some accounts of what a settled religious life entails: acceptance (not passivity); the monitoring of fantasy for the sake of adult responsibility; but also the sense of hidden glory pervading the environment, the beauty that is open to Christian theoria and Buddhist mindfulness. The life-sustaining energy of being itself becomes invisible, even blocked off and ineffectual, if there is always an escape from the unwelcome here and now, an escape that the human will can manipulate. If anything, Wright's drama, by pushing the characters of Asriel and Mrs Coulter just a bit more towards conventional romanticism, weakens Pullman's unsparing portraits of the moral ambivalence of these liberators. Timothy Dalton and Patricia Hodge turn in what the director calls "high-definition" performances, which I felt made them less interesting, less mysterious.

Repressors and would-be liberators are equally merciless to the individual; that is why Lyra's life is at risk from both sides. As Lyra, Anna Maxwell Martin manages flawlessly the shifting perspective of a child "on the cusp" of adolescence, and the fusion of profound strength with emotional openness that is Pullman's greatest achievement in creating this unforgettable character. Dominic Cooper as Will lacks the stolid, taciturn integrity of Will in the books, but their relationship works on stage.

Overall, the stage version is a near-miraculous triumph. It may well end up with Brook's Midsummer Night's Dream or Nicholas Nickleby as one of those theatrical experiences that justifies the whole enterprise of live theatre in our day. Of course, there are failures. The angels were disappointingly unmysterious, left only with a rather querulous dignity, which didn't allow much room for the seriousness of their mutual love. The death of the Authority lost all its pathos; Pullman manages the remarkable feat of making it both a matter of chance and a moment of disturbing poignancy, all the more poignant for not being fully grasped by the children at first. On stage it was flat to the point of being almost comical. But so much was so well-imagined, not least the realisation of the daemons and the evocation of different universes.

I said earlier that it rather underlined some of the themes in Pullman that should prevent us just concluding that this is an anti-Christian polemic. Pullman's views are clear; but he is a good enough writer to leave some spaces. This is a church without creation or redemption, certainly without Christ; it was interesting that on stage the ritual gesture of the clergy was not the sign of the cross but a sort of indeterminate marking of the brow, as if to acknowledge that this is not simply the historical Church. Pullman's most overt attempt to connect the Church of Lyra's world with ours is in the character of Mary Malone, the ex-nun, whose adventures form one of the main strands (beautifully imagined) in the third volume. Wright removes her entirely - understandably in terms of narrative economies, sadly in terms of the human depth and warmth of the story, and provocatively in allowing that bit more distance between the historical Church and the alternative.

But this should not be read as a way of wriggling out of Pullman's challenges to institutional religion. I end where I started. If the Authority is not God, why has the historic Church so often behaved as if it did indeed exist to protect a mortal and finite God? What would a church life look like that actually expressed the reality of a divine freedom enabling human freedom?

A modern French Christian writer spoke about "purification by atheism" - meaning faith needed to be reminded regularly of the gods in which it should not believe. I think Pullman and Wright do this very effectively for the believer. I hope too that for the non-believing spectator, the question may somehow be raised of what exactly the God is in whom they don't believe.

Child of the 7th Age

05-25-2004, 11:46 AM

While a high school student from Arkansas is a long way from the Archbishop of Canterbury, this brief article also suggests what Bethberry was saying: that a person may account themselves a Christian yet view Pullman in a different light than that put forward in Touchstone. This young Christian woman feels that a reading of HDM "allowed her to grow as a person and closer to God." This student feels that reading Pullman has made her better able to understand the complexities of life, and less likely to automatically condemn someone whose faith is diferent than her own. On this, click here. (http://hisdarkmaterials.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=482)

My personal views on HDM are a bit more complicated than that. I find some parts of the series challenging, even questionable, and others spell-binding and positive. I will never feel the easy affinity I do when reading Tolkien. Yet I hesitate to say Pullman's work presents a totally "bleak" world that lacks any enchantment. This is not at all the feeling I had when I closed the pages on the final volume. I will try to organize my thoughts later as I am running out the door, but for now will offer several links for anyone who's interested.

For the upcoming movie and the enormous difficulties in transferring Pullman's themes to film given the very real religious sensibilities that exist, see this. (http://www.bridgetothestars.net/index.php?d=movie&p=rumours)

For a general fansite, and an article discussing the relation of Pullman's works to myth in general and the Creation story in particular, check here. (http://www.darkmaterials.com/spyinter02.htm)

Bêthberry

05-25-2004, 04:47 PM

Thank-you, Child, for posting that other Christian witness to Pullman's trilogy. I was indeed hoping to suggest that many interpretations and experiences are possible and, of course, all equally valid for the reader.

I am also heartened by your statement that you do feel Pullman's world does incorporate enchantment. Indeed, I was very uneasy with davem's initial statement that Pullman's books cannot be fantasy as Tolkien defines it because they are atheistic. That, to my mind, defines literary genres by ideology, something which leads inherently I think to a grave limitation of what can legitimately be called literature.

What strikes me most strongly is the way Pullman, even in a 'fantasy' story, cannot let go of his athiesm. He's basically undermining fairy story, by deliberately denying any possibility of eucatastrophe. He eventually cuts this world off from magic, & from any possibility of 'liberation'. So, he strands us, here, in this one world, this one life. And all we have to look forward to is cessation.

Tolkien seems to be offering the exact opposite.

So, can we class both writer's works as 'fantasy' - HDM is not 'fantasy' in the sense in which Tolkien uses the term, because Eucatastrophe is completely absent. Indeed, Pullman seems to have created a story in which eucatastrophe is impossible.

I think we need to be very careful using words such as eucatastrophe and magic. For instance, Tolkien gives very specific and special meaning to his use of 'magic', suggesting that it is not a slight of hand or optical illusion which defies the physical properties of ths earth but rather a particular kind of artistic unity or vision where intention and completion are united. It is art. "the magic, or rather art," Tolkien says in OFs.

In this sense, Pullman's His Dark Materials are full of artistic wonder and breathtaking feats of writing for me. His concept of dæmon pulls at my heart and mind every time I read the books, particularly in the uniqueness of each person's dæmon and in the special relationship with an animal which is at its heart--something Tolkien also discusses in OFS. The gyptians and their boats and the marshlands of the lower Thames and Lyra's escape are quintessentially elements of fantasy for me, as is the description of her childhood at Jordan. The bears? The confederacy of the witches? The Angels? Mary Malone? Mary's life speaks so poignantly to me of hope and the great possibilities of love which human beings are capable of. And I could go on naming so many other elements of His Dark Materials which strike me as high points of articistic creation, the very spell of which Tolkien speaks.

However, I suspect that for you Tolkien's definition of magic and eucatastrophe are inescapably religious. That you view them in this manner is, of course, your right as a reader. ( Nor are these two facets of fantasy the sole elements which Tolkien discusses.) However, I would like to focus on eucatastrophe alone for now and respectfully point out that Tolkien's definition is not primarily religious. Here I will go back to my earlier post and explain it more lucidly I hope.

Tolkien introduces the word "eucatastrophe" in the section entitled "Recovery, Escape, Consolation." (He says that eucatastrophe is the highest function of fantasy, but not the sole one. ) And he also defines it as the unexpected consolation of the Happy Ending. He uses the words Joy and Evangelium but the main focus of his argument lies in examining the effect of this unexpected turn of events.

It is only in the Epilogue that Tolkien brings in what for him was "the greatest and most complete conceivable eucastrophe," the story of Christ. He does not define the Christian witness or truth as the function of fantasy. He argues it the other way around. He establishes first his definition and understanding of how fantasy satisfies human desires, and in particular this unexpected consolation, and then he offers what for him is the most complete form of the artistic effect. I would venture to say that Tolkien remained a Christian, a Catholic, because for him its very heart reflected the fundamental truth of art for him.
A letter which Tolkien never sent seems to me to confirm this idea that for him fantasy was an artistic or literary effect primarily (and that it could be used for ill or good).

I refer to the draft of Letter 153, to Peter Hastings. Hastings, a Catholic, had apparently written to Tolkien to question metaphysical matters in LotR. Tolkien several times observes that Hastings takes Tolkien too seriously , and, indeed, Carpenter provides a note which explains why Tolkien never sent the draft: "It seemed to be taking myself too seriously." I offer two passages from the letter to suggest Tolkien's desire that his writing be viewed as art.

I am taking myself even more seriously than you did, and making a great song and oration about a good tale, which admittedly owes its similitude to mere craft.

and

The tale is after all in the ultimate analysis a tale, a piece of literature, intended to have a literary effect, and not realy history.

It is here, I would suggest, that we can find explanation why people of so many different persuasions and faiths can find such great enjoyment in Tolkien. A truth of art, which for him his faith also mirrored, but an aesthetic experience first and foremost.

I write in haste and am called away. My apologies for the many infelicities of expression.

davem

05-26-2004, 12:18 AM

Of course Pullman 'enchants' - the whole of the story is enchanting, magical, open to possibilies uncounted. Right till the end, & then Pullman snatches it all away, closes the doors to the other worlds forever, & even seperates the two lovers forever. Its an incredibly cruel ending - not just for Lyra & Will but for us all, especially for child readers, because it denies the possibility of Magic breaking in ever again - unless something goes 'wrong'. If things go 'right', all the worlds will remain seperate forever. The Magic & wonder you feel when reading the book is taken from you at the end. Because for Pullman that 'magic' & enchantment are 'childish', & things which must be grown out of. They are 'childish things' which must be put aside.

My discomfort with Pullman is not what he gives us throughout the story, but with the fact that having given it to us, let it become meaningful & uplifting, he then snatches it away, & when we grieve for it, he tells us, 'Well, sorry, but that's only for children, & you have to grow up now & leave it all behind'. What message do the two writers offer us - Tolkien tells us that the magic, the possibility of enchantment, is always there - 'Still round the corner there may wait, a new road or a secret gate', & that like Smith, we too may find our way into Faerie. Pullman tells us not to be so silly & grow up.

Essentially, Pullman is like Nokes - the Fairy Queen is pretty, & all very nice for children, but no sensible grown-up will believe in her, or take the idea of Faerie seriously - and any children who insist on holding on to that belief must be shown how dangerously unrealistic it is, & be persuaded to give it all up, & come & live in the real world with the grown-ups who know better.

I heard Pullman on a radio interview back when The Amber Spyglass came out. He said that he was using fantasy to undermine fantasy, & wished he could write 'serious' fiction.

I don't doubt that: ''this young Christian woman feels that a reading of HDM "allowed her to grow as a person and closer to God." but is that what Pullman wants? - the growing closer to God part, I mean? Nothing in the book makes me feel that. The message running throughout the story seems to be that authority is simply wrong- especially supernatural authority, & must be broken free of. He seems to be the same as the scientists who separate the children from their daemons. He wants ultimatley to remove the possibility of real magic from his child readers, where Tolkien wants to give it to them & to all of us.

Pullman seems to see all magic, enchantment, & faith as dangerous & corrupting, as something we must be 'saved' from. We must be awakened from the mad 'dreme' & grow up into sensible adults. The young woman Child mentions, is, it seems to me, a classic example od what this thread is about - she's finding something in Pullman's work that he didn't put there, something in fact which is the opposite of his intention.

Bêthberry

05-26-2004, 10:01 AM

I have time now for only the briefest of replies. I would myself be very interested in reading that inverview with Pullman, davem. And as for the girl's reading of Pullman, I would not hesitate to accept her reading experience, as I have said here about readings of Tolkien. We can listen to statements of an author's intention but when all is said and done a book, like a child, must make sense and meaning without parental control. As, in fact, your gloss on Pullman reflects your feeling that he betrays fantasy. That is an interpretation, your interpretation, but it is not the only interpretation.

I would, however, ask you to consider some other aspects of fantasy which Tolkien discusses because I think it is an aspect that Pullman draws upon in the trilogy. Tolkien says that faerier never really ends, the story goes on. Look at the last line of LOTR, Sam returning to the everyday world of The Shire, "Well, I'm back." The Amber Spyglass ends with Lyra telling her daemon they must build "The Reublic of Heaven." This is not a denial of fantasy, but a suggestion that the responsibility for continuing the vision it offers us lies with us, a challenge to see this world newly under what we have learnt from faerie. Pullman's trilogy goes on as much as Tolkien's does.

As for your statement of alleged cruelty thatf the lovers are separated, I think not. I would point to Eowyn's first love for Aragorn and Tolkien's recognition that not all first loves are like the mythic love of Aragorn and Arwen. In this "shipwreck of life"--to use Tolkien's phrase--there are many different kinds of love and not all need lead to domesticity and plighting of eternal troth. There is narrative wholeness and profound respect for the characters, for fantasy and for human existence. It is, for me, hopeful.

Writers are a bothersome lot oftentimes. Give them a genre or form and they will immediately begin to see ways to expand upon it, redefine it, to extend it, to reimagine it. That's what Tolkien did with the old northern narratives, to give them form and meaning for the Seventh Age. And that is what Pullman is doing. Faerie, the perilous realm, is endless. Some of us take strength from it, are invigorated by it, and, like Sam and Rosie, use that strength to rebuild this world. Others, like Frodo, find it leads elsewhere. No path is necessarily better or worse and no one path suffices for us all.

I must bid you all adieu. I will be away from this thread for some days now.

davem

05-27-2004, 12:54 AM

The Pullman interview was on Radio, so I can't give a refference - It was conducted by Germaine Greer, so maybe Pullman was intimidated! He has repeated the statement about wanting to write 'serious' novels in other places though - in an interview for another radio programme by Brian Sibley - 'Fired by the Ring'. He does seem to see fantasy as 'escapist', but not in the positive sense used by Tolkien. He seems to think of fantasy as running away from 'reality', or at least as at best a way to focus people back on the 'real' world.

Quote:'We can listen to statements of an author's intention but when all is said and done a book, like a child, must make sense and meaning without parental control. As, in fact, your gloss on Pullman reflects your feeling that he betrays fantasy. That is an interpretation, your interpretation, but it is not the only interpretation.'

This is the core of this thread, I think - has Pullman any intention in his writing - is he trying to 'teach' us anything? I think he would say he is, & I don't think he would have written what he has if he didn't feel that he had something to say that we needed to hear. The difference between him & Tolkien is simply that he is around to argue his case.

Quote: 'The Amber Spyglass ends with Lyra telling her daemon they must build "The Reublic of Heaven." This is not a denial of fantasy, but a suggestion that the responsibility for continuing the vision it offers us lies with us, a challenge to see this world newly under what we have learnt from faerie. Pullman's trilogy goes on as much as Tolkien's does.'

'The Republic of Heaven' is ultimately a meaningless concept. The whole work is about an attempt at liberation from the 'supernatural' dimension, about cutting us off from it, & from metaphysical 'fantasies', yet 'Heaven' is a metaphysical concept - how can one 'build' a metaphysical 'reality'? A 'Republic of Heaven' sounds clever, but means nothing. Pullman simply replaces God with humanity - & as Chesterton said - 'When people cease believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they believe in anything. Pullman's republic of Heaven is bound to descend into some form of fundamentalism, as everyone will be out to construct, to impose, their own concept of 'Heaven' - Paradise as a product of democracy - satisfying no-one, because designed by the whim of the electorate. How could it be anything else - there is no metaphysical dimension, no chance for 'Light' to break in, because the rules of Pullman's world demand that all new roads & secret gates are irretrievably shut, on pain of Death.

Quote: ' As for your statement of alleged cruelty thatf the lovers are separated, I think not. I would point to Eowyn's first love for Aragorn and Tolkien's recognition that not all first loves are like the mythic love of Aragorn and Arwen. In this "shipwreck of life"--to use Tolkien's phrase--there are many different kinds of love and not all need lead to domesticity and plighting of eternal troth. There is narrative wholeness and profound respect for the characters, for fantasy and for human existence. It is, for me, hopeful.

I think the point as far as Eowyn's love for Aragorn goes, is that, as Tolkien shows, it is not 'true' love - Eowyn loves 'a shadow & a thought'. Will & Lyra are suppposed to be the new Adam & Eve, symbolic as much as real, & Pullman even denies the possibility of their being together after death - eternal seperation of the lovers - except in the form of their physical atoms coming together after their bodies have broken down. What 'respect' does this show - for the characters themselves, or for love itself. The whole message, especially compared to Tolkien's story of Aragorn & Arwen, where even death itself is a price worth paying for love, is pathetic & nasty & incredibly cruel. How much hope (estel) is inspired by Pullman's ending - love is hopeless, & death ends it all. But how can there be any hope beyond the circles of the World in Pullman's vision? He has spent 1300 pages telling us that going beyond this world is dangerous, ultimately fatal, for all of us, even the universe itself, so, we must stay here till we die, & that's it - & if we read anything else into his story, hope that in some way Will & Lyra will find each other again someday, that's 'uncanonical'. And these are 'children's ' books - (which despite Pullman's claims after the event, they were written to be) - so what message is Pullman sending out. Actually, I'd say they are childish books - they revel in the childish notion that all authority is bad, & has to be gotten rid of, & that really children know best.

Quote: Writers are a bothersome lot oftentimes. Give them a genre or form and they will immediately begin to see ways to expand upon it, redefine it, to extend it, to reimagine it. That's what Tolkien did with the old northern narratives, to give them form and meaning for the Seventh Age. And that is what Pullman is doing. Faerie, the perilous realm, is endless. Some of us take strength from it, are invigorated by it, and, like Sam and Rosie, use that strength to rebuild this world. Others, like Frodo, find it leads elsewhere. No path is necessarily better or worse and no one path suffices for us all.

But some paths are better - the road to Heaven is better than the road to Hell - Pullman simply denies the metaphysical existence of either, in order to make it seem like niether road exists, & that whatever road we take will lead us to whatever place we want to be - we can build a Republic of Hell more easily (& we're more likely to, given our history & natural proclivities) than a Republic of Heaven. Of course, we all take different paths, but the question is where the paths lead, & they don't all automatically lead to the same place - much though Pullman might wish it.

Tolkien offers us destinations, & says that while we may follow different paths to get to them, there are choices to be made, because Heaven is in a specific place & Hell is too, & those places exist - we don't have to build them when we get there.

HerenIstarion

05-27-2004, 08:11 AM

Well, well, well

I must confess I haven't read the story so heatedly debated. After reading the Touchstone article, I thought 14.95$ I intended for purchase of the trilogy from Amazon were saved from spending, but now, as I look at your bone - picking, I'm in two minds - should I read it and add some bones to the boiling soup here, or rather wait until you retell the whole plot of the story for me and save me money ;)

But, to be serious, what I have read and heard up to now makes me feel that, if push comes to show, I'll be in league with davem here:

But some paths are better - the road to Heaven is better than the road to Hell - Pullman simply denies the metaphysical existence of either, in order to make it seem like niether road exists, & that whatever road we take will lead us to whatever place we want to be - we can build a Republic of Hell more easily (& we're more likely to, given our history & natural proclivities) than a Republic of Heaven. Of course, we all take different paths, but the question is where the paths lead, & they don't all automatically lead to the same place - much though Pullman might wish it.

Hits the ten mark in the T - embossed truth categories for yours truly

Can not be more prolix till the drift goes over to something I've actually read

So cheers until than

davem

05-27-2004, 09:35 AM

H-I I wouldn't want to put you off reading HDM - its incredibly exciting & entertaining in parts - it only really starts to collapse with the third volume, but even that will sweep you along.

My problem is with the 'philosophy' that underlies it. Pullman is someone who has lived a nice, safe, middle class existence, & read a lot of 'clever' books, & so can play with ideas of 'good' & 'evil', as though they are intellectual toys. Tolkien, on the other hand, had seen true evil, knew true Good, & knew mankind for what we are, so he couldn't, honestly, play the game Pullman plays & reduce the human condition to a childish adventure story of 'youngsters' vs. Blake's 'Old Nobodaddy'.

Pullman does present some very complex, visionary ideas, from Milton & Blake especially, but he seems simply to have taken their philosophies at face value & 'dramatised' them without analysing the implications.

I know the ending of the story 'moves' many to tears, but I can't help feeling that too many who are moved in that way are moved for purely sentimental reasons, when the two young lovers are seperated forever - a kind of Romeo & Juliet ending - taken at face value. Problem is, Pullman's ending is much darker & more hopeless, & he offers only the meaningless platitude of creating a 'Republic of Heaven', which, as I said, means absolutely nothing if one thinks about it.

However, if you can leave on one side both the pretentiousness & the nihilism & just read it as a childrens adventure story, you may well be swept away by it. There are some very beautiful moments in it as well, I have to admit.

davem

05-27-2004, 01:21 PM

Just a couple of responses from Philip Pullman in an interview with Brian Sibley in the BBC Radio 4 documentary 'Fired by the Ring':

Sibley asked Pullman whether fantasy stories are needed.

Pullman: We need all sorts of stories. I think we don't need that sort of story as much as we need realistic stories. My view of fantasy is that its inherantly a trivial form, a form of less importance than realism & speaking for myself if I could write interesting stories of everyday people I'd gladly do that. I can't do that & make it interesting, so I have to write fantasy.

(Sibley then asks about the idea that the stories of Middle Earth are set in a period of our own ancient history) .

Pullman: Yes, well if he said that its the purest bunkum. I will believe that if they find a fossil Hobbit. Its not the real world, but there are large numbers of fantasy fans who hold conventions & who know a great deal about the Saga of the doomsword or frithlefroth or whatever it is, but who don't know what day it is& haven't changed their t-shirt for a month & clearly they're getting something out of it. What they get out of that sort of genre & this sort of thing is a mystery to me because I don't get it.

I think that kind of sums up Pullman's whole attitude to Fantasy & the 'value' he feels it has. (Its not very complementary about fantasy fans, either!)

Fordim Hedgethistle

05-27-2004, 01:31 PM

Not having read the novels currently being worked over. . uh, through. . .I don't have much to back this up other than the brief snippets davem gives above, but it would seem to me that this Pullman fellow is writing fantasy, and has had the wherewithal to realise that one of the best ways to sell his books is by generating a bit of controversy around them. If Madonna wrote a fantasy novel, you can bet she'd be saying pretty much the same sort of thing. . . ;)

The question of money and marketability just pops something else into my head. Tolkien did very well (financially) from LotR, and somewhere in his Letters he says that in making the decision of whether to sell the rights of the book to a movie maker he would do so either for "art" -- if the script were good -- or "cash" if it were not.

Now, I do NOT want to kick of yet another round of the movie debate here -- so please nobody reply to that particular strand of my ramblings (ample room for that in the Movies forum). All I am working toward is the question of profitability and marketability for Tolkien.

It strikes me, that at least part of his 'intent' in writing a rip-roaringly good and entertaining book would be to make it have as wide an appeal as possible, that is, to find as large a potential market as possible. Without suggesting that Tolkien was in it "for the money" -- which is patently untrue (he was stunned by his financial successes) -- this has led me to wonder to what extent did questions of the marketplace influence the nature of his story? If he went "all out" with the religious views that underly the text, then it would have turned people off. By focusing so much more on the more ambiguous (I can practically hear Mark 12_30 and davem yelling "Universal") appeal of a "successful" eucatastrophe, was he not also writing a more appealling/saleable book? You know: happy ending -- unlike Pullman -- and not all "preachy" -- like Lewis?

The Saucepan Man

05-27-2004, 07:23 PM

Just a few thoughts on Pullman's Trilogy. I read the books recently and thoroughly enjoyed them. Funnily enough, whatever Pullman may think of Tolkien's works (and regardless of his intentions), it seems to me that there are a lot of common themes. Friendship, loyalty and trust can be seen in Lyra's determination to rescue Roger, as well as in the relationships that she forms with many of the other characters. Her bond with Iorek Byrnison being one of the most poignant for me. Her relationship with Will also shows the value of trust and loyalty. Misuse of power, and its consequences and pitfalls, is also evident in the characters of Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter (both of whom are given, and take, the opportunity of redeeming their past sins), and also Metatron and the agents of the Church. And there are for me environmental overtones in the concept of a series of parallel worlds which are at harmony with each other until humans start messing about with the bonds between them. Witness the effects on Lyra's world when Lord Asriel opens the gate into the world of Cittàgazze.

Of course there are a lot of differences too and you are right, davem, to point out the differing approaches to the spiritual side of things in the two trilogies. Child and Bêthberry have pointed out some favourable reactions amongst the Christian community, but I think that we neverthless have to acknowledge that, in Pullman's world, there is no Truth in the metaphysical sense. The Authority did not even create the Universe. He just made out that he did. Where I differ from you is in viewing his message as one which brings no joy or hope. The passage where the dead are released to become particles of Dust seems to me to be one of great joy. They are finding peace in becoming at one with the Universe. And it seems to me that this in itself provides a message of hope. The Dust is in effect a "living" entity and suffuses the entirety of the Universe and those who die become part of that. Indeed, if there is any representation of Truth in Pullman's works, it is in the Dust, which the agents of the "fake" Authority regard as evil. They are in some ways similar to Morgoth's forces, setting themselves against the Truth of the Dust and seeking to overturn the natural order of things.

Yes, there is no Heaven. But there is an Afterlife: a permament existence within the Universe within the matter which suffuses and succours it. Is that so different from the Men of Middle-earth passing beyond the Circles of the World and being at one with Eru? Yes, I suppose it is in the sense that the Dust remains a part, indeed an essential part, of the Universe. But, for me, it is no less a path which can inspire hope. The hope of being at one with the Universe (which was denied to those trapped in the awful dreary Land of the Dead).

As for the Republic of Heaven, this to me represents an opportunity to build "Heaven on Earth". In other words, for the denizens of each of the parallel worlds to live their lives for the good of the Universe on the basis of the qualities which we can admire in the protagonists, rather than being subjugated by the agents of a remote (and false) Authority. An ideal perhaps but, again it is, for me, a message of hope. In the same way, for example, that the Hobbits in LotR are able to develop throughout the story in such a way as to be capable of driving out Saruman's "Authority" from the Shire. The Shire, free from such influence, might be equated to the ideal of the Republic of Heaven.

I suppose it depends how you look at it, but I for one certainly don't see Pullman's novels as propagating a message of hopelessness and despair.

Incidentally, I would agree that Pullman overreached himself during the second book and certainly in the third one. For me, they are just not convincing enough. I do not find it believable that Lord Asriel was able to set up his fortress and rally the forces opposed to the Authority across an infinate number of parallel worlds within the timescale of the books. Nor do I find the depiction of an army made up of such forces and the final battle in which they become embroiled convincing. Perhaps Pullman set himself too difficult a task in trying credibly to portray such epic events. But, in any event, this is where Tolkien wins out for me and why, much as I enjoyed His Dark Materials, the trilogy comes nowhere close to LotR. Tolkien's world, although a fantasy world, is utterly believable. Pullman's worlds, for me, fall short on that count.

Finally, a brief response to the question raised by Fordim:

this has led me to wonder to what extent did questions of the marketplace influence the nature of his story?I think that I touched on this in an earler post, but Tolkien clearly did have an eye to the "marketplace" when writing LotR, since it was written in response to calls from the public (and therefore his publishers) for a sequel to the Hobbit. Although it turned out to be much more than that, he was conscious of the "requirement" that it should appeal to those who had read and enjoyed the Hobbit. I get the feeling that, but for that, it might (like the Silmarillion) not have included Hobbits at all. And, from my perspective at least, it would have been the poorer for their absence.

In fact, thinking about it, but for the clamour for a sequel to the Hobbit, LotR would probably never have been written at all. And that would have been a great shame.

Oops! So much for "just a few thoughts". :rolleyes: ;)

davem

05-28-2004, 12:18 AM

I suppose in a way both Tolkien & Pullman are writing about the end of 'magic', & having to build a world without it. But Tolkien views the loss with regret, & still hopes for its return, that it will break through sometime, somewhere. The 'Republic of Heaven' that the Hobbits build in the Shire is one built out of loss, & is an attempt to get back what they once had. Pullman' RoH is one that is built out of a hatred of the past & a sense of relief that its all been left behind.

At least the Hobbits, & the other races of ME are working to a 'template' - they have a real Heaven, which they are attempting to imitate - Truth exists in ME, & all the 'good' races are attempting to manifest that Truth. Their truths are reflections of, attempts to imitate, Truth. Their Republics of Heaven are reflections of, attempts to imitate, Heaven.

Pullman has destroyed 'Heaven' - & made us feel good about it being destroyed, by making it seem like the worst vision of Hell imaginable. I can't see that he leaves the reader, especially the child reader, with any real hope at all. A child swept away by the wonders of the early parts of the story, is, at the end, left bereft of them, having them replaced with the idea of a 'Republic of Heaven' - & if you can get any child to explain what that is, or any adult to define it without falling back onto platitudes about a place/time where everybody is just really, really *N*I*C*E* to each other, I'd love to hear it. What template do we use to build the RoH?

I think Pullman's attempt at fantasy fails not because he doesn't understand Tolkien's view of Fantasy, or enchantment or eucatastrophe, but because he see it as wrong, as immoral - he views it as the flight of the deserter, not the escape of the prisoner. Would 'fantasy' itself be allowed in Pullman's RoH? or would only 'serious' stories - about cars & guns & drugs be allowed? Pullman's idea of humanity 'overeaching itself' by 'crossing' into other worlds, & his presentation of that as being dangerous is a denial of the human imagination - are we worse for having crossed into Middle Earth? Is this world more endangered because of it? Pullman, I think, would say we are & it is - because we've run away from 'reality'.

As to Tolkien's 'comercialism', i don't see it - i think he wrote the only kind of story he could write - & even at the time it was published it was dismissed by the 'inteligensia' as simplistic, old fashioned & reactionary. Most of the critics said nobody would want to read it. If tolkien had been aiming at capturing what the Public was supposed to want, he wouldn't have written what he did. On the other hand, i think Pullman has gone for the cynical, athiestic, 'real-worlders' in an incredibly cynical way, & I'm struck by the number of (a certain 'educated' class of) people who are much happier seeing their children reading Pullman than Tolkien, or even Harry Potter.

I don't think anyone's surprised Pullman is such a success in these times, HDM is a novel for the Damien Hirst/Tracy Emin generation. The thing that gives me some sense of hope is that tolkien is still going strong, & is more popular than its ever been.

Fordim Hedgethistle

07-26-2004, 07:14 PM

It is with no little sense of foreboding that I resurrect this thread! ;) This is not something I do lightly, but the discussion in the latest Chapter by Chapter posts has been leading me to think that it might be time to revisit some of the issues that were raised so intelligently (and passionately) in this thread last spring.

In particular, one of the trickiest bones of contention was centred upon the idea of authorial intention. Specifically, we were asking if the meaning of the text was to be ‘found’ in reference to the writer (what Tolkien ‘wanted’ us to get out of the text; what he put in it) or the reader (what we get ‘out’ of the text). There has been quite a bit of fascinating discussion in the CbC that centres upon the connotations and possibilities of the names that Tolkien created and from which his story flowed. Now, this raises an interesting issue for those of us (like myself) who lean toward the reader as the source of meaning, since we are not the ones who gave the characters and places their names – Tolkien was. It was the author who named Frodo (OG frodá ‘wise by experience’ ), Sam (OE hamfast ‘half-wise’ ) and – my current favourite – the Brandywine River (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showpost.php?p=337756&postcount=23). My ‘job’ as a reader is to come along afterward and piece together the wonderful etymological clues that Tolkien has left in these names; I follow the trace of his meaning. But, again, am I bound by that meaning? Just because Frodo’s name means “wise by experience” in Old German, do I have to interpret his journey as a growth into wisdom? And what model of wisdom is entailed by this? Do I also have to make reference to the ‘wisdom’ of the ancient Germanic peoples, or is there some other model of wisdom I can turn to? Perhaps a kind or mode of wisdom that is contained only or entirely within the bounds of Middle-Earth, with not much reference at all to Primary World formulations of wisdom.

There’s another implication to the complex and rich names that Tolkien gives us. In reference to Smaug, Tolkien wrote that it was “a low philological joke” (OG smugan ‘to squeeze through a small hole’, past tense smaug). Are all the names then merely language games that he played for his own amusement that we can safely pass over without our full attention? I don’t think so, but then doesn’t that imply that one has to be a philologist of Tolkien’s own stature (and that’s a tall order!) to fully understand or appreciate the text?

And on the other hand, I do have a role in the creation of meaning still, don’t I? Insofar as I have to do a lot of work and meaning-creation in first working out what the names mean and then working out their application (dare I say “applicability” ) to the book? This begins to look like what Tolkien described as “recovery” however, insofar as I am making reference to a meaning that is pre-given and not one that I get to have any part in.

And finally (I promise) this casts an interesting light on the idea of magic and enchantment that was so much a part of this thread. The names that Tolkien created are literally ‘spells’ – they are actually little stories that tell us everything we need to know about the places and people they denote (aren’t they?). They are a kind of language that exists ‘beyond’ the ordinary insofar as they are truly and magically creative: Frodo is not just a name to identify one hobbit from another, but an incantation that brings a character’s very nature into being. (“And then Tolkien said, ‘Let there be frodá,’ and he saw that it was good.” )

Trapped between hope that this does not fall flat on its face, and trepidation of what happened the last time…

davem

07-27-2004, 03:41 AM

This is interesting; I agree there is almost a whole other story, or set of stories, going on, just under the surface. It sort of reminds me of those 'Magic Eye' pictures, which seem to be a jumble of shapes & images on the surface, but if you view them in the right way, they form a 3d image. of course, with LotR its different, in that the 'surface' image also has meaning. I can't help wondering whether, if we could 'read' the underlying story we'd like it as much, or more, or whether we'd feel disappointed - sometimes the mystery is more attractive & exciting than the solution.

Now, Mods, PLEASE bear with me here:

One other thing regarding 'canonicity, which I'm a bit dubious about bringing up here, was inspired by the little debate last week on 'Why doesn't the Downs allow 'Slash'. The reason given was that it is 'uncanonical'. But what struck me at the time was, there are two ways of looking at that:

One - Tolkien created a world, over which he has absolute creative control - as an artist he can create a world in which Homosexuality, like cars or spaceships or t-rex's, don't exist. So, Slash is uncanonical, & has no place in Middle earth fiction.

Two - Tolkien claimed that Middle earth is this world at an earlier period in our history. If this is the case then we are dealing with a world in which nothing of human nature can be excluded as 'uncanonical'. In this case, a fanfic with gay characters, or a fanfic where characters find a frozen t-rex.

My question WITHOUT, PLEASE, getting into the slash debate, is to what extent we are restricted to Tolkien's 'rules' for Middle earth - are we obliged to interpret the stories in the light of Tolkien's intentions & values (my view), because Middle earth is an artistic creation? Or can we treat it as 'history', in which case we have total freesom of interpretation, & nothing, particularly in human nature could be considered 'uncanonical'.

The Saucepan Man

07-27-2004, 06:35 AM

... and like a moth to a candle, I find myself irresistibly drawn to it once again.

My ‘job’ as a reader is to come along afterward and piece together the wonderful etymological clues that Tolkien has left in these names; I follow the trace of his meaning. But, again, am I bound by that meaning? (Fordim Hedgethistle)It will come as no surprise to regular subscribers to this thread that I am going to adopt the “freedom of the reader” approach here. :rolleyes: ;) Like the events described in the story, the characters’ names are a given. We can no more deny that Frodo is called Frodo than we can deny that Gandalf was imprisoned at Orthanc. But, that does not mean that we have to be aware of the (real world) etymological derivation of Frodo’s name in order to enjoy the story, any more than we have to know that Lembas was (intentionally) a representation of the bread of communion. I have been wholly unaware of each of these underlying “meanings” on every previous occasion that I have read the book, but I don’t feel that this has impaired my enjoyment of the book in any way. I might not have fully understood Tolkien’s intentions, but does that really matter? Well, no, not as far as I (as a reader) am concerned.

So I would say that the reader’s “job” is not to piece together Tolkien’s etymological clues, but rather simply to enjoy the material and to draw from it whatever seems appropriate to him/her. If readers want to piece together these clues, then they are free to do so, but there is no obligation on them to do so (that’s becoming somewhat of a mantra for me, isn’t it? :D ).

Are all the names then merely language games that he played for his own amusement that we can safely pass over without our full attention? I don’t think so, but then doesn’t that imply that one has to be a philologist of Tolkien’s own stature (and that’s a tall order!) to fully understand or appreciate the text? (Fordim Hedgethistle)I don’t think that he played these “language games” solely for his own amusement. The clues are there for readers who are interested in finding them. But, equally, readers are free safely to pass over them (and most will) while still appreciating the story and finding in it what is applicable to them. Yes, I suppose one does have to have a good knowledge of philology in order fully to appreciate the text and Tolkien’s skills as a writer (if one can ever acheive such a thing), but then (save as an academic pursuit) reading is not an occupation that one has to be qualified for and work at. It is a pastime that one can put as much into, and get as much out of, as one wishes. I am sure that Tolkien never intended his works to be enjoyed only by fully-fledged philologists, just as he didn’t expect them to appeal to devout Christians alone (although I am equally sure that he would be delighted that those with the inclination and knowledge to do so do pick up on these clues).

That said, Tolkein does use some names which will almost inevitably conjure up images in the reader's mind and which reinforce the characterisation of the characters that bear them. Wormtongue is a classic example and it requires no grounding in philology to latch on to the message that his name conveys. Goldberry is another example as, I think, are names such as Barliman Butterbur, Bilbo, Merry and Pippin. The name Bilbo, for example, suggests to me a "cuddly" (for want of a better word) character that I can immediately warm to, although it may of course bring up a different image others. Nevertheless, I think it is fair to say that, with many of the names used by Tolkien, one does not have to delve deeply into Anglo-Saxon linguitics or the like in order for them to enhance one's understanding of the characters that bear them. In many cases, the effect is instantaneous and almost instinctive (at least for those with a reasonable understanding of the English language).

My question WITHOUT, PLEASE, getting into the slash debate, is to what extent we are restricted to Tolkien's 'rules' for Middle earth - are we obliged to interpret the stories in the light of Tolkien's intentions & values (my view), because Middle earth is an artistic creation? Or can we treat it as 'history', in which case we have total freesom of interpretation, & nothing, particularly in human nature could be considered 'uncanonical'. (davem)Interesting that you should raise this, davem, since that debate caused me to think along very similar lines. In interpreting Tolkien’s text, we are restricted (unless we are to reject the entire story) to the “facts” contained within it. So, just like we cannot deny that Gandalf was imprisoned at Orthanc, we cannot deny that Saruman was corrupted by the desire for power or that Hobbits were (as a race) somewhat parochial in nature. Those “facts” are there for us to see. Similarly, we cannot intrude “facts” that are not there, such as a homosexual relationship between Frodo and Sam (or indeed any other two characters of the same gender). That is simply not the nature of their relationship, and that is that. Unless there is a textual basis for seeing a particular aspect of human nature in a character, then we cannot do so (without, as I said, rejecting the entire text).

But, when it comes to fanfics, the inclusion of a character, location or aspect of human nature does not make the story “uncanonical” simply because that character, location or aspect of human nature was not specifically included by Tolkien in any of his Middle-earth works. For example, I see no reason why a character adventuring in Far Harad should not encounter an ostrich or a hippopotamus, or some fantastical creature of the author’s own devising, simply because Tolkien makes no reference to them himself. So, by the same token, I would say that there is no reason why a Tolkien fanfic should not include aspects of human nature that Tolkien does not specifically address in his works, provided that they are dealt with in the spirit of Tolkien’s writing.

davem

07-27-2004, 07:04 AM

by the same token, I would say that there is no reason why a Tolkien fanfic should not include aspects of human nature that Tolkien does not specifically address in his works, provided that they are dealt with in the spirit of Tolkien’s writing.

And would we be required to take Tolkien's moral/religious position - ie, we could have gay characters, but we would have to present that as 'wrong'.

Its difficult to explore this aspect of canonicity without straying into an area that some posters will be uncomfortable with, but the question is about whether Tolkien's moral position, shaped by his Catholicism, is canonical, or whether canonicity only relates to the facts, geographical, historical, biological, of Tolkien's world. Can we include the moral & philosophical dimension in with other facts of Middle Earth, or are they 'optional'? I still think this is the central, unanswered question of this thread.

To expand the question, would a fanfic which presented Sauron or Saruman as heroes, & was approving of their actions be 'canonical' as long as it stuck to the historical 'facts' of LotR, or would it be 'uncanonical' because it went against the moral values which Tolkien espoused?

Bêthberry

07-27-2004, 07:35 AM

To expand the question, would a fanfic which presented Sauron or Saruman as heroes, & was approving of their actions be 'canonical' as long as it stuck to the historical 'facts' of LotR, or would it be 'uncanonical' because it went against the moral values which Tolkien espoused?

To my mind, a fanfic or an RPG could very profitably and canonically explore Sauron's or Saruman's or the Nazgul's "fall" as long as it demonstrated Tolkien's abhorrence of power when used for domination. The question turns on what we would agree is the moral value Tolkien espouses in the books. It is an interpretive act.

davem

07-27-2004, 07:57 AM

The question turns on what we would agree is the moral value Tolkien espouses in the books. It is an interpretive act.

So, any definition of 'canon' must include Tolkien's moral/ethical position (or our best guess at it), & conform to that, as well as to the historical, linguistic & geographical 'facts' - which means that we can also speak of moral 'facts' & ethical 'facts'.

But doesn't this lead us down the road to treating the work as (moral) 'allegory', rather than (feigned) history? If LotR is viewed as an account of a historical period, then the only 'facts' we have to take into account are the 'scientific' ones - the 'moral' ones become optional, down to the individual's judgement.

In the first instance, a fanfic which 'celebrated' either a gay relationship, or Sauron's corruption of the Numenorean's, would be 'uncanonical', because it would be against Tolkien's moral value system (I must emphasise that I'm neither condemning nor condoning homosexuality here, because I don't want to get into that issue - I am assuming that Tolkien, as a committed old school Catholic would have held to the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality). It would be 'uncanonical', even if all the historical, gegraphical & biological facts it contained were correct - it would be uncanonical purely because it did not conform to Tolkien's moral value system.

So, if this is the case with fanfic, doesn't it also apply to the way we must read & interpret the books - the reader's 'freedom' to interpret is delimited by the author's moral value system?

Bêthberry

07-27-2004, 08:18 AM

You keep using "Tolkien's moral/ethical position" whereas I used "espouses in the book", davem. And I also said determining this is an interpretive act. As I have earlier stated on this thread, I think LotR is a book which invites readers to take an active role in reading and interpreting, but does not proscribe or prescribe what the reader must determine.

Since I have been down this road before, I politely withdraw from repeating myself ere I work a rut into the thread.

Aiwendil

07-27-2004, 08:41 AM

Davem wrote:
To expand the question, would a fanfic which presented Sauron or Saruman as heroes, & was approving of their actions be 'canonical' as long as it stuck to the historical 'facts' of LotR, or would it be 'uncanonical' because it went against the moral values which Tolkien espoused?

Wait a minute - I think that in the strict sense, no fan fiction can be called "canonical". Tolkien left us certain texts. It is one thing to consider "canonicity" as it relates to those texts, and the relations among text, author, and reader. It is quite another to consider fan fiction. Not that I don't think both questions are valid ones - but it is important not to confound them.

As a matter of fact, I think that much of the debate comes down to a simple disagreement about how to define the word "canon", rather than to a substantive argument. We have first "canonical" = established as factual by Tolkien's texts and second "canonical" = not in conflict with facts established by Tolkien's texts. It is of course pointless to debate which of these is the "true" definition; they are simply different things.

But I suppose we come back to your question, then, which I guess we can understand as "would a story depicting Sauron or Saruman as a hero conflict with facts established by Tolkien's texts?" I would say "yes". It is a fact in Tolkien's world that Sauron is evil. It is a fact that Eru exists; it's a fact that Eru is good. It is no different to contradict these established facts than it is to contradict facts such as "Frodo was a Hobbit" or "Gandalf was imprisoned in Orthanc".

However - I would not say that this makes the author's intent the sole source of canonical validity. Bethberry said:
You keep using "Tolkien's moral/ethical position" whereas I used "espouses in the book", davem.

I think that's putting it very well. "Sauron is evil" is not a fact because Tolkien intended it to be; it is a fact because it is inherent in the text.

I also don't see how any of this leads us back toward an allegorical view of the text. The allegory/story dichotomy is a separate issue from that of determining which "facts" are valid.

davem

07-27-2004, 10:07 AM

"Sauron is evil" is not a fact because Tolkien intended it to be; it is a fact because it is inherent in the text.

Its only a 'fact' if LotR is an 'artwork', if its a pseudo historical text, its a value judgement. What you seem to be saying is that within Middle earth 'evil' is a verifiable 'fact', which confirms my position that the moral/ethical dimension must be taken into account in any discussion about 'canonicity'(please correct me if I've misunderstood your position).

What I'm saying is that the moral dimension, if it is a 'given' as I think you're saying, must be taken into account as it actaully determines canonicity as much as any historical or 'linguistic' facts, which can be 'scientifically' verified by resort to source texts.

Bethberry's point
The question turns on what we would agree is the moral value Tolkien espouses in the books. doesn't entirely invalidate the point, as it is still a question of whether the 'moral value' Tolkien espouses in the books (whether or not that corresponds with his own personal moral values) should be treated as a 'fact' within Middle earth, or merely the storyteller's opinion.

Fordim Hedgethistle

07-27-2004, 10:58 AM

Ah yes Bethberry, old ruts indeed -- some of them very worn too boot!

The discussion so far is interesting (if a bit familiar) but I wonder what ever happened to my point regarding the names of characters and places? I'm still very interested in hearing what role people think these names have in our understanding of the texts.

SpM you make an interesting, if somewhat oddly ambiguous, point about the "take it or leave it" meaning of the names. If you want to piece them out to get an idea of what the author 'meant' then OK, if not, then also OK, just sit back and enjoy. I'm not entirely sure that this is quite so easy. If you are going to allow that a fuller appreciation of the names' meanings gives us 'more' or 'better' information then does that not mean necessarily that there are some readers who are better readers? That is, people who have the knowledge or wherewithal to figure out what the names mean will do a better job of understanding than those who don't?

The other point that has been passed over is what to do with the names once we've recovered them. Do we understand that meaning in terms of the ethos of the author (what Tolkien wanted them to mean to us as readers: e.g. Frodo grows into wisdom of Truth), in terms of their context in the text (what they come to mean in the narrative: e.g. Sam is and becomes half-wise), in terms of their etymological sense (e.g. smaug is a Germanic worm, wyrm) or in the sense we wish to take them (e.g. I get to decide what Frodo's wisdom might be)?

Perhaps if I throw out Frodo/froda as a specific example -- the name is OG for "wise by experience" but what does recovering that meaning add to our understanding of the text? How are we to take it? How much do we need to inqurie into Tolkien's view of what constitutes wisdom, and how much can we rely on our own view of wisdom? How much can we derive from the text itself as to what is wisdom?

What does the meaning of Frodo's name, mean?

The Saucepan Man

07-27-2004, 11:14 AM

What you seem to be saying is that within Middle earth 'evil' is a verifiable 'fact', which confirms my position that the moral/ethical dimension must be taken into account in any discussion about 'canonicity'(please correct me if I've misunderstood your position).The moral/ethical dimension must be taken into account in so far as we are able to determine it from the "facts" presented in the text, but excluding the author's own position to the extent that it differs from that stated in the text or remains unaddressed in it. So, to take the example of homosexuality, whatever Tolkien's views on this issue (about which we know little, if anything, for certain), there is (as far as I am aware) nothing within his writings which either condones or condemns it. One could say that it simply doesn't exist within Middle-earth, but that would be like saying that, just because Tolkien did not mention them, hippopotami and ostriches do not exist within his world. Homosexuality doesn't figure within the stories with which we are concerned because, like hippos and ostirches, it is not relevant to them. As to whether it is permissible within fan fiction, well that must, I suppose, be a matter for individual interpretation.

Edit (after cross-posting with Fordim):

If you are going to allow that a fuller appreciation of the names' meanings gives us 'more' or 'better' information then does that not mean necessarily that there are some readers who are better readers? That is, people who have the knowledge or wherewithal to figure out what the names mean will do a better job of understanding than those who don't?I'm probably going back over old ground here (and making my own rut alongside Bb's), but I would not say that, just because someone has a greater understanding of what the author's intentions were or a better appreciation of his linguistic tricks, their reading experience is in any way more valuable than anyone else's. The reading experience is not one which, as far as I am concerned, can be objectively quantified and compared with that of another. So, while I accept that some readers will be more widely-read, or more knowledgeable, or more in tune with the author's own religious/moral standpoint, that does not make them "better readers" in my book (pun intended :p ;) ).

Bêthberry

07-27-2004, 11:51 AM

Fordim, if there is nothing else in a text to support such esoteric or recondite use of names, then I would argue that the use of such names alone reflects weak writing. There ought to be other signifiers in the text which support that reference, so that a constellation of techniques works towards our understanding of character. The philological meaning or derivation of names is thus one aspect out of many which helps reader appreciate character traits. They make our reading experience richer, but they are not, in a good writer, the sole support for characterisation.

A hidden or secret meaning whick is not supported by other aspects of the text would be rather gnostic, don't you think?

Aiwendil, you are quite right to point out that fanfics cannot be part of Tolkien's 'canon.' They can, however, be 'canonical' or not depending on how they reflect his sensibility and sympathies. I was thinking as someone here who helps young writers learn how to distinguish between "Tolkien elves" and the garden variety type. ;)

Child of the 7th Age

07-27-2004, 11:56 AM

Oh, Fordim ....what have you done? I have been in and out of town for several weeks and am just now trying to get resettled and catch up on projects that are seriously overdue. I have studiously avoided all threads in books for that reason, but this one I couldn't resist.

Please bear with me. These ideas have been brewing in my head a while.

First, Aiwendil, I could not agree more: there is no such thing as canonical RPGs or fanfiction. To have true canonical fanfiction or interpretations, the writer would not only have to duplicate Tolkien's philological knowledge but his mastery of history, his staunch Christian faith, his particular views on social issues, and a thousand other things. Tolkien was an individual with unique beliefs, particular academic and personal experiences, and, perhaps most importantly, something less often discussed, someone who writes from a particular vantage point in history. We can and should not pretend that we can insert ourselves, either as reader or writer, and fully recreate that particular mix. Any interpretation we bring will be less rich and nuanced than that originally developed in the author's head.

Just think for a minute....what if I claimed to be writing "canonical" Shakespearean plays? You would have good reason for getting a guffaw out of that. Tolkien is really no different in that regard.

So what is left to us? A great deal, I think. Let me begin with something that may seem like a digression, but actually is not. Fordim, you are extraordinarily good at sparking debate and discussion about Tolkien and his writing. (The classes you teach must be very interesting!) Since your arrival here, our discussions of the text have become decidedly more animated: you have posed basic questions that no one has posited before. In so doing, you have inspired others --people like Bb, and Heren, and Aiwendil, and too many for me to list--to put forward posts that are rich and provoking. As a result, we have lively discussions that leave no stone unturned: posts raising questions that are truly unanswerable.

One of the things that struck me about our recent discussions is how many posters (including yourself) have a wonderful literary background and approach Tolkien's writings in that manner, either because of academic training or simple personal preference. Many of our recent discussions have been framed in literary terms. This is no bad thing -- the present discussion on canonicity even inspired a laggard like me to read a book on literary criticism that dealt with such questions as authorial intent versus the reader's freedom, something I would not normally have done.

Yet I think we have to be careful to acknowledge that there is more than one perspective we can use in trying to make sense of what Tolkien meant, or in attempting to bring our own experiences to the text. Like I've said before, Tolkien is an unending onion: you strip off one layer and another appears. You never quite make it to the core. So you can get one viewpoint from someone who is looking for psychological insight, another from someone who approaches things from a religious viewpoint, and still another from a literary critic or a philosopher. Which of these interpretations is correct or "canonical"? None of them individually. but collectively we may get a little closer to what Tolkien had in his head when he wrote the stories and what meaning we may derive from them by bringing to bear our own knowledge and experience.

Because of my own background and natural inclinations, I tend to approach Tolkien's writings on Middle-earth more like a work of history than literature. (When I say 'work of history', I am really talking about "historiography" rather than a chronicle of facts or even individual interpretation.) As I read through our recent posts, I keep mumbling to myself: What's going on here? Posters are raising questions and points that historians deal with all the time....

I think there is justification for approaching the writings historically, and I think it can help us to deal with issues of canon, or what I would term "historical truth". We know we're never really going to get there, but you just can't stop trying! Plus, from some things the author has said as well as the narrative "fiction" of translating historical documents, it is clear that some level of Tolkien's mind viewed his writing as an historical or mythological creation rather than purely an artistic one. It was the process of constructing a world--its people, its languages, its landscape--that was even more central to him than writing a novel per se.

In fact, I see the problem of understanding Tolkien as very similar to that of creating and interpreting history. I am at least as interested in the world that Tolkien created as in the fact that he happened to use the format of a novel (Lotr), a children's story (Hobbit) and a reinvented myth (Silm) to set it down on paper. It is, overall, a history. Within that context, I'd like to focus on two quotes from Davem.

...are we obliged to interpret the stories in the light of Tolkien's intentions and values (my view) because Middle earth is an artistic creation? Or can we treat it as "history", in which case we have total freedom of interpretation, & nothing, particularly in human nature could be considered "uncanonical".....

If LotR is viewed as an account of a historical period, then the only "facts" we have to take into account are the 'scientific' ones - the 'moral' ones become optional, down to the individual's judgement.

I have problems with this choice of words, as I think it sets up a dichotomy that doesn't exist. When someone recreates history, at least 'good' history, they do not have total freedom of interpretation, nor can they ignore the 'moral' issues in favor of 'scientific' ones. Whether one deals with a primary source document or with another historical interpretation, the perspective of the person who created that document is at least as important (often more so) than the so-called 'scientific' facts under discussion. This is as true of a manorial court roll as it is of a modern historical monograph. In that sense, it is absolutely vital that we understand Tolkien's moral and personal positions to the best of our ability. We are free to interpret, but that interpretation must at least acknowledge what the author was trying to do. You can recreate the physical trappings of Middle-earth and string out a long list of names and word etymologies but without the inner core -- the understanding of what the historian or chronicler considered important (in effect the structure of morals or values), you will have nothing more than hollow words on paper.

For while we can never have true "canonical" fanfiction or interpretations, we can have pieces of writing or insights on the text that are more or less in line with the world that Tolkien has created. There will be argument and dispute about what constitutes the world created by Tolkien -- the moral fabric as well as more prosaic things--and these will lead to differences of opinion, but we should at least be aware that general guidelines exists--ones that Tolkien has set down--even though we cannot fully comprehend or duplicate this creative effort. Yes, we have freedom to try, but that freedom is not unlimited. In this sense, I am thinking Bb and I may be at two ends of a continuum: not on two different sides but emphasizing different things. To my mind, depicting Sauron or Saruman as heroes or even slash relationships among the characters clearly step outside Tolkien's moral construct that he has postulated for his world. This is not a question of canon but simple respect for the vantage from which the author writes. (In regard to SpM's recent comments on homosexuality or the lack of it in the text, I would say that sometimes what an historian omits is even more important than what he includes.)

I can never fully understand any civilization from the past. As a historian, I accept that limitation. Nor do I expect to be able to get inside Tolkien's creation completely. My own understanding is limited. Yet in trying to apply my own experiences to the text, I feel compelled to take into account what I can untangle from the author's mind: what he meant when he wrote the text and created the world that he did. With all our current emphasis on individual freedom in many different shapes and forms, there is such a thing as respect to the author or historian. If you play in his ballpark, you respect his general rules.

Yet, with both history and Tolkien, it is precisely those grey areas that I find most intriguing: those parts and ideas that are just beyond my grasp. Yes, I believe the reader does have a role in the creation of meaning, but that exercise takes place within certain broad guidelines -- both moral and physical -- that the author has laid down. There are questions that are unanswerable, but it is precisely those questions that make the discussion worth having.

************

P.S. It has taken me such a while to write this that I have cross posted with several people!

Fordim Hedgethistle

07-27-2004, 01:11 PM

Yet I think we have to be careful to acknowledge that there is more than one perspective

Child, I couldn't have put it better myself, and I stand convicted of approaching Tolkien far too much and far too often through the lens of literary critical practice (and possibly even theory). And this is ironic, for I have written elsewhere of how much I think there is to gain from a more 'historical' approach like the one you speak of so well and so convincingly. This really does buttress the philological analyses I'm wanting to move into as well, as I want to inquire into the historical origins of the names and then seek to find their applicability to us in the here and now.

Bethberry you wrote:

if there is nothing else in a text to support such esoteric or recondite use of names, then I would argue that the use of such names alone reflects weak writing. There ought to be other signifiers in the text which support that reference

I would argue that there are any number of such signifiers that not only invite but demand us to recover the etymology of the names. Off the top of my head I think of Tom Bombadil's explanation of who he is to the hobbits, Treebeard's wonderful delineation of the importance of names and words (doesn't he say that a proper name is the story of the thing?) and the constant renaming of Aragorn (Strider the Ranger, Aragorn the heir, Elessar the King). When I am next near to my books I shall dig up some relevant quotes, but I think everyone knows the moments I am referring to.

Time and again in the books it crops up that to know the name of a thing -- more significantly, to know the meaning of the name of a thing -- is to know the thing (Middle-Earth is clearly pre-post-structuralist in that regard! No split between the signifier and the signified there!). Given this insistence, I think that it's fair to argue that recovering a character's name is probably the clearest and best way to uncover authorial intent.

Your point, Bb, that this should not and cannot be taken as the only or sole mode of characterization is very well taken, though.

davem

07-27-2004, 01:26 PM

First of all,Fordim, n his essay, Tolkien as Phiologist, David Lyle Jeffrey gives a number of ‘speculative notes’ on ‘name meanings’ among them are:

Athelas=Old English-spirit of the King
Balrog= Old english- bealu,evil & wreagan,to arouse
Bilbo=Old English-Bil, a sword & -bo, (diminutive): short sword
Elendil=OE-Ellende, adj (foreign, exiled
Elessar=Old Norse-’one who appears in another manner.
Fangorn=OE-’fang’, booty, plunder; cf fon (to imprison) ‘prison-wood, as well as beard-tree*
Hobbit=OE-hob (generic name for clown, rustic), -bit, a diminutive suffix
Saruman=OE saru (pain, sickness), or searu (contrivance, stratagem)
* In an early version of the story Gandalf was to have been held prisoner by ‘Giant Treebeard.

All of which, I think, are quite significant.

As to the 'canonicity' thing. It seems to me we have the following alternatives:

1) Middle earth is Tolkien's own creation. He has decided that homosexuality simply doesn't exist - anymore than 15ft high rabbits or floating rocks.

2) Middle earth is a period of this world's history, some thousands of years ago.

My original point was that if 1) is true, then Middle earth is not a period of this world's history, & any fiction, or adaptation, which attempts to be true to the canon, must take into account every 'fact' about Middle Earth, & the moral stance of the creator (as manifest in the work - whether it reflects exactly the author's 'true' morality is another question) is a 'fact' of that world , as much as 'immortal' elves, magic swords, & 'crystal balls'. We cannot introduce anything into the world, or any attitude, either, unless support for it can be found in the author's works.

If, however, 2) is true, then while accepting all statements about the nature of that world - existence of Elves, dragons, mountains, etc, all the value judgements are up for grabs. Homosexuality would have existed then, as it has existed in all historical periods for which we have any evidence. So, we could introduce gay characters into Middle earth, with the justification that they must have existed - or at least we would be justified in asking anyone who denied that there were gay humans on earth x thousands of years ago to cite their evidence.

So, we either take the whole package as an artistic creation, including the moral value system the author has introduced into it, or we take the bare 'facts' of dates, geography, physics & biology, & feel free to impose our own value system & interpret the events of the story as we like. First alternative means 'slash' is not only incorrect, but 'wrong', & also impossible, as impossible as the fifteen foot rabbits. Second alternative means 'slash' is entirely acceptable, as it is not logically impossible, much though some people (whether they could count Tolkien himself among their number is unknowable, as SpM has pointed out) might wish it to be.

This really is a question about the extent to which we can separate the author's voice from the world he has created. If it was a real historical period we were dealing with we would attempt to do just that, & escape from the historian's biases, concious & unconcious, & draw our own moral lines.

My feeling is that we simply can't do that, & that the moral values & judgements which run through the world are an essential part of it, & therefore cannot be removed from it, & have simply to be accepted.

This means that someone who reads the books from this point of view, who enters into its moral vision fully, belives in the supernatural dimension, the miraculous intervention of Eru, etc, will get more out of it than someone who doesn't, & simply reads it as a story set in a fabulous world where wierd stuff just 'happens'. In other words, there is a 'right' way to read the books, & a 'wrong' way.

Fordim Hedgethistle

07-27-2004, 02:21 PM

First of all, Fordim, in his essay, Tolkien as Phiologist, David Lyle Jeffrey gives a number of ‘speculative notes’ on ‘name meanings’

Couldn't let this one pass without a quick admission, as DLJ is not only a personal friend, but -- I am proud and pleased to say -- one of my mentors.

Most of what I say about the importance of recovering the full meaning and connotations of names in LotR stems from several long conversations that I had with David many (many) years ago about that very subject. Whereas I speak but a little French and even less Spanish, David is fluent in (at last count) about a dozen languages living and dead, and the kinds of information he could bring to bear on the character- and place-names in LotR was bestaggering and awe-inspiring.

Where he and I parted ways on Tolkien is pretty much where (I suspect) davem and I do as well: DLJ always insists that one must 'recover' not just the meaning of the names, but do so from within the specifically Christian ethos that Tolkien was working from. I didn't really agree with it then, and I'm not sure that I do so know -- but as DLJ explained to me then, the act of recovering this sort of meaning is a method of study that owes much to biblical exegesis, so it's only natural (he even argued "responsible") to proceed in that manner.

Who am I to disagree with my mentor! :) Answer: a good student! ;)

PS Sorry if this looks like name-dropping; it truly is not meant as such. I'm just so tickled to see someone quoted herein whom I know. Now if someone ever quotes the one paper I wrote on Tolkien I will die of happiness (not that this is very likely to happen).

The Saucepan Man

07-27-2004, 05:51 PM

Sorry if this looks like name-dropping; it truly is not meant as such. (Fordim)It not only looks like outrageous name-dropping, it feels very much like it too. Scandalous! ;) :D

And now onto business.

Yet in trying to apply my own experiences to the text, I feel compelled to take into account what I can untangle from the author's mind: what he meant when he wrote the text and created the world that he did. With all our current emphasis on individual freedom in many different shapes and forms, there is such a thing as respect to the author or historian. If you play in his ballpark, you respect his general rules. (Child)I would say that, while one is free to investigate the author's intentions and values, an understanding of these is not necessary fully to appreciate the text. The text should be self-contained. Everything that we need to know about the protagonists, the events portrayed and the world in which it takes place should be in there. In other words, the reader should not be obliged to investigate authorial intention and standpoint in order to appreciate the text. After all, how many readers of the book do in fact do that? It follows that, while one might be aware of the author's own views and intentions, one is free to reject them if they are not implicit within the text.

In regard to SpM's recent comments on homosexuality or the lack of it in the text, I would say that sometimes what an historian omits is even more important than what he includes.There is much that Tolkien omits from the text (just as there is much that a historian omits from a historical account) simpy because it is not relevant to the subject matter at hand. Apologies in advance if this gets distasteful, but Tolkien never (as far as I am aware) mentions his characters' toliet habits. Nor does he (save in very oblique references with regard to Aragorn and Arwen and (I think) Beren and Luthien) mention any sexual activity. We assume that these activities occur, because the world would not be credible if they did not. But, because they are not relevant to the story that he is telling, they do not need to be addressed. For me, homosexuality falls within the same category. It is a fact of life and therefore existed within Middle-earth. The world would not be credible to me if it did not. Others may (and no doubt will) take a different view. I am simply giving my take on it.

So, we either take the whole package as an artistic creation, including the moral value system the author has introduced into it, or we take the bare 'facts' of dates, geography, physics & biology, & feel free to impose our own value system & interpret the events of the story as we like. First alternative means 'slash' is not only incorrect, but 'wrong', & also impossible, as impossible as the fifteen foot rabbits. Second alternative means 'slash' is entirely acceptable, as it is not logically impossible, much though some people (whether they could count Tolkien himself among their number is unknowable, as SpM has pointed out) might wish it to be. (davem)I do not see why the first alternative has to have the consequences that you have stated. The moral system which Tolkien has introduced into Middle-earth is not a complete recreation of his moral standpoint. It reflects only those aspects that he has chosen to include within it. As far as I can see, it does not preclude homosexuality. Nor do the facts that he has given us about the world necessarily preclude the existence of fifteen foot high rabbits (or hippos or ostriches). Why should they not exist? They are no less ludicrous in some respects than walking, talking trees. They do not feature in his tales because they are not relevant to them, but I would say that the reader is free to believe that they exist in Middle-earth if he or she so wishes.

On the other hand, we are not free to see Sauron and (LotR) Saruman as the good guys because we are clearly told that they are not. Nor are we free to interpret their evil acts as noble or heroic or attractive because it is clear from the text itself that this is incompatible with the moral value system that Tolkien has incorporated into his world. So, if we are to accept the story, we have to accept it as a "given" that Sauron is evil and that his behaviour is (within the story) morally incorrect.

This means that someone who reads the books from this point of view, who enters into its moral vision fully, belives in the supernatural dimension, the miraculous intervention of Eru, etc, will get more out of it than someone who doesn't, & simply reads it as a story set in a fabulous world where wierd stuff just 'happens'. In other words, there is a 'right' way to read the books, & a 'wrong' way. (davem)While it will not surprise you to hear that I do not agree with your final sentence (since, as I have said, I do not believe in making subjective assessments of an individual's reading experience), I do actually agree with the rest of what you have said here. But just because an individual does not subscribe personally to the author's moral vision (whether that be the limited one presented within the text or the broader perspective as ascertained from external investigation), it does not follow that he or she is "wrong", at least as far as he or she (as an individual) is concerned.

Bêthberry

07-27-2004, 05:57 PM

You have written a long and gracious and eloquent post, Child and say much with which I would agree--and, in fact, Fordim has already acknowledged a point I would respect, the need to be inclusive of several different perspectives. You are right--We cannot enter completely and wholly and naively into the mind and sensibility of a previous age!

I remember being told that the right way to go about literary scholarship was to read everything the author read and immerse oneself in the author's age so as to come to terms with what the author meant. How to ignore or overlook the intervening years between any author's and my own I was never told. How those intervening years might impinge upon an understanding of the author and/or text in question was a moot point from this perspective. Such a concern would be dismissed as irrelevant. And we could only study dead authors because they were the only ones who could be relied upon not to publish works which subsequently "proved" us wrong. It was an archeologoy all right. Take a look to see what constituted the study of "English literature" at the time Tolkien taught at Oxford to see this perspective in operation. (I do not ascribe this situation to Tolkien at all. In fact, I think he was ruefully disappointed in it, as his comments and shudders over academic syllabus show.)

You have so graciously acknowledged many of the points here that I almost feel it is rude of me to disagree. Almost. But please bear with me.

It is not any act of disrespect which causes me to question whether we can with absolute certainty say we know an author's intention. It is the experience of seeing that authors often write from depths of inspiration and thought which they themselves do not wholly or completely understand at the time of writing. Or seeing authors wish to withhold their true sense of intention from deliberate statement, wanting the work of art to speak for them. And even seeing authors deliberately engage in disguise and subterfuge as a way to challenge readers.

The difficulty is always what to do with the passage of time. As you yourself pointed out, in the sixties, it was Tolkien's environmental focus which was the topic of interest. Now, with publication of The Silm, HoME and UT, the moral or religious focus is what draws many to Tolkien. Yet this focus--even, both of them I would say--was largely absent from the movies. which has brought the thrill of the ancient epics and sword play to the forefront of some people's interest. Are we to say that those who read Tolkien in the sixties were wrong because they didn't know of Eru? Are we to say that those who relish the warrior aspects are limited in their appreciation because they might denigrate the environmental issues?

This issue of how time changes our perspective, even our definitions, pertains as much to historiography as it does to literary questions. Here in Canada, for both World War I and World War II, our participation was argued over, depending upon whether one felt we must rise to the call of the Empire and help defend England (English Canada) or stay out of the English dog's war (French Canada). In the United States, which entered World War II much later than Canada, there was a certain degree of sympathy for the Nazi Government. Only later in the war, when the extent of the genocide became apparent, did opinion coalesce. The same can be said for other wars. The American Civil War began over the question of the right of the southern states to secede. Only as the war progressed did the issue of slavery rise to the fore. (At least, this is the viewpoint I brought away with me after I visited Gettysburg.) Is there a lesson here in how cultures use moral issues to define historical moments? Maybe.

While bowing to your expertise in historical matters, I would politely suggest that the issues which bedevil our attempts to find a definitive, absolute interpretation of literary works based on an ability to know truly a writer's intention also impede historical research. I think back to the difference perspective which you and Rimbaud had over the question of whether a "middle class" existed in the middle ages. How historiographers define issues can influence their findings and their histories as much as definitions thwart literary scholars.

You suggest that the preferable way to define a response to Tolkien is through history rather than the kind of literary criticism which Fordim and I tend to use, maybe even davem, perhaps even Saucepan. And your justification for suggesting such an approach is Tolkien's own interest in history, which you say was more important than his interest in story.

Yet I think back to 'On Fairy Stories' and his deliberations over the bishop and the banana peel. Things get into the cauldron of story to flavour the story, not because they have any historical objectivity.

Which I suppose is my way of saying that there is indeed a continuum of interpretation and understanding as you suggest rather than davem's either or dichotomy. I don't see why a fanfic which explores an area Tolkien alluded to but left undeveloped, like Sauron's or Saruman's fall, is not possible within his moral universe. But perhaps that hinges on how we each define "hero". At the very least, I don't think 'historiography' is much more helpful to us than literary scholarship. When all is said and done, what we have are our words together, even when we disagree.

Lyta_Underhill

07-27-2004, 11:14 PM

Child of the 7th Age: I can never fully understand any civilization from the past. As a historian, I accept that limitation. Nor do I expect to be able to get inside Tolkien's creation completely. My own understanding is limited. Yet in trying to apply my own experiences to the text, I feel compelled to take into account what I can untangle from the author's mind: what he meant when he wrote the text and created the world that he did.

Davem: This really is a question about the extent to which we can separate the author's voice from the world he has created. If it was a real historical period we were dealing with we would attempt to do just that, & escape from the historian's biases, concious & unconcious, & draw our own moral lines.

I suppose this is the danger of the conceit of historicity of fiction. If one posits that Middle Earth exists outside the realm of Tolkien’s mind and that he really didn’t make it all up, as quipped by one of his correspondents in Letters so long ago, then the history is open to interpretation. Middle Earth is no longer Tolkien’s, but it becomes everyone’s. But, because we understand it to be a conceit—fiction, not history, the world belongs to the author who set it down. Thus, only his words are canon.

If we treat Middle Earth as a world which transcends its creator, then there could be all sorts of “revisionist histories” written from the discoveries of other works. Just think what could be written by one who uncovered the Library at Minas Tirith or who found Saruman’s records at Orthanc, or who wrote simply from the Book of Mazarbul with no other reference. Tolkien’s conceit of “The Red Book of Westmarch” means that “The Lord of the Rings” is to be the travelogue of Frodo, with all Frodo’s idiosyncrasies, beliefs, moral values, etc. along with his extraordinary experiences. So, if one wants to take the argument to its internal point, the canon of Lord of the Rings is the Weltanschauung of one Mr. Frodo Baggins, his first person experiences and journalistic interpretations of his talks with others involved in the War of the Ring.

I think the fact that this argument exists speaks to the verisimilitude and completeness of Tolkien’s creation of the realm of Middle Earth. When a world transcends the act of its creation, it strikes me in the same way Eru calling upon the Ainur to make music upon his themes would. I can see davem’s point about not allowing the discordant notes near a ‘canonical’ text, but also, I subscribe to Aiwendil’s view that no fanfiction or secondary writing is, by definition, canon (without getting into the sticky wicket of Christopher Tolkien's compilations/amalgamations/interpretations, i.e., Silmarillion etc.)*. That is not to say that fanfiction cannot enrich an already well-conceived world. Also, as painful as it might be to see the Morgoths and Saurons of this world exercise this right to expression, I cannot say they are not entitled to practice it, as long as they do not claim canonicity for their works. No badly written Mary Sue fanfiction is going to destroy the beauty of Tolkien’s world for me. There just isn’t enough power in it to do such a thing.

That said, I often have thoughts of just how the subcreated ‘history’ would fare if documents from the other side were uncovered, if there was, say, a ‘scribe of Minas Morgul’ who kept a journal and recounted his experiences in the War of the Ring and had a very different view of what actually happened in the conflict recorded, according to Tolkien’s conceit, by Frodo Baggins in the Red Book of Westmarch. But, of course, Tolkien did not write this, so one could never call it canon.

All this said, I must close with a blessing and a curse. Curse you and bless you, Fordim, for dredging up this topic again and taking my attention away from all the other little things I should have been doing! :D

Cheers!
Lyta

*Note from above: I actually find sometimes that the notes of CJT enhance the 'historical' effect of JRRT's works by being speculation much on the order of what historians must do to interpret intent or objective truth from disparate sources!

Fordim Hedgethistle

07-28-2004, 04:38 AM

All this said, I must close with a blessing and a curse. Curse you and bless you, Fordim, for dredging up this topic again and taking my attention away from all the other little things I should have been doing!

I stand shamed and humbled within the rain of your condemnatory benediction. :p

Canon is a tricky thing. To this point in the thread, I'm not sure that I've even really tackled it head on in terms of addressing what is an is not 'canonical', and I don't really propose to do so now as the idea of canon – of setting aside certain texts or kinds of texts as the 'real' Tolkien – tells us nothing about the texts or the author and everything about our own expectations as readers. If one believes that the meaning of a text resides wholly or primarily in relation to the author, then only works by that author will be canon; if one believes that the meaning of a text resides wholly or primarily in relation to the reader, then works or fan fiction (or parody) will be acceptable. This homiletic truth is born out, I think, within this very thread, for those who hold to the former position do not appear in the RPG forums, while those who hold to the latter do (more or less).

This is not, obviously, a strictly either/or scenario, where there are only two positions available. I have argued elsewhere (quite convincingly, I might add ;) ) that there is within every reading experience both the desire for meaning from the authorial source, and the desire for meaning in relation to the self – which would mean that there is a constant tension within every reading act and reader between these two forms of canon-formation. We are all of us, I think, simultaneously and somewhat ambivalently exclusive (the work belongs to the author) and inclusive (the work belongs to me) in our responses to all texts. But this exclusive-inclusivity, or inclusive-exclusivity is even more pronounced in relation to Tolkien, I think, insofar as the world that the text explores is not (directly) one that we share – it’s Tolkien’s world, so it’s his rules, his truth, his canon. At the same time, however, because this world is imaginary we as readers have to do a lot more work (pleasurable as it may be) to bring it to life. We are more active participants in the creation of this world than we are of, say, Dickens’ London or even Chaucer’s west country, insofar as these places have independent existence from the texts that reflect them.

So the problem of canon is even more fraught with Tolkien than is usual. But the good news is, the promise of canon is richer. This promise is the ability that it gives us to reflect upon our own expectations as readers, which is – finally – what canon is all about. The instant we decide what truly ‘belongs’ and what does not, we set up a very clear mirror into our own expectations and desires as readers. The more we want to define the canonical ‘truth’ of the text by the author, the more we want to turn to the mirage of authorial intention for meaning. The more we want to define the canonical ‘truth’ of the text by ourselves, the more we want to turn to the fantasy of individual response.

In the end, I would suggest that the quest for Tolkien’s canon is an informative process, but futile.

EDIT -- Cross-posting with Davem to whom I would like to say I agree whole-heartedly with the tripartite form of allusiveness you speak of in relation to the etymological pursuit of meaning in LotR.

davem

07-28-2004, 04:38 AM

As to etymology enhancing our understanding of the books, its interesting how it can reveal earlier versions of the story - ie Farmer Maggot's original, unpleasant character is prob. revealed through the name - 'maggotty'=cantankerous or drunken. The later character doesn't reflect these attributes at all, but they're there. Same thing with Fangorn=OE-’fang’, booty, plunder; cf fon (to imprison) ‘prison-wood, as well as beard-tree, which reflects the earlier version of the story, where Gandalf is imprisoned by Giant Treebeard, etc. Athelas means both 'spirit of the king' in OE & Kings foil (or leaf) in Sindarin.

But we have two 'levels' of inner/'hidden' meaning in Tolkien's books, the OldEnglish/Old Norse/Middle English, etc level, & the Elvish one, where subtle connections are made for readers - ie Strider telling the hobbits Frodo has been stabbed by a 'morgul blade' at weathertop - when we then hear the name Minas Morgul we consciously or unconsciously relate the the two places, just as we connect Minas Morgul with Minas Tirith, & Minas Tirth itself links back (for readers of the Sil) to Finrod's tower which guarded the Pass of Sirion.

None of those connections are overtly stated, but they underlie the whole thing.

Child of the 7th Age

07-29-2004, 01:32 AM

Very random thoughts off the top of my head late at night...

The more I think about it, the more I see Tolkien's efforts as directed at "world building" rather than simple "novel writing" in terms of Middle-earth and even LotR. How else can we explain the fact that the author used such a variety of forms and devices to express his creative intent for a period extending more than fifty years? A novel, a children's book, mythology and legend as expressed in the Silm, poetry and song, a myriad of invented languages and scripts, maps, colored illustrations and sketches, etymological exercises, heraldic devices, timelines: the list could go on and on. All of these were tools that he used to create the world of Middle-earth. And Tolkien made it quite clear in his letters that this world was somewhat open-ended, since he had wanted to "leave scope for other minds and hands", inviting gifted creators to come in "wielding paint and music and drama."

How many authors invite the reader to add personal touches to his work? And what does this do to our concept of canon?

Even if we confine our discussion to Tolkien himself, all of this diversity has to make the writings more difficult to assess, especially in terms of canon, whether we are talking about a single volume like LotR or the corpus as a whole. Even when we take up LotR and attempt to treat it as a novel, strange little things like languages, etymologies, poems, and such come creeping in, to say nothing of the histories set out in the Appendices.

Maybe I was overly optomistic when I charitably described issues of canon as one of those questions that are "unanswerable"; Fordim may be closer to the mark when he says identifying canon is an "informative process, but futile". "Futile" is a strong word but I think there is some justification for that term.

And yet I am unwilling to go as far as SpM in championing the freedom of the reader: accepting anything that's not specifically excluded by Tolkien, which I believe is the standard he laid out. (If I am mistaken in this, I apologize.) Like Davem, I am uncomfortable with fifteen foot rabbits or slash relationships (although my reasoning vis-a-vis history is totally different than his). I might let an ostrich or two slip in, but that's as far as I go. All kidding aside, there is a difference between ostriches, fifteen foot rabbits, and slash relationships. Each of these raises a different question.

Ostriches are part of the natural world, so they may be lurking about in Middle-earth somewhere, most likely in Harad. Fifteen foot rabbits, in contrast, imply a revision of the rules of nature, in fact almost stepping beyond nature into the realm of outright magic. And there is surprisingly little "magic" in Tolkien, for reasons we've already discussed. If such large rabbits were a legitimate part of faerie or of myth, I might be willing to let them in the back door, but I'm not aware of any that are. The author has the prerogative to bring in Oliphaunts (which do seem to bear some resemblance to actual mastadons and mammoths), but that is his prerogative not mine.

And when we come to "moral" questions and values, it gets even tougher. Everything I've read about Tolkien tells me that he was a Roman Catholic, and that his personal beliefs were shaped by that religious faith. I can find nothing to indicate his views on slash or pornography, for example, were divergent in this regard. Here, I am talking in terms of an "ideal" rather than getting into any questions about civil liberties and such, since this is a totally different issue. Again and again, Tolkien hammered away in LotR at the need for individuals to take a moral stand. SpM is certainly correct that Tolkien did not explicitly address such issues in LotR, but if I go by what I know about the author (not my own standards and beliefs which may be very different), then I find it hard to include either slash or explicit portrayals of sex between men and women. Allusions to sex and rape are a different thing: these certainly exist in Silm. There is a wonderfully tender kiss between Faramir and Eowyn in LotR that hints at the passion that lies underneath. But I would find it difficult to step beyond this in the context of Tolkien.

To some degree, I do feel bound by what I know about the author. When he speaks of creating a world that is 'high', purged of the gross, and fit for the more adult mind of a land long now steeped in poetry", I find myself treading very gently. Perhaps this is an emotional reaction rather than an intellectual one, but surely that has validity as well.

Finally, Bb, Thank you for your post, which was very thought provoking. I agreed with much of what you said. You are correct in saying that we can never know the exact intention of the author (or the creator or the historian -- whatever term we care to use), which is not too different from saying that I can never wholly understand the past. But I think that the effort has to be made and that there are some things that lie in the dominion of the creator/author rather than the freedom of the reader. It's clear that all of us would draw the line at a different point.

If sixties readers best appreciate trees, and modern scholars have discovered Eru, while young people enjoy the sword play, that is all to the good in my opinion. All of these things are implicit in Tolkien's writings. History feeds on variant interpretations: in the clash of ideas, new truths emerge. In fact, without changing ideas and interpretations, you'd end up with a very boring textbook that puts everyone to sleep -- the type that are used in many history classes! My problem in terms of Middle-earth comes only when something "foreign" is introduced, something for which I see little or no basis in the text itself, especially in the context of what I know about the author.

One clarification:

You suggest that the preferable way to define a response to Tolkien is through history rather than the kind of literary criticism which Fordim and I tend to use...

My apologies. I did not mean to say that historiography was more helpful than literary scholarship. I was probably a little overzealous in my argument. In fact I was trying to argue that what we need are more approaches, not fewer ones.

Historiography is indeed a preferable way for me to understand the works, since I have more background and understanding in this regard than I would in terms of literary theories (or of psychological theories, for that matter). But it is a preference only for myself and not to be thrust upon anyone else who will want to forge their own path. Fordim is quite right in saying that diversity is the key here, with each reader applying what he or she knows best.

In any case, it's quite clear that agreement on these issues is impossible to reach. Yet, despite the headaches, I think the effort is worth making. What the Silm project is doing is a case in point. It is not canon in any sense, but by the very act of selecting and making judgments, we are given a new perspective on certain aspects of the writings. Well written fanfiction and RPGs perform a similar function.

davem

07-29-2004, 05:18 AM

And Tolkien made it quite clear in his letters that this world was somewhat open-ended, since he had wanted to "leave scope for other minds and hands", inviting gifted creators to come in "wielding paint and music and drama."

This brings up the question of how narrowly or broadly Tolkien himself would have defined 'canonicity' - if he was happy (unlike Christopher) for people to expand on his creation, as long, presumably, as they stayed within the spirit of the work. Presumably he didn't think of Middle earth as his sole 'property', & was in a sense giving it to the world - as he said to Milton Waldman, he wanted to dedicate it to England.

If this is the case, then it could be argued that any fanfic which was true to the spirit of the work could be considered 'canonical' as writers would be simply expanding Tolkien's world, with his permission.

Of course, Tolkien, as Shippey among others has shown, was attempting to recreate an already existing mythology, & attempting to explain, for instance, why in Norse myth & Saxon legend there are references to Light Elves, Dark Elves, Elves of the Gloaming, Sea Elves, Wood Elves, etc. So Tolkien, in part , is not 'freely' inventing his stories, he is attempting to account for references in the old sources. So we could say that the Legendarium is an exercise in applied philology, an attempt to reconstruct a lost mythology, as much as an attempt to tell an entertaining story.

Novnarwen

07-29-2004, 03:55 PM

From davem's post
If this is the case, then it could be argued that any fanfic which was true to the spirit of the work could be considered 'canonical' as writers would be simply expanding Tolkien's world, with his permission.

I was going to agree with you, and others, who say that fanfics and RPGs etc can be 'canonical'. But now, suddenly, I have changed my mind. When we write our fanfics or our RPG stories it can never be canon or 'canonical' for many reasons. (Only my opinion, of course..)

Saying that Tolkien is letting us into his world and that he is open for writers to expand his works doesn't make our new stories within Middle-earth canon or 'canonical'. They are simply stories which are based on the world Tolkien gave to us through his books. They are stories, which take place and evolve in Middle-earth, they are stories that may resemble Tolkien’s style of writing and they may even be stories that are similar in spirit. However, as I still don't get how we are to judge what is in the spirit of Tolkien or not, I will say that this too is 'evidence' that nothing we write can be canon or 'canonical'. With good conscious, I just cannot do it.. (I might change my mind, but someone needs to convince me.) I mean, we may try to decide what we think is the spirit of Tolkien by our own experiences, opinions and etc., but who's correct and who's not? Naturally, we will see Tolkien differently, as to how we approach him as a person and how we approach his works. To me, it seems impossible to actually claim that "Hello you, but THIS is not in the spirit of Tolkien, duh!" and "Hello, that's what I call the spirit of Tolkien. Your fanfic is therefore 'canonical!'"

From Saucepan Man's Post
by the same token, I would say that there is no reason why a Tolkien fanfic should not include aspects of human nature that Tolkien does not specifically address in his works, provided that they are dealt with in the spirit of Tolkien’s writing.

I agree with everything you say, I think.. A Fanfic or RPG, I think, could include some aspects of human nature that Tolkien perhaps 'forgot' to tell us about. I assume that Tolkien was inspired from his own experiences in life when writing, and different aspects of human nature is not something Tolkien wasn't aware of. I'm not saying, by this, that I believe it is in the spirit (whatever that 'spirit' is) of Tolkien to create homosexual characters, simply because I don't know what the spirit of Tolkien is/was. This is only my point of view, though. Mind you, however, I don't see what wrong it could do..

You see, every time someone writes an RPG post or a Fanfic, we do not write it under John Ronald Reul Tolkien. Next to our posts, our writings, it says for example: "Novnarwen's post." (Okay, it doesn't actually say that by ones post, I just realised, but it says your name... Anyway, it's meant to be "Novnarwen's post... :p ") As long as it is under our names, it is our posts, our writings and of course our responsibility. We claim that this is our writing, and we say for instance at the RPG discussion threads:" My post is up!" Okay, it's your post.. It is your writing, it is [in] your spirit, why else would you say that it is your post? If it were in the spirit of Tolkien (I don't know how we can say which spirit is Tolkien’s though.. :D ) it wouldn't have been your post. What I am trying to point out is that we can imitate Tolkien, claim that "This is in the spirit of Tolkien, believe me", but how do we know? No one other than Tolkien can write in his spirit, because no one else is Tolkien! And if no one can write in his spirit, is anything we write then canon or 'canonical'?

Since I've already explained that I do not think other writings and other writers than Tolkien and his writing can be canon or 'canonical', I don't see the reason not to create the characters you like, (as long as it is within the Forum's guidelines,) because it will never be canon or 'canonical' anyway. It is simply your writing, and you have based it on Tolkien's world. Since you are a part of a Tolkien community, which states that there are Tolkien RPGs here, you have already acknowledged that you give full credit to Tolkien for creating Middle-earth. Other than that the credit goes to you..

Anyway, now as that has been said, (If you haven't fallen off your chair already because of my ignorance or whatever, you will certainly now..) I am wondering about something..

Why are we putting so much effort into worrying about whether our writings are 'canonical' or not? I know it’s easy for me to say, who is just overly convinced that no one can possibly write a Tolkien fanfic or an RPG and make it canon or 'canonical', but what about you? I mean, as long as we respect the characters Tolkein indeed gave life, such as Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin (in fact every character he mentioned by name, which would take ages and ages to put on paper.), and don't put Meduseld on fire and make Theóden die of poisonous smoke and such, there is nothing 'wrong' we can do. I mean, have we really claimed from the start that we are making canon or that we are writing in the spirit of Tolkien? :p

Okay, I'm wrapping this up since it's only ramblings now.
Cheers,
Nova

The Saucepan Man

07-29-2004, 06:23 PM

When we write our fanfics or our RPG stories it can never be canon or 'canonical' for many reasons.I agree. The problem with describing fanfics and RPGs as "canon" is that, as I understand it, this word generally refers to the body of an author's work which has been published (ie is accessible to all who wish to read it). Fanfics and RPGs fail on both counts because they have not been written by the author and because they are not generally available. So, if you were to turn round and tell me that Legolas owned a hare (to use a random example ;) ) because you read it in a fanfic, I would be fully justified in disregarding your information completely. It is simply not canon, and that is that.

Having said that, I do agree to some extent with whoever (Aiwendil?) said that a fanfic can be "canon-ish" in the sense that it adheres to the "spirit of Tolkien". But you have amply illustrated the problem with this concept, Novnarwen. Who is to say what is in the spirit of Tolkien and what is not? There are obvious areas where we can agree, but there will also be many areas where we will not.

Which takes me back to my (hackneyed) mantra concerning the freedom of the reader. If I read a piece of fanfic, like it and see it as being within the spirit of Tolkien (and provided that it does not conflict with anything Tolkien wrote), I can choose to believe that in my Middle-earth, the events described in it did happen. But for another person who reads the same fanfic, such events may well be events that they cannot accept as having occurred in their Middle-earth because they do not accord with their conception of Tolkien's vision.

Of course, I agree with Child that there are some things that we would all agree do not, and could never be, within the spirit of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. But she and I clearly differ when it comes to fifteen foot high rabbits and homosexuality (although I would hasten to add that there are in fact no fifteen foot rodents (whether owned by Legolas or not) in my Middle-earth).

So, to a greater or lesser degree, we will all have different conceptions of Middle-earth. Which means that, when we come together to discuss Tolkien's works, the only things that we can all agree on are those facts which are expressly stated in the text. And even then there is room for interpretation, which brings us back to ...

*Saucepan is overcome with deja vu and falls to the floor noisily in a heap of pots and pans*

I'll give up before I start repeating myself any further ...

Why are we putting so much effort into worrying about whether our writings are 'canonical' or not? Because ... er ... um ... anyone? :rolleyes: :D

Aiwendil

07-30-2004, 09:23 AM

Novnarwen wrote:
I was going to agree with you, and others, who say that fanfics and RPGs etc can be 'canonical'. But now, suddenly, I have changed my mind. When we write our fanfics or our RPG stories it can never be canon or 'canonical' for many reasons.

I have to say, again, that I don't think that this question is as meaningful as it sounds. It seems to me that the disagreement here is not about what Tolkien's texts are, or what fan fiction is, or anything like that - it's simply about what we want to use the term "canonical" to signify. "Canonical" is just a word, just a term. I would say that the conventional usage of the word is more in line with the restricted meaning "Tolkien's texts". But one ought to be able to alter one's definitions and use "canonical" to mean "not contradicting Tolkien's texts" without this necessitating any other changes in one's view.

The Saucepan Man wrote:
Who is to say what is in the spirit of Tolkien and what is not? There are obvious areas where we can agree, but there will also be many areas where we will not.

You're right - and this doesn't just apply to the more abstract aspects of Tolkien's work, either. It's often very difficult to say whether a specific, concrete fact in a piece of fan fiction violates another specific, concrete fact from Tolkien's work. I still say there are three fundamental categories: strict canon (Tolkien), possible canon (some fan fiction), and non-canon (other fan fiction). But there are shades of grey in between them, particularly in between the latter two.

InklingElf

08-05-2004, 05:16 PM

Who is to say what is in the spirit of Tolkien and what is not? There are obvious areas where we can agree, but there will also be many areas where we will not.

Duly noted.

Don't kill me for this but... because I am a simpleton I think you guys are stressing over this matter too much.While I cannot be more profound and deep in my response the explications that have circulated through this thread I'll get whatever it is out-of-my-system-right-away:

ca•non•i•cal \ke-"na-ni-kel\ adj 1 : of, relating to, or forming a canon 2 : conforming to a general rule or acceptable procedure : orthodox 3 : of or relating to a clergyman who is a canon — ca•non•i•cal•ly \-k(e-)le\ adv
(c)2000 Zane Publishing, Inc. and Merriam-Webster, Incorporated. All rights reserved.

To conform or not to conform? But:

"Canonical" is just a word, just a term. I would say that the conventional usage of the word is more in line with the restricted meaning "Tolkien's texts". But one ought to be able to alter one's definitions and use "canonical" to mean "not contradicting Tolkien's texts" without this necessitating any other changes in one's view.

So whatever we are conforming into is not always explicity justified correct? Hence, we are to "alter one's definitions". And that is the acceptable procedure?

...I know I know I'm shooting in the dark -- but the canonicity in this case applies solely to the reader at hand.

That's another thing to observe about the discussion taking place as well.Thank you for bearing this incoherant post.

mark12_30

08-05-2004, 05:35 PM

Why are we putting so much effort into worrying about whether our writings are 'canonical' or not?

Because, except for some present, there is a vague, general understanding that when you say you are writing something canonical (I heartily prefer the term "canon-friendly", myself) that you have loosely translated the longer phrase, "No jedis, starships, Tarzan or Kings Kong; I'm gonna try my best to make it really blend in. Maybe you'll even wonder if the Professor had a hand in it." And most folk have a vague understanding that that's what you kinda sorta mean, and those who are interested in reading 'Something That Might Remind The Reader Of Tolkien' will decide whether or not to check your stuff out.

Then in the review column, the reader can say "Yeah, it's not bad, in some ways it's pretty close, but well-- this thing about Legolas and the fifteen foot rabbit..."

HerenIstarion

08-06-2004, 07:10 AM

Why are we putting so much effort into worrying about whether our writings are 'canonical' or not?

I think I know the answer to that question:

Because you (and you, yes, you too!) all are in league plotting my ruin. For surely I'll be fired if I spend an instant more of my office time reading this unending thread, instead of actually doing some work I'm paid for!

As a bonus, be enlightened by the following:

Three blind men were shown into a stall were elephant (oliophaunt?) was kept. None of them has seen one before, so they were asked to touch it and then give their opinion about such a wondrous animal. But as they approached it from different sides, so the body parts they felt were different. So one said: 'elephant is like to a rope' (as he touched the tail), ‘nay’, said another, 'it is like a tree-trunk' (leg was the part of his choice), 'what are you two talking about?', came in the third, 'it's like a snake!' (for it was proboscis in his hand). So they quarreled, and could not agree upon which was right

Now, I hold they all were right

But, free-reader people, do not rejoice, for I’m not joining your ranks ;)

Though I hold that all three blind men were right, I hold such a belief with a proviso there were no one with clear sight to tell them about elephant.

Tolkien is such a sighted one.

cheers :)

Bêthberry

08-06-2004, 09:48 AM

And most folk have a vague understanding that that's what you kinda sorta mean, and those who are interested in reading 'Something That Might Remind The Reader Of Tolkien' will decide whether or not to check your stuff out.

Then in the review column, the reader can say "Yeah, it's not bad, in some ways it's pretty close, but well-- this thing about Legolas and the fifteen foot rabbit..."

I think Helen provides here a very useful definition of what makes fanfiction so popular: people are hungering after "more of the same" from an author they enjoy. This is I suspect the major reason why people read fanfiction and possibly a major reason why people write fanfiction. It does, however, limit writing to a kind of secondhand nature, where the imagination of the fanfic writer is in some measure bound up with the world of, for our purposes, Middle earth.

Yet there surely are other reasons for writing besides this kind of echo. There are many kinds of "influence" possible in the crucible of the creative imagination. When does a fanfiction writer cross over the line between "repeating" his favourite precursor and attaining his own kind of unique form of writing? After all, Tolkien himself was inspired by other writers to create his own Middle earth, a subcreation wholly unique. Is that freedom of invention, inspiration, creativity to be denied to those who follow him?

Tolkien as muse can take many forms. And people are free to define what form they prefer, I suppose.

Novnarwen

08-06-2004, 09:50 AM

Because, except for some present, there is a vague, general understanding that when you say you are writing something canonical (I heartily prefer the term "canon-friendly", myself) that you have loosely translated the longer phrase, "No jedis, star ships, Tarzan or Kings Kong; I'm gonna try my best to make it really blend in. Maybe you'll even wonder if the Professor had a hand in it." And most folk have a vague understanding that that's what you kinda sorta mean, and those who are interested in reading 'Something That Might Remind The Reader Of Tolkien' will decide whether or not to check your stuff out.

Aha. Well, I do think, personally, that if you exclude (the) Tarzan and the Jedis, it doesn't make it necessarily canon/canonical/canon-friendly (Whatever term you choose to use..)

Anyway, why should we try to make people believe that Tolkien had a hand in it? What kind of goal is that? Tolkien is not here, so he cannot possibly have had a hand in it. Everyone knows he isn't alive today. So I don't honestly see a point in trying to pretend that he has had a hand in it, when he has certainly not.

As I said before, my previous post, I expressed some of the reasons why I don't believe in creating canon/canonical texts. (It looks kind of silly to quote your own posts (# 381), so I wont..:)) But I still stand by those reasons.

Anyway, as badly as my question about putting so much effort into making ones writing canonical was formulated, I must correct it: Why do you (Not all, but some) put so much effort into making your writings canonical?

I am changing this for one reason, and that is; I don't believe in making so called canonical texts, because I don't possess the spirit that Tolkien possessed. I'm happy when I write RPG posts that are based on Tolkien's works. I sit down, clear my head and I try to figure out what I'm going to write. Suddenly (often after sitting a long time staring into the air, that is) I figure it out. I plan it; what my character thinks, what my character is going to do, what feelings he/she is going to express towards the situation he/she is facing and so forth. I already know that I'm not Tolkien (Can you believe that? :D ), so I don't even bother to think about what Tolkien would write here. My posts are mine, but they are based on the world Tolkien gave to us, to me. I'm perfectly happy about doing this, so I do not see a reason to follow everything so slavishly. (Maybe I'm happy about this because I do it for the fun of it, and I don't care about those who are possibly reading it?) As long as I take responsibility for my posts, I don't see the point in why I should make them so that people could think that Tolkien have had a hand in it. I am, however, willing to edit my posts.

*

When reading HerenIstarion's little story, I think it reflects very well our differences, when we talk about whether this or that is in the spirit of Tolkien. We touch one aspect of his life, and are convinced that this is where his spirit came from. Then again, another may claim that another aspect is which drove him to write. We can argue and argue until we go insane, and never agree. But then again, I must ask, since I don't see it myself, why you (;)) try to write in the spirit of Tolkien? Can't we just leave Tolkien's spirit alone? (I've also said something about this in my previous post, heh..)

I don't think we need one to tell us what is right and what is wrong when it comes to Tolkien's spirit and his perspective on things. I think we just have to be aware that we are fully responsible for the posts we make, and therefore since our RPGs (meaning among them, at this site,) are based on Tolkien's world and his works, we must follow the rules, which apply to the site. I cannot recall anything saying that we should write in the spirit of Tolkien. It should be consistent to his world, yes, but his spirit is not mentioned. If making canon/canonical/canon friendly texts (which I don't believe in the least is possible, bwahahah), of course Tolkien's spirit should be one of the writer's concerns. However, as previously stated in previous post, we can try to imitate, we can try to make a potions that will give us full insight about everything and we can even convince ourselves that we are making a canonical text, but none of us are truly following the spirit of Tolkien, because none of us have the answer, or rather; none of us can define what lays within the word spirit, and definitely not what lays within the spirit of Tolkien.

Nova

EDIT: Cross-posted with Bêthberry

HerenIstarion

09-02-2004, 11:08 AM

Ahem...

I hope I won't summon the wrath of the Valar upon my head by reviving this, but upon rereading exerpts of this mightily long thread, I have found something which evaded my attention in the heat of the debate at the time of its posting:

post #309 (http://69.51.5.41/showpost.php?p=323522&postcount=309)Oh, and yes, H-I, I believe that moral “truths” do “lie in numbers” in the sense that I believe that the basic framework of human morality is a consequence of the social evolution of man: the survival of the most socially effective morals.

I suppose I can relate it to the Canonicity issue - the statement imaybe right or wrong, but that may depend on redears interpretation? Not to stray off Tolkien either, let us consider Aragorn in the light of the statement above:

Aragorn:

'I am Aragorn son of Arathorn; and if by life or death I can save you, I will

This is the instant of the behavior least fitting for the social survival. If Aragorn dies, there is no talk about anything socially effective - his line will end with him, so the Rangers of the North will dwindle and perish. Is his behavior in this instant moral? It is. Socially effective? Well, one may argue that in this particular case, Frodo is the only hope, so the hope of survival for Aragorn and his socium lies in Frodo. (seems I'm talking to myself. Bad example, than)

Let us move on.
m-m-m... Legolas for one?... no... Gimli? neither... ah, I know, I know, that should be Faramir! Not that good upon second thought, it seems...

Well, I can't move on. All of the characters which with Tolkien act upon their moral, do so for their own good and the good of society

But, in this, it seems to me that ME is a bit of an ideal world.

In general, down here our road, self-sacrifice, which is usually considered as a moral act, is not socially effective. Reason: self-sacrifice is allegedly the feat the best [wo]men are capable of - the most brave, loving, wise etc. Logic: if the best act morally, they, eventually, die out. The rest is less good. So, the society which one is left with consists of worse members than original one. Logic: such a society is less, not more good than the original one. Question: where is social efficiency of moral?

Or, now we know where ancestor worship comes from

davem

09-02-2004, 11:21 AM

H-I
A big question, which I will have to consider - though I suspect the reason you've brought it up here rather than start a new thread is that you refuse to let this one die! I know this is the Barrow Downs, but not everything is meant to live forever!

I begin to feel it necessary to take action re this thread!

'Ho! Tom bombadil, Tom Bombadillo!
By water.......

mark12_30

09-02-2004, 11:23 AM

:eek:

Careful, davem, you'll evaporate us all!!!!!

Fordim Hedgethistle

09-02-2004, 01:01 PM

A very interesting question with which to resurrect the thread, H-I – but one that may need a bit of tweaking.

The question as you phrase it would seem to be a bit of a big baggy monster about morality and society in the primary world: a worthy question, but not really in the spirit on the original thread. If I might be allowed to rephrase it, and then take a running start at an answer…

Going back to SaucepanMan’s point:

that moral “truths” do “lie in numbers”

I wonder how applicable this can be to whatever “truths” we discover in a text like LotR? That is, if a hundred people think that Aragorn’s statement that he will help the hobbits is the expression of selfless sacrifice (“I will give up my aspirations for the good of Middle-Earth”) and fifty think that it is enlightened self-interest (“I will help you because it is convenient since my own Road lies that way”) then is the first interpretation more right than the other? What if the ratio changes and there’s a thousand people who support one interpretation and ten who support another? A million against one?

Most of us, I am sure, would want to say that of course interpretation is not a matter of sheer numbers – this is not a democracy! But surely to goodness there is some truth in what SpM is saying when we look at it in terms of interpretation. I mean, there is no way to prove finally that the Ring is not an allegory for the Atomic Bomb, but few people hold to that interpretation any more because majority opinion has swung against it.

And to fully return to the topic of this thread: if there is a democratic aspect to this, does the author get just one vote or more? To adopt (rather inappropriately, I admit) a different metaphor, if the readers and the writer are shareholders in the meaning of a text, does the author have a controlling share or is he just one more shareholder among many?

davem

09-03-2004, 01:10 AM

This is the central argument - can we divorce Tolkien's intent from the way we read his work - or perhaps we should start with 'Did he have any intent?' The Foreword to the second edition is self contradictory in a way - he claims there is no allegory, & the reader is free to apply the story in any way they please, then he immediately refutes what was probably the most obvious 'application' for readers at that time, that to WW2, by showing that anyone who did apply it in that way would be completely ignorant.

This seems to be drawing together a number of current threads - 'Reality', The Nazi's, Partners & The Soddit, etc. To what extent are we free to interpret & apply, if the author has refused to do that himself, & has given us express permission to do so - we may interpret & apply as we wish if the author will not do that for us. Yet we mustn't contradict explicit statements of the author - 'Marriage, save for rare ill chances or strange fates, was the natural course of life for all the Eldar', Marriage is chiefly of the body, for it is achieved by bodily union, [i]& its first operation is the begetting of the bodies of children...And the union of bodies in marriage is unique, & no other union resembles it' & 'Seldom is any tale told of deeds of lust amongst them'. (Laws & Customs Among the Eldar)

This clearly states that sex outside marriage, 'lustful' relationships, sexual relationships for any purpose other than a loving union which is intended to produce offspring, is not consistent with 'Canon', so pornographic fanfic, whether 'slash' or not, is not acceptable - less for 'moral' reasons, as because it goes expressly against Tolkien's statements on the nature of the elves - it would be as 'wrong' (ie incorrect) as 6 foot hobbits, or non imortal elves, or lazy dwarves with a fear of being underground.

So, to Aragorn; I think we have to dismiss the 'enlightened self interest' explanation for his actions, in that that goes totally against his character, as shown in numerous other examples where he goes out of his way to help others & often lays his life on the line for them when he doesn't have to. We aren't free to interpret this incident at Bree in a way that is in contradiction to his other actions later in the story. Aragorn is a particular type of person, & he behaves in a particular way.

So, for a story or interpretation to be in line with canon, it must not contradict either clear statements of the author about his world or its inhabitants, or interpret certain actions of a character in a way that isn't consistent with what we know of them. Frodo, for example, is clearly & obviously celebate - & not for reasons of 'Victorian morality' - celebacy is part of his nature, a manifestation of his spiritual nature & one of the reasons for his isolation at the end of the story - so a Frodo/Sam slash fanfic is simply incorrect, because he wouldn't respond in a sexual way to anyone, male or female - he is on a different path.

In short, whatever place 'democracy' may have in interpretations of Tolkien's writings, it cannot go against the given 'laws' of the world he created.

HerenIstarion

09-03-2004, 02:56 AM

I knew two ants to come out first would be winding davem and hedged fordim... :rolleyes:

Well, the real start of the morality issue was when we talked about Truth/truth back on page 7 and 8 of current thread.

The argument presented by SpM was that every [wo]man may have his personal moral and personal truth, which was responded by yours truly with a question should a murderer still be accused on moral grounds if the murder s/he committed have been approved of by his/her personal 'truth' and moral code. The morality in numbers issue came as the answer to that.

Back to matters at hand:

Authorship/Readership and shareholding - an analogy, a bit one-sided, but still valid, may be applied to LoTR and my statement on page 6 [without God there is no understanding of LoTR – i.e. suppose someone read only LoTR and haven’t heard of Eru]. Let me explain myself:

There may be two assumptions about moral, or Moral Law:

1. Moral Law as directly implemented by Eru
2. Moral Law as the product of social evolution.

In case one, there can be no place for calculation/weighting - if action A, than consequence B, which is good for society, therefore A is morally good. Case 2 allows such calculations. In LoTR, calculations are somehow out of place - characters merely act because 'thus shall I sleep better', (I have had my example, btw, I wanted to see your reaction first - I've quoted Theoden here, whose decision to take part in the war is mostly socially inefficient - he probably risks the very existence of the whole of the society he's in charge of).

That in the end morally good actions bring about good of society, is expression of Tolkien's sense of justice, or so it seems

Or, back to shareholders analogy – if the Moral Law is a company created by Eru, than He has the casting vote of what is moral and what is not, no democracy. If, on the other hand, Moral Law is the product of social development, than my previous post shows that the actions evaluated as most moral are least socially efficient. But moral democracy is dangerous – yes, question of ‘why should I do this’ can be answered with ‘because this is good for society’, but following question of ‘why should I prefer good of society over my personal good’ can not be answered by means of moral democracy. The logical chain may be than extended to state that any moral is good in itself – brings us to ‘bag-end’ (i.e. cul-de-sac) – murderer may be in his/her right, as his actions were in accordance with his/her personal moral.

If the option two – moral democracy - be right, than Aragorn, Theoden etc act senseless in the book, and Jackson’s Aragorn is more true than one of the book – his choice is determined by ‘democracy’ – he’s nagged by Arwen, Elrond brings him his sword, he’s constantly pushed on by ‘public opinion’, ‘moral of numbers’. If not that stimuli, he may have even fallen for Eowyn, one can’t help wondering. Jackson’s Theoden is even better expression of democracy moral – ‘Where have been Gondor when Rohan needed help’, instead of book’s ‘we will fulfill our oath of allegeance, whatever befell us’

But why opinion of two should be preferred over opinion of one? Can someone convince me that taller people are better than shorter ones, or vice versa?

Back to Canonicity: My intended answer was posted for me by davem already :):

So, for a story or interpretation to be in line with canon, it must not contradict either clear statements of the author about his world or its inhabitants, or interpret certain actions of a character in a way that isn't consistent with what we know of them

End of democracy, long live the King :) (m-m, constitutional monarchy?)

Aiwendil

09-03-2004, 07:35 AM

Fordim wrote:
I mean, there is no way to prove finally that the Ring is not an allegory for the Atomic Bomb, but few people hold to that interpretation any more because majority opinion has swung against it.

We must be very careful with definitions. What does it mean to say that "the Ring is an allegory for the atomic bomb?" If "allegory" means what it usually means, then the claim is equivalent to "when Tolkien wrote 'Ring' he meant, instead of or in addition to the fictional Ring, the atomic bomb." And we know that this claim is false for the simple reason that Tolkien said it was false. Short of claiming that he was lying, we cannot entertain the possibility that "the Ring is an allegory for the atomic bomb" is true. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a majority of people disagreeing with the claim.

But you see, that particular point depends upon the specific meaning of the word "allegory" - a word that by definition has to do with the author's intent. We ought not to be surprised that when we ask a question about the author's intent, our answer will depend critically upon the author's intent! Nor can we then infer that all matters of interpretation and "canon" depend critically on the author's intent. The inference is invalid because the case from which we would infer is peculiar.

davem wrote:
The Foreword to the second edition is self contradictory in a way - he claims there is no allegory, & the reader is free to apply the story in any way they please, then he immediately refutes what was probably the most obvious 'application' for readers at that time, that to WW2, by showing that anyone who did apply it in that way would be completely ignorant.

I don't see a contradiction here. He does not say that the reader is free to interpret the story in any way he or she chooses. He does say that there is no allegory. But "no allegory" does not mean that all interpretations by all readers are valid. Again, allegory has a very specific meaning. When he says that there is no allegory, he means that this is not the kind of book that is merely code for a message; it's not the kind of book where when he writes X,Y,Z he means A,B,C; it's not the kind of book that is, primarily or exclusively, about World War II or about atomic power or about anything other than the story itself.

That certainly does not leave us with the total freedom of the reader. The reader can indeed "apply" the story to real life, but there is no assurance that every application will be valid. And of course a reader still cannot "interpret" the book in a way that is directly contradicted by the text itself.

As you say, "lustful" relationships cannot be "canon"; they contradict a statement in one of the texts. Nor can Aragorn be considered to act in self-interest, because that contradicts a whole complex system of statements in the texts.

What I think is all too often forgotten in this debate, which has in large part come down to Author vs. Reader, is the Text itself. There are severe problems with saying either that the author is the final arbiter of interpretation, or that the reader is. I say that it is in the text that whatever truths there are about interpretation must lie. This view does everything it ought to do - it eliminates the problem that we can never really know the precise contents of the author's mind, but it does not make "interpretations" that are simply incorrect valid.

HerenIstarion:

You describe well the two opposing assumptions concerning morality. But, as Fordim points out, we must either talk about the real world or about Middle-earth; we cannot mix and match freely.

In Middle-earth there is no question. Option 1 is simply right and option 2 is simply wrong. This is because the texts can only be read consistently with option 1 as an assumption, not with option 2. That has nothing to do with the validity of either assumption in the real world - as I recall (and I may be wrong; it was a while ago) The Saucepan Man's original point related to the real world.

HerenIstarion

09-03-2004, 08:31 AM

as I recall (and I may be wrong; it was a while ago) The Saucepan Man's original point related to the real world.

Touché :)

I'm an intriguer, which I admit freely :rolleyes: ,

Being an intriquer, I can not help twisting and slithering a bit before ackowledging defeat - pages 4 and 5, or maybe 5 and 6, those even more lost in the famous Mists of Time, deal with some 'Shop on the borders of Fairyland'. If there be such a shop, and it be seen by Tolkien who told us about it, than moral issue would be applicable to it as well?

Besides, relating it to Canonicity issue, if such an assumption (option 1 in origin of Moral Law) were imperative for the Author, and he made it explicit in his letters...

Ok, ok, don't pay heed...

PS 'Morals and real life' moves on to PM, or so I assume. My inbox is open

Bêthberry

09-03-2004, 08:53 AM

Well, HeronIstarion, here is another ent lumbering up the long and winding davem to the forded hedge, to get A-windil of the discussion. Just think--or not--of the lines possible with my nick.

Actually, I would refute davem's claim that 'lustful' relationships are non-canonical. Let's look again at what he posted:

'Marriage, save for rare ill chances or strange fates, was the natural course of life for all the Eldar', Marriage is chiefly of the body, for it is achieved by bodily union, & its first operation is the begetting of the bodies of children...And the union of bodies in marriage is unique, & no other union resembles it' & 'Seldom is any tale told of deeds of lust amongst them'. (Laws & Customs Among the Eldar)

This reads Seldom is any tale told of deeds of lust amongst them. 'Seldom' does not mean 'never' and the restriction refers to tales, not the behaviour itself. The gist of the sentence is that tales are not told about it, not that it never occurs. Silence on a subject does not mean the subject ceases to exist or never exists. As we all know from the revelations of the twentieth century, child abuse exists even when codes of silence surround it. Rape exists even when shame forces victims and families to maintain a code of silence which amounts to denial--a hypocrisy some might say.

How and why did this change of perception, this sudden 'seeing', happen in real life in the Twentieth Century? And the seeing involves much more than just child abuse or rape or genocide (The Jews in WWII, the Blacks in the Congo, the Amerinds in North America, the witches in late medieval Europe, the gypsies in Europe also, to name just a few). The 'seeing' is a recognition that outside the histories we receive are the lives of "others" who have been pushed to the peripheries. How and why does this new vision come about? What is the creative process whereby people can look at history (and texts) and see for the first time?

I would agree with Aiwendil that the text's the thing wherein we may catch the conscious of interpreting. But rather than focus exclusively on a static text, I would prefer to think of reading as a process or interplay, an active act of the mind in communication with words on the page. Interpretation engages the imagination and there, through some strange alchemy, new vision appears. This was, for me, the great tragedy of the elves. They looked back stagnantly and nostalgically rather than imaginatively.

Let me turn this away from referring to the historical world, our world, in order to forestall any of this strain which says that Middle-earth is entirely self-referential. (I don't buy that argument--since Fordim has suggested we bring in the vocabulary of the marketplace--but for now I will simply sidestep it for my main interest here.)

When Tolkien read texts, what was it that simmered in that cauldron of his mind, to create his inspired readings? What was it that enabled him to see the literary and narrative value of dragons and story in Beowulf when others around him saw in the text only an ancient language to be retrived labouriously by conning grammars and lexicons? What was it that gave him his insight in The Battle of Maldon which led to his essay on chivalry and The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth, Beorhthelm's Son? We can see now in these early texts what others could not because of Tolkien's vision. How does this happen?

And if Tolkien could do it, why must we deny the possibility that others may do it for his texts?

(Note, I am not saying that we must allow slash fanfics in our RPGs here, for I accept the right of interpretive communities to set their own guidelines. Well, here they were first carved in internet stone by the Barrow Wight, but they have since been discussed, debated, explored and largely reaffirmed more fully by the community. This is what, after all, a discussion board is for.)

What I am asking here, in this dancing on the head of the pin called the Canonicity rag, is how to account for new interpretations. And how to 'authorise' them.

How and where and when do we see newly and how do we determine which new visions to accept? Unless our discussion can account for Tolkien finding new visions in his reading--I will go even further--unless we can account for how Child produced that brilliant reading of history in "A Knife in the Dark" and how we have come to acknowledge her vision--we limit, proscribe, restrict our minds. Somewhere in this author--text--reader triad we have to account for imagination.

Yours not-Lothlorienly,
Bethberry

mark12_30

09-03-2004, 09:23 AM

Bb wrote: This reads Seldom is any tale told of deeds of lust amongst them. 'Seldom' does not mean 'never' and the restriction refers to tales, not the behaviour itself. The gist of the sentence is that tales are not told about it, not that it never occurs.

Logical as it stands; however, davem's quote is also limited. Naturally, I am away from my books (see corresponding thread) but Tolkien states that elves are different than men in this manner before he states that 'seldom is any tale told.'

Here's a snippet:
but the right of revoking (a betrothal) was seldom used, for the Eldar do not err lightly in such choice. They are not easily deceived by their own kind; and their spirits being masters of their bodies, they are seldom swayed by the desires of the body only, but are by nature continent and steadfast.

(Aside, IMO: Generally speaking, the shorter a species' lifespan, the higher the reproductive drive; it stands to reason therefore that elves would not have a major issue with it.)

Edit: Michael maritinez includes the full quote here (http://www.theebookking.com/parma_endorion.pdf) , page 85.

davem

09-03-2004, 09:40 AM

This essay is also interesting:
http://www.ansereg.com/what_tolkien_officially_said_abo.htm

Bêthberry

09-03-2004, 11:02 AM

(Aside, IMO: Generally speaking, the shorter a species' lifespan, the higher the reproductive drive; it stands to reason therefore that elves would not have a major issue with it.)

Hmm, interesting, Helen. In the last five hundred years, the average lifespan of our species has increased roughly 50%. Men now live an average 75 years (in North America) compared with something like 40 to 50 years in medieval times. Does that mean mankind's reproductive drive is decreasing or is this too short a span for evolutionary developments to occur? (I believe one of the main reasons for that statistical increase is the great achievements in wiping out high infant mortality rates.)

Thank you both Helen and davem for those links. When I first arrived at the Downs, Mithadan warned me about Martinez's--how shall I say this--lack of reliability. I never got him to elaborate though--mea culpa. However, I don't think even the entire passage obviates my point. It simply suggests how Tolkien worked to increase the level of idealisation in his portrayal of the elves.

I enjoyed that other link very much. What is does well is point out the inconsistencies within Tolkien's statements as he worked through his ideas. I think Aiwendil has earlier on this thread pointed out the problems with automatically assuming that the best strategy is to accept the last known statement of an author as canonical. And certainly we are still left with hints and instances of violence and agression.

However, and this is a very big however, I used davem's quotation as a rhetorical device to enter into discussion of how to account for change in interpretations, how to account for creativity, originality, new vision. How did Tolkien see in those texts what others before and around him had not? How did Child see those historical links? How are we all coming to see how the creation of Aragorn helped create LotR and not simply a sequel to TH?

In any discussion of Canonicity, I think it is imperative to account for the psychological processes of reading newly. To say categorically either Authorial Intent, or Text, or Reader is to overlook the imaginative act of negotiating our interaction with language which we call reading. Is reading merely archival or creative?

Child of the 7th Age

09-03-2004, 12:53 PM

How did Child see those historical links?

My ears are indeed burning. And thanks for the kind words, Bb . I have been running around all morning on errands and will unfortunately be doing the same most of the afternoon. While I can't enter wholeheartedly into this very interesting discussion of canon and the role of author and reader, I can at least say how and why I personally approached the text in this way, and how ideas are generated on this particular board.

Bear with me, since what I am saying may sound a bit strange.....

I essentially see it as trains on different tracks. (Actually that's on a good day; on a bad day I view it more as very balky carts!) Tolkien is roaring down one track and Child or Fordim or Bb or whoever are each roaring down their separate track. There are a few points where these tracks intersect and many points where they do not. The trains generally cross at those points where the two conductors share something in common: a way of looking at things, a perception, a field of common knowledge, even certain personality traits. When that happens, when the two trains collide, then something exciting can happen. There can be meaning seen on the reader's part where none was seen before.

The interesting thing to me is that each of us carry different wagonloads of goods with us. I am never going to "see" the philogical implications of certain things Tolkien writes in the way that Shippey does, nor am I going to "see" the literary themes like Bb or Fordim. I'm capable of listening to their discoveries and appreciating them, but I am far less likely to come up with similar discoveries.

But it's more than academic background. It's all the things that have shaped my personality and my life: how I view people, the kind of circumstances I've known, my philosophical and religious beliefs. For example, I have spent a great deal of my life looking at the past and trying to assess the impact of past on present, so I am naturally acutely aware of any situation when this happens, even if it occurs in the pages of a myth. When I notice and read the Letters, I will pick up on those passages where Tolkien reveals his own attitude to the past, whether in terms of Numenor, the Elves, or his view of history as the "long defeat". I will internalize these ideas and when I look at the text a tiny part of me will be able to almost carry on a mental discussion with the professor. It is more a matter of the questions I instinctively pose, rather than flashes of inspiration or anything like that.

It's almost as if you can enter into Tolkien's creative process, following in his footsteps, and that's an exciting prospect to me. At the end of this process, I (or whoever takes the lead) comes out with something we would label an insight. In a similar way, for example, I am acutely aware of "class" issues in LotR....because of things that I grew up with (although my response may not be what another person would expect!).

It is possible, of course, to take this process one step further: to search below the surface. The interesting question to me is why I feel impelled to see things in a particular way-- whether in terms of history or class--and someone else does not. I have been exposed to many ideas and experiences in my life. Only some really hook me and change the way I look at things. Why did history "hook" me, literature "hook" Bb , or geography/geology "hook" Pio ? I wish I could answer that....

In any case, if we set down enought individual insights on a given topic, then you can get a group dynamic going on a board like this. Someone takes Child's insight, relates it more tightly to Aragorn in a different way, and a new insight is born, this one even wider than before. Altogether an interesting process, since none of us could have reached the particular end point we did if we had been journeying solely on our own without fellow companions. So not only are our individual trains intersecting with Master Tolkien: we are also intersecting with each other in some kind of crazy fashion.

davem

09-03-2004, 01:59 PM

So, do we have to accept all statements of 'fact' that Tolkien made as equally valid? Surely the facts of geography are unquestionable? But he changed certain geographical 'facts' over the course of his writings. Or 'facts' about the nature of his races - they changed. Or 'facts' about particular characters- again, same thing. Simply, he never stopped creating & changing the 'facts' about Middle earth, & if he'd lived he would have carried on doing that.

So what are we left with - talk about 'a fox that isn't there' - the more precisely you try to define 'canon' - either in terms of the facts of the world, or the writer's moral position, the more confused you become, & the less unquestionable 'facts' you find yourself with.

So, in a sense, there is no 'canon', in the sense of a coherent, self consistent sub created world. Which makes me wonder whether there ever could have been - isn't the problem the fact that sub creation is a dynamic, on-going process - Tolkien didn't 'sub create' Middle earth, he spent his life sub creating it. So Middle earth would never have been complete, set in stone, even if Tolkien had been given the Elvish gift of immortality.

Any interpretation we may put on his works, any, even the most outlandish fanfic, could have come from Tolkien himself, given the right circumstances & enough time.

In that sense, this thread can never answer the question, because the reader ultimately makes the choice whether to go with what Tolkien left us, & tries to make it as consistent within their own mind as possible, or they say, 'well, Tolkien might have ended up with 15 foot rabbits in Middle earth, so I'll put them in, or believe that they're wandering around there somewhere' (maybe fighting for survival against the Wild Were Worms in the Last Desert?) My own feeling is that if you go too far down that road you'll end up with the whole thing unravelling in your hands.

And that's the question - how precious is Middle earth to you, & how big a risk are you willing to take with it? Its very easy to only take what you want from Tolkien & ignore the rest, but surely the risk in doing that is that you don't learn anything from him. Has Tolkien got anything new to teach us?

I don't know whether I'm defending my old position here, or taking up a new one. I will admit that the Nazis & a Mythology for England thread has made me think twice about my more dogmatic statements regarding what Tolkien was trying to achieve with LotR & with the Legendarium as a whole. And this is where the author's personal life comes into the question of canon, because if his own personal experiences feed into his writings & what he wants to do with them, & wants them to do (ie the effect he wishes them to produce on his readers) then do we have to take that into account?

Aiwendil

09-03-2004, 08:22 PM

Davem wrote:
So, in a sense, there is no 'canon', in the sense of a coherent, self consistent sub created world.

Yes - this is where many discussions of "canon" are, I think, misguided. For, as I tried to say long ago in the early pages of the thread, you cannot simply ask "what are the facts about Middle-earth?" Middle-earth is fictional. There is no real world to which the texts refer, and with reference to which propositions may be true or false. One can only have a discussion about the "true story" of Middle-earth if one first decides upon certain principles by which to select which statements to take as fact and which not to.

So when you ask:
So, do we have to accept all statements of 'fact' that Tolkien made as equally valid? Surely the facts of geography are unquestionable? But he changed certain geographical 'facts' over the course of his writings. Or 'facts' about the nature of his races - they changed. Or 'facts' about particular characters- again, same thing. Simply, he never stopped creating & changing the 'facts' about Middle earth, & if he'd lived he would have carried on doing that.

. . . the problem is that "accept" is not defined. What does it mean to "accept" a fact about Middle-earth? Accept that this particular text contains this particular statement? There is certainly no problem with this. Accept that some fact is true about Middle-earth? That's nonsense - there is no Middle-earth. There are only texts.

HerenIstarion wrote:
Besides, relating it to Canonicity issue, if such an assumption (option 1 in origin of Moral Law) were imperative for the Author, and he made it explicit in his letters...

Which it certainly is. And indeed that means that when we discuss Middle-earth, we must accept, within the fictional world, that option 1 is true. Our opinions about that assumption in the real world ought to have nothing to do with our opinions about the same in Middle-earth (unless we find option 1 so glaringly self-inconsistent that we cannot even suspend disbelief and accept it in Arda).

davem

09-04-2004, 02:32 AM

What does it mean to "accept" a fact about Middle-earth? Accept that this particular text contains this particular statement? There is certainly no problem with this. Accept that some fact is true about Middle-earth? That's nonsense - there is no Middle-earth. There are only texts.

Yes, but the texts refer to something beyond themselves, so to what extent do they refer to the same thing- or do they all refer to different, but similar 'Middle earths'. This was my point way back, when I questioned the approach of taking parts of The Fall of Gondolin & combining them with parts of Tuor to create a new 'complete' account. This brings in the question of the author's intent at the time of writing. If there are only texts then Middle earth is merely an expression of of the artist's desire(s) at the time he wrote, & any internal consistency of the world they refer to is secondary - yet isn't this the very thing Tolkien struggled so long & hard to achieve?

'Accept that some fact is true about Middle-earth? That's nonsense - there is no Middle-earth. There are only texts'

This I would argue with - of course, I can't give a precise definition of Middle earth, & I don't think Tolkien could have either, but Middle earth is 'real' to many of us, because Middle earth exists for us beyond the texts - the very fact that people can write fanfics about ME, or speculate on the character's motives shows that in some sense Middle earth has a kind of objective existence for readers. The texts are the way we're introduced to Middle earth, our way into that world, & Tolkien clearly understood that, or he wouldn't have speculated on other's adding to that world.

The texts, illustrations, movies (for some), even the philosophical & religious speculation all 'constellate' around, or grow out of the 'thing' (whatever it really is) that we understand as Middle earth. The texts themselves are just that - they're written as accounts by observers, or redactions by later writers from earlier texts, each one referring back to a time/place/event which we, the readers of those texts, can never experience directly. In other words, Tolkien is recounting to us 'old tales of long ago'. So, the texts are not Middle earth, they are about Middle earth - they refer to something which exists beyond themselves.

tar-ancalime

09-04-2004, 11:30 AM

davem said:

The texts themselves are just that - they're written as accounts by observers, or redactions by later writers from earlier texts, each one referring back to a time/place/event which we, the readers of those texts, can never experience directly. In other words, Tolkien is recounting to us 'old tales of long ago'.

and also:

So, do we have to accept all statements of 'fact' that Tolkien made as equally valid? Surely the facts of geography are unquestionable? But he changed certain geographical 'facts' over the course of his writings. Or 'facts' about the nature of his races - they changed. Or 'facts' about particular characters- again, same thing. Simply, he never stopped creating & changing the 'facts' about Middle earth, & if he'd lived he would have carried on doing that.

So what are we left with - talk about 'a fox that isn't there' - the more precisely you try to define 'canon' - either in terms of the facts of the world, or the writer's moral position, the more confused you become, & the less unquestionable 'facts' you find yourself with.

To me, this is the real crux of the matter--the fact that the "facts" continually change is what makes Middle-Earth seem so real. Reading about it is exciting because it is just like historical research: the accounts conflict. Places are described in one way in one source and in another way in another source. This is the ideal situation for what Tolkien was doing--presenting accounts by observers or later historians. I think it's vastly more appropriate that the accounts should not always line up.

Aiwendil

09-05-2004, 08:50 AM

Davem wrote:
Yes, but the texts refer to something beyond themselves

Do they really? In the philosophy of meaning there are two major schools of thought - the correspondence theory of truth, which holds that propositions "refer" to real things and their truth-value depends upon the state of the real things, and the coherence theory of truth, which holds that a proposition's truth-value depends on its logical consistency with a set of other true propositions.

Now, I don't mean to get into a debate on meaning. But I think that, whichever of the two views one holds in general, one must view the statements in a work of fiction, especially in one so convoluted and self-contradictory as the Silmarillion, with a coherence theory in mind. For the statements in the texts cannot possibly refer to real things; Middle-earth is fictional. But if they don't, in the most literal sense, refer to things, then what do they refer to? Perhaps, one might say, they refer to imaginary things - that is, to things in the minds of various people. But of course, different people will imagine things differently; and it is strange in the extreme to say that Tolkien was in fact really writing about the neurons in my brain.

I think that the text does not refer to imaginary things. Rather the opposite. The text does not refer to anything except itself. It is we that refer to it when we imagine Middle-earth. Out of the mish-mash of texts and notes we can find vast networks of statements that cohere well, and from these we can formulate an imaginary world. Of course, there are different ways of choosing the set of coherent statements.

We imagine Middle-earth. That is what allows it to exist beyond the text; that is what allows fan fiction; that is what allows us to speculate on matters not discussed by Tolkien. But all of this begins with the text. And if two people, with their different minds and different images, are going to discuss "canon", then the place to which they must look is the text.

Whereas you say:
The texts, illustrations, movies (for some), even the philosophical & religious speculation all 'constellate' around, or grow out of the 'thing' (whatever it really is) that we understand as Middle earth.

I would say the opposite. The "thing" - the imaginary world - grows out of the texts, illustrations, etc.

davem

09-05-2004, 11:51 AM

So, back to Faerie...

Our ancestors believed in Faerie, the Other World, Heaven, in short, in other dimensions of 'reality', beyond this one. Middle earth may be a secondary world, an imaginary dimension, yet it partakes of one of these 'dimensions' - Faerie. Now faerie was believed to be absolutley real, & still is by many people (just as Heaven is, though I'm not implying equality between the two). There are numerous works - Evans-Wentz's Fairy faith in Celtic Countries, Robert Kirk's Secret Commonwealth, etc.

Now, I know we've been here before, so I won't go over old ground, but merely make the point that simply because an 'imaginary' (fictional or one accessed through the imagination/second sight) has no basis in physical fact, that does not mean it does not 'exist', or have an internal 'reality'. The texts are our means of accessing that 'imaginative' dimension, & the 'fact' that we may each percieve that imaginative dimension slightly differently, does not in itself mean that we are not experiencing the same thing, anymore than the fact that I & someone who is colour blind don't see a red flower in exactly the same way means that we are looking at different flowers. We are see the same flower in different ways, & the flower has an objective existence.

Tolkien was writing about a 'place', a self consistent world, & it has an 'objective existence in the sense that even though each reader of the texts may not 'see' it in exactly the same way, they are all 'in' the same place, mentally, when they read it (ok, not 'all', in that some of them may find events which Tolkien presents as tragic as being hilariously funny, but I'm speaking about all those who respond 'normally' - as opposed to abnormally, not implying any 'moral' judgement - the death of a good person is tragic, etc)

What Tolkien does is to tap into archetypal situations & figures, & they have an 'objective' 'reality' in that they arise/exist in the collective rather than the personal unconcious. So, while Middle earth is 'fictional', & all we have 'physically' are the texts, the question arises as to the extent to which Tolkien is allowing us access to that 'objective' dimension (whether internal or external to the human mind). Middle earth or faerie is an objectively existing 'realm', internally consistent, & the inhabitants & places described by Tolkien are 'real' within that dimension. Tolkien gives individual forms & personalities to those things, but did they arise out of the 'archetypal' unconscious dimension, 'given' to him - as he seems to have believed, or did he consciously make use of archetypal/mythical images - which he didn't believe he was doing?

If the images & stories did arise out of the mythic imagination, & he didn't invent them consciously, then they have their origin in the objective psyche, & so have an objective origin & existence, & that is perhaps the reason why they strike us as 'real', & why Middle earth may be the particular experience of Tolkien, (but it is an experience of an 'objective reality') which he passes on to us, but the 'real' Middle earth is just that - 'real'. So Canonicity would require faithfulness not just to the texts, but to what the texts arose out of & have their existence in.

So the question is about the extent to which Tolkien communicates his experience of that objective reality, & how close what he sets out for us in his writings is to that 'reality'.

Or in other words, how much are Tolkien's writings about Faerie in line with 'canon'? Is he simply making use of old ideas & beliefs, or is he attempting to recreate them, give them a new face, make them accessible, & this is all tied up with what he wanted to achieve. Why did he feel it was important to give England back its lost mythology - merely because he didn't like the idea that 'Johny Foreigner had something that dear old Blighty didn't have, or because he felt that a national mythology gave a people access to something ineffable, but at the same time something life giving. Form the TCBS' comments it would seem to be the latter.

Whether he succeeded or failed is down to the individual reader to answer, but his (original, at least) intent was to put us in touch with something that did have an objective 'reality'. The texts 'refer' us to that reality, or at least are attempts on Tolkien's part to open us up to the possibility of connecting with it.

HerenIstarion

09-06-2004, 03:55 AM

Well, let me present you with several statements, which, alas, are not original, but the result of which I immensely enjoyed when expressed in literature, like to, say, Stanislav Lem's short stories (probable and improbable dragon (dragon was probable, not hunt), hunt one was concerned with, but I do not remember the name right at the spot to refer you to)

Let us, in the light of recent developments, go, than:

Humanity is the part of the universe. Allegedly, it's mind/imagination can not reach outside the universe and imagine things which are from outside. Being the reverse of said, the following maxim states, that, therefore, human mind is capable of imagining what is [i]in this universe. Following this crooked logic, one may argue, that, since it can imagine all things which are part of the universe and so exist, all things human mind can imagine may be parts of the universe and exist.

With which, let me take your leave :smokin:

davem

09-06-2004, 06:17 AM

It strikes me there may be an analogy with Atlantis. Originally we had Plato's Timaeus, which is the text that began the whole thing, yet that text sparked multiple searches for remains of the 'real' Atlantis - ie, it struck a chord in people, & they began a search for what the text 'referred' to. Its irrelevant whether Atlantis ever 'really' existed in this world, because something symbolised by the text was 'calling' to those who read it.

Aiwendil

09-06-2004, 02:09 PM

Davem wrote:
The texts are our means of accessing that 'imaginative' dimension, & the 'fact' that we may each percieve that imaginative dimension slightly differently, does not in itself mean that we are not experiencing the same thing

It's not just a matter of individuals seeing things differently, though (that's only part of it). Tolkien saw things quite differently at different times, and the texts contradict each other.

Actually, I'm not sure to what extent our disagreement is real. You say the texts describe a place; I say the place is described by the texts. The crux of the disagreement would seem to be causality - whereas you think of the fictitious place giving rise to texts about it, I think of the texts as creating the fictitious place.

It's almost a moot point, except that I think your way of thinking about it gives rise to a pseudo-problem about canon. That is, if you say, as you do, that Middle-earth is a place and that the texts were written about it, then it makes sense to ask the question "what is the truth about Middle-earth?" Which facts really correspond with Middle-earth and which do not? Was Gil-Galad the son of Fingon or the son of Orodreth? If we apply a correspondence theory of truth to the texts then these questions make sense, and it is troubling when there seems (as often happens) no good way to answer them.

The problem is resolved by looking at things from my perspective. There is no single truth about Middle-earth because there is no single, original Middle-earth. It is of course true that you can take various coherent sets of statements from the texts and use as the basis for the imaginary place. But there's no need to be shocked or dismayed when you discover that someone else has taken a different set and done the same thing.

Of course I don't deny that archetypes and such are objectively real psychological features. But let's not confound these archetypes with the facts about Middle-earth. The archetypes are present in countless works of literature stretching back over thousands of years; many, if not most, of these works of literature contradict each other. They involve the same archetypes but the specific facts they assert are in contradiction.

So I certainly would not be averse to saying that, in a sense, the texts of the Silmarillion, LotR, and The Hobbit are about objectively real archetypes. But the specific, self-consistent reality of Middle-earth arises from them.

davem

09-07-2004, 03:03 AM

It's almost a moot point, except that I think your way of thinking about it gives rise to a pseudo-problem about canon. That is, if you say, as you do, that Middle-earth is a place and that the texts were written about it, then it makes sense to ask the question "what is the truth about Middle-earth?" Which facts really correspond with Middle-earth and which do not? Was Gil-Galad the son of Fingon or the son of Orodreth? If we apply a correspondence theory of truth to the texts then these questions make sense, and it is troubling when there seems (as often happens) no good way to answer them.

Yet Tolkien clearly believed that he was 'discovering' rather than inventing, so he clearly felt that there were such 'facts' & that was the reason he continued working on the stories & making changes till they felt 'right'. Middle earth had an 'objective' existence for him. He may not have 'discovered' who Gil-Galad's father was, but he knew it was one or the other, & he couldn't bring himself to simply toss a coin, because he 'knew' that one of them was the father of Gil-Galad & the other was not, & his role was to discover his parentage, not dictate it.

This is as much a matter of understanding & acknowledging how Tolkien thought about & approached his work. Middle earth was an 'objectively existing place as far as he was concerned, & we can't actually prove him wrong.

Aiwendil

09-07-2004, 06:41 AM

Davem wrote:
This is as much a matter of understanding & acknowledging how Tolkien thought about & approached his work.

But there's a difference between understanding how he worked and understanding how we ought to think of the texts.

If I understand you then the "objectively real Middle-earth" you speak of is the imaginary place inside Tolkien's head - specifically, the imaginary place inside his head where every aspect of the history "feels right" to him. I of course have no problem with this as a definition. But you cannot so define it and then use the fact of the definition to show that the author's intent is the ultimate aribiter of canon - unless you so define "canon" as to make that statement trivial.

The trouble with this claim is, again, that Tolkien is dead - and even if he weren't, he's a distinct person whose mind cannot ever be fully read. How, then, are we to know which Middle-earth is the right one? Of course, we can always try to choose a set of statements from the text that we think correspond with his wishes - taking the latest statements where we can and so forth. This is what we are doing in the Silmarillion project. But this ultimately comes down to choosing a set of rules and then applying them to the texts.

davem

09-07-2004, 07:57 AM

Well, all we can say is that Tolkien accessed Middle earth through his imagination, not that it is all only imagination. I can't see that its a more 'rational' or logical approach to state that there are millions of different Middle earths out there, each existing in the mind of one of Tolkien's readers.

How, then, are we to know which Middle-earth is the right one?

How can we know which Atlantis is the right one?

Those 'searching' for Atlantis - whether its physical remains in this world or as some kind of 'imaginative' place/state - don't believe they're all searching for a different place - as far as they're concerned there's only one Atlantis which they are using the text/s to find. So, did Plato invent Atlantis, or did he merely use the already existing idea of Atlantis as a useful metaphor?

Your approach fails to answer what for me is the central question - why do we respond as we do to Middle earth, why do some of us feel it to be 'real', where does that sense of longing for it arise? Your position would seem to be that if we do respond to it in that we we're over-reacting (at the very least), or even that we're not responding in a sufficiently 'sane' & detatched way, that' there's something 'wrong' with us that we take a collection of texts so seriously.

Perhaps.

But for me that explanation doesn't work, because in my experience the more intensely people experience Middle earth, the more 'real' it is to them, the nicer people they are, & I can't explain how something that isn't 'real' can have a REAL, practical, & most importantly beneficial effect on people.

Aiwendil

09-07-2004, 09:35 AM

Well now we're getting back into territory covered rather exhaustively earlier in the thread. It seems to me that you're saying that there is an objectively correct, internally consistent, Middle-earth that exists independent of anyone's thinking about it. If this is not what you're saying, then I don't see where we actually disagree. If it is, then I've got to wonder which Middle-earth it is. Is it, for example, the one where Turin returns to slay Ancalagon or the one where he returns to slay Morgoth? If you hold the view I formulated above, then there must be an objective fact about it. Either one is true or the other is. Is this the view that you hold? If so, then which one is the "real" story?

Your approach fails to answer what for me is the central question - why do we respond as we do to Middle earth, why do some of us feel it to be 'real', where does that sense of longing for it arise? Your position would seem to be that if we do respond to it in that we we're over-reacting (at the very least), or even that we're not responding in a sufficiently 'sane' & detatched way, that' there's something 'wrong' with us that we take a collection of texts so seriously.

Again, we are getting into stuff that was already debated extensively. I tried to make it clear then that I don't think it's at all silly or wrong to take Middle-earth, or any other literary world, seriously. We respond to it for profound psychological reasons. You may not like this explanation, but it is an explanation. There is no inexplicable mystery in my view.

davem

09-07-2004, 10:11 AM

We respond to it for profound psychological reasons.

Its not about 'why' we respond, but what, if anything, we respond to.

Is it, for example, the one where Turin returns to slay Ancalagon or the one where he returns to slay Morgoth?

We can't know, because Tolkien didn't discover in time, but we can know that one of them is correct & the other isn't, because, given time, Tolkien would have discovered which one was 'correct'. If an explorer seeking the source of a particular river has two alternative possibilities but dies before he can determine which is correct, that wouldn't mean each of them was 'equally correct', or that people were free to choose which of the alternatives they preferred. And that would still be the case even if no-one else was able to go find out which is the case. We have to accept that some facts about Middle earth will remain unknowable to us, but that in itself doesn't mean the place itself has no 'objective existence' or that the response the texts evoke in us isn't to something 'real'.

Perhaps the problem is that you're arguing for the sole 'reality' or the texts (if I understand you right), while I'm arguing for the reality of what the texts refer to. So for me, 'contradictions' in the texts are not relevant.

Fordim Hedgethistle

09-07-2004, 11:12 AM

The problem is resolved by looking at things from my perspective. There is no single truth about Middle-earth because there is no single, original Middle-earth.

Hmmm. . . I wonder if we're not all barking up the wrong tree at the moment. It seems to me that rather than considering whether or not there is a single 'authorised' or 'true' or 'real' or 'canonical' version of Middle-Earth, we might not get further by examining how these questions pertain to the primary world. There really is "no single truth about [the primary world] because there is no single, original [primary world]." We all know that while we all share the same reality we do not live in or percieve that reality in the same way, with the effect that we all have our own versions of reality that occaisionally meet up with or overlap other persons' versions (I am very fond of Child's criss-crossing railroad tracks image here -- although there is a terrible risk of crashing into one another from time to time, isn't there!).

In this respect, I think that LotR accomplishes an almost perfect act of mimesis in its reflection of our world. Just as we have conflicting versions of the world, which we attempt to render into one meaning-full version that we can call our own, so too is Middle-Earth wonderfully incomplete and multiple. We are forced to address it as such and come up with our own versions of it.

The big difference in this thread seems to be a very simple one:

Some of us tend to refer to the author's version of the world that he created as but one among many. It may be a priviledged version with much to offer, but it is by no means definitive or final. Let us call these members of the thread the agnostics (they know there is meaning, they know what their relation is to meaning, but they aren't going to pin it down on any one specific entity or utterance).

On the other hand, some of us tend to look to the author's version of the world that he created as the best or, even, the only valid one. It is definitive and final. These people are not arguing that it makes perfect sense all the time, or that it is plainly or clearly written, but they do maintain that the truth is out there ( ;) ) and that it can be found with enough work and time (and faith?). Let us call these members of the thread the believers (they know there is meaning, they know what their relation is to meaning, and they know that this meaning -- however fuzzy -- can be pinned directly to Tolkien).

I rathar think that -- true to form -- Tolkien either wanted or had it both ways. On the one hand, he created a variegated world that reflects in its complexity the complexity and incomplete nature of the primary world. He wanted readers to apply it to their own experience and draw what meaning they could or would from it. Total freedom. Agnostics rejoice.

On the other hand, he saw himself as a reader of the text -- particularly given his stance that he is merely an editor/translator working from source materials. As such he could not resist putting his own imprimanatur upon the text in the form of his own privileged interpretation. Believers rejoice.

These two stances are not entirely compatible, nor are they -- I think -- entirely contradictory. Who among us doesn't want to simultaneously create meaning for our own lives, and seek meaning in some other source or authority (God, any -ism, a loved one, etc).

It's not that Tolkien was being truthful or realistic -- I just think that he was being excruciatingly honest.

NOTE: I do not include in this the category of "atheists" -- those who believe the text has no meaning -- for the simple reason that the mere act of reading implies a faith that contradicts this idea: if reading were truly meaningless, why would anyone do it?

davem

09-07-2004, 01:16 PM

Aiwendil makes the point that we have been going over old ground, but that's inevitable, because the author's intent & purpose is either central to our understanding & interpretation or it isn't. If an artist paints a picture of a tree (Eru alone knows where I got that idea from :rolleyes: ) then it is either a picture of a 'real' tree or its a picture of an imaginary tree. Of course, we could agree to discuss the picture as a work of art, & ignore the real tree of which its a picture (if it is one), but if the author's intention in painting the picture was to refer us to the tree (the tree is in danger of being felled & he wants our help to prevent that happening, or the area in which it stands is in danger of being developed, or perhaps we've lived in a city for so long we've forgotten that there's a real tree there & he wants to tell us about it so we can go there & experience it, whatever), then by treating the painting simply as a beautiful work of art, we ignore the artists purpose.

My own feeling is that we cannot ignore the artists intention, & that until we take into account the painter's purpose in painting the tree we will never get a true understanding of the meaning, the reason the painting exists at all. So inevitably we go round & round on the question of whether it has an objective referent (is that the right term?), because until we have agreed on that we can't go any further in our discussion of the painting. Why did the artist paint that tree, & is it a real tree or not? We could split off into two groups, & discuss our respective understandings, but if we are to come together & discuss it as a single group then we have to agree on our understanding of the meaning for the artist of what he painted, & why there's a painting at all.

Aiwendil

09-07-2004, 02:37 PM

Note: I started writing this response before Fordim's and Davem's last posts but had to rush off to class; so the first part doesn't take them into account.

Davem: All right, I think I understand your view, though I continue to find it strange and of course I still disagree with it. Can you say the same of my view? I only ask because I wonder whether I have not been sufficiently explicit or whether we are simply at a dead end.

It seems improbable in the extreme that either of us will convince the other. But it still might be interesting to discuss one view or the other without agreeing on it.

In your view, as you say, there is an objective fact about whether Turin returns at the end of the First Age or at the end of the World, but that fact is not knowable by us. Would you then say that the "canon" is unknowable? And if it's unknowable and yet people read the books and enjoy them and have intelligent discussions about them, then can it really be that important anyway?

In a way I keep feeling that our views are not actually in contradiction, but rather that we're simply talking about different things. I cannot deny that Tolkien had intentions, and that given enough time and suitable pressure for publication he would have arrived at a final version; nor can you deny that the texts do form a body of statements and that we can extract coherent sets of them and thus envision our own imaginary Middle-earths. But then you say that Tolkien's intention defines the "truth" about Middle-earth and I say there is no single truth about Middle-earth. Yet both of these are simply definitions, which are arbitrary anyway. It's as though you insist "Apples are sweet" and I say "Wrong! Lemons are sour!"

So what I wonder is what specific consequences you draw from your view and whether these differ substantively from mine.

Fordim wrote:
These two stances are not entirely compatible, nor are they -- I think -- entirely contradictory.

Yes, this is something like what I was just getting at with respect to my view vs. Davem's. What does it really mean to say that "Tolkien's version is final and authoritative"? Does authoritative merely mean that it's the view of the author, the authority? Well, no one denies that! Or are we really dealing with a moral directive here, something like "One ought not to hold a view of the texts that differs from that of the author"? Besides being a bit presumptive, that's problematic since it's impossible to divine the exact thoughts of Tolkien, and in many cases his own thoughts were very different at different times.

The Saucepan Man

09-07-2004, 07:09 PM

We can't know, because Tolkien didn't discover in time, but we can know that one of them is correct & the other isn't, because, given time, Tolkien would have discovered which one was 'correct'. But, as Aiwendil points out, Tolkien's own thoughts and intentions changed over time. What he may have thought was "correct" at one point in time may well have seemed "incorrect" to him later in his life. Would you argue that Tolkien's latest thoughts on a particular issue should always take precedence on the basis that he was moving ever closer to the "truth" as he grew older? Even where those thoughts might conflict with his published works (for example, his ideas on the origins of Orcs, arguably)? Maybe his earlier ideas were the more "correct", but how would we ever know?

NOTE: I do not include in this the category of "atheists" -- those who believe the text has no meaning -- for the simple reason that the mere act of reading implies a faith that contradicts this idea: if reading were truly meaningless, why would anyone do it?I think that there's a case to be made for the atheist reader. Someone who reads the book simply for pleasure and gives no thought to what it might mean to them or the world around them. Of course, it's unlikely that such a reader would hang around here on the Downs for very long, but it is (to my mind) a valid response nevertheless. Indeed, I could probably class myself as having been such a reader when I first read LotR.

My own feeling is that we cannot ignore the artists intentionI go back to what I said earlier in this thread. How many people read LotR with any idea of, or inclination to understand, Tolkien's intentions? 1%? Less? Tolkien "enthusiasts" are in a massive minority when it comes to those who have read LotR. Are 99%+ of people who read the book are misguided or simply wasting their time?

Fordim Hedgethistle

09-07-2004, 08:12 PM

I think that there's a case to be made for the atheist reader. Someone who reads the book simply for pleasure and gives no thought to what it might mean to them or the world around them.

Ah, but then the meaning of the reading act would be to generate pleasure for the reader. The reader would still be 'using' the text to realise some 'purpose'. Such a limited and shallow purpose is sad and boring, but it still proceeds toward and through the meaning of the reading act for the reader.

Bêthberry

09-07-2004, 08:48 PM

Her silver slippers glimmering like fishes' mail in the moonlight, and dancing effortlessly like the whispering brook, and bearing other cliches of grace and loveliness, Bethberry attempted mimesis, a reference to the real actions of Goldberry.

"Ahem, boys... er, gentlemen."

In this house, the discussion does not continue amongst the men after the ladies withdraw for the night. And withdrawing I am.

*looks around and collects all the candles, yellow and whites ones, their tapers flickering in her hand, and walks away with them*

May I suggest that you all retire also to think over your positions and words er they become too... hasty? Besides, I wish to join the frey, but must wait now until another day.

Using verse even worse than the original thought in some other author's imagination or unfully formed intention, and tripping over a bowl of lilies inexplicably left out on the floor, Bethberry curtsied graciously to all the verbal combatants and withdrew, humming to herself and taking all the light with her.

"We can always continue in the dark" whispered one voice.

"isn't that where we've always been?" asked another.

Yet a third announced, "What a daft save that was."

davem

09-08-2004, 01:11 AM

(Whispers in case Bethberry is listening at the door)

Is the art seperate from the artist - can we treat the art as if it simply appeared out of nowhere, or pretend that we know nothing about the artist - or should we do that? The art stands alone, & that's all we have. If the artist meant anything, had any reason for painting the picture, that purpose should have gone to the grave with him. What was Leonardo's purpose in painting the Mona Lisa, & even if he had one, should we care?

Or, how important is Tolkien the man, the artist, in this discussion. Perhaps I'm arguing against myself (A habbit of the stupid :p ), because if Tolkien was attempting to communicate some 'objective' truth, then his part, to the extent that he succeeded, is irrelevant, & his contribution only plays a part to the extent that he failed. Yet, even if he was attempting to communicate an objective 'truth' it was his attempt, & we should respect that.

Its as much the Author, the Book or the Reader we're discussing, because the book is the author's attempt to communicate something to the reader. I'm happy enough to accept that there were different things the author wished to communicate at different times in his life, & that early stuff can & does contradict later, but I'm not entirely satisfied with it, because he continued to use the same stories, & its as likely that he was simply attempting to communicate his understanding of 'truth' from different angles, giving different aspects priority at different times. Perhaps, to pursue my earlier analogy, we have various sketches of the Tree, from different angles & with different numbers of branches, different shaped leaves, etc - some would argue from this that the artist was making up the tree, because if he was painting the tree differently each time then he couldn't have had a real physical model. Yet it could simply be that he never got the chance to study the tree properly - he only ever saw it from a distance, from the window of his train as he travelled into work each morning, & from his fleeting glimpses he tried to communicate not the tree itself, but his response to it.

And yet, does that matter, if all we have is the painting - I can see the argument, but I just feel that before we dismiss his intent, we must come to an understanding of what that intent was - to the extent that's possible, rather than just dismiss that unkown as unknowable.

Aiwendil

09-08-2004, 08:29 AM

Davem wrote:
Is the art seperate from the artist - can we treat the art as if it simply appeared out of nowhere, or pretend that we know nothing about the artist - or should we do that? The art stands alone, & that's all we have.

This has always been more or less my view, though obviously one not very popular in literary circles. It has always seemed strange to me that the value of a work of art should critically depend on something as unknowable as the author's innermost thoughts. If it were discovered that Beethoven's fifth symphony had in fact been written at random by a team of millions of monkeys, that would do nothing to dislodge it from its place as my favorite piece of music. If it turned out that "Beowulf" had in fact been written in the early 20th century, a fact covered up by some massive conspiracy, I would not suddenly call it pastiche and condemn it to oblivion; I would still read and enjoy it.

Of course, such things are remarkably improbable. Works of art do not form at random, and it would be extremely difficult for an artist of one time to produce a work that so perfectly fit a much different time. That is where the importance of the artist lies, I think. The artist is like the inventor or the scientist in this regard: his or her importance lies not in the fact of being an artist, but rather in the art produced. We do not think that to appreciate the theory of relativity we must appreciate the details of Einstein's inner thoughts; rather, we appreciate Einstein because he produced the theory of relativity. The theory is what really matters, and so it is, I think, with the art.

And yet, does that matter, if all we have is the painting - I can see the argument, but I just feel that before we dismiss his intent, we must come to an understanding of what that intent was - to the extent that's possible, rather than just dismiss that unkown as unknowable.

Indeed; I hope I haven't given the impression that I think it is worthless to inquire into the author's intent. I think it is worthwhile, but for a different reason. The fact is that the artist physically produced the art - that is, the texts have their present form as a direct result of certain processes going on in Tolkien's brain. It's not surprising, then, that by studying Tolkien and Tolkien's mind, we can learn things about the text. A first-time reader of LotR may not be aware of any Catholic overtones in the work. Reading Tolkien's letters, he or she discovers Tolkien's Catholicism and its role in his writing, and comes to appreciate that aspect of the work. It's not that LotR has Catholic elements simply because Tolkien said so; those elements are inherent in the text. But studying Tolkien the man may help to illuminate such inherent elements.

Now I think I'll fall silent lest Bethberry comes around again.

Bêthberry

09-08-2004, 09:01 AM

Bethberry comes in, brushing toast crumbs off her shirt, and licking a stray bit of honey from her fingers, having had a hard time sleeping for the playing in her head those whispers of davem...

davem, did Tolkien know the author's intention when he wrote about The Battle of Maldon or Beowulf? Lost to the dim echoes of time are the Anglo Saxon bards who gave him and us the poems. Yet that did not stop Tolkien from engaging with the works and giving us fruitful things to consider about them. Are we to have two different kinds of reading, one for ancient texts about which we cannot ascribe any authorial authorising, and one for modern texts about which we must say is insufficient since we must go to other things outside it to understand what it means?

On the other hand, if we consider the text as an self-contained object which holds its meaning, which the reader digs out, then we assume a certain condition on the part of the reader: a kind of blank entity which the text fills up, a bucket, waiting impassively to be filled up. I don't think this model really describes the kind of reader Tolkien was--it cannot account for how he saw newly.

But if we become more self-reflexive as readers, asking ourselves why we respond to certain things and not others, asking ourselves what other stories we are reminded of, what other experiences--in short, if we consider the value of our different interpretations--then I think we get closer to where the value of literature lies--creating experiences which allow us to be more fully human, more fully aware, more fully responsive. We will always endlessly be caught in the pursuit of meaning because that is important, but if we become too set and hardfast in saying that our end goal is simply to determine meaning, then we overlook the glorious aspect of faerie (which I might be tempted to say is the experience of all art and not just fantasy, but I grant this could be reductive), which is this seeing newly for the first time.

*wanders off thinking she really needs a second cup of coffee*

Edit: cross posting with Aiwendil, whose post I must now go read.

davem

09-08-2004, 09:07 AM

If it were discovered that Beethoven's fifth symphony had in fact been written at random by a team of millions of monkeys, that would do nothing to dislodge it from its place as my favorite piece of music.

No, but you'd know that the monkeys weren't trying to write a beautiful piece of music, that they weren't trying to communicate anything to you, or inspire any emotional response, so any response you did have to the music would have its source solely in you. That's not the case if Beethoven wrote it - that fact adds another 'dimension' to the work - it was written with intent - specific intent, to produce a specific response in its hearers. Beethoven wrote it for a reason, it exists for that reason, & if he hadn't had that reason to write it, it wouldn't exist, & you wouldn't ever have experienced your favourite piece of music. From this point of view, the artist/composer/scientist is as important as what they produce, even if their intention/motivation is ultimately unknowable. The work is in a sense a 'manifestation' of the worker, the effect the worker has on the world, the 'imprint' he makes on the physical or mental universe around him. There must be some personal aspect to the work, & some 'transcendent' aspect, if the work is true art (imo).

(edit cross-posted with BB) I will only add that I think Tolkien did attempt to take into account the authors of the ancient texts he studied - particularly Beowulf - & a good part of the Beowulf essay is spent attributting motives, desires & beliefs to that unknown poet (he even gave him a name, if I remember rightly!)- so he clearly felt that it was of such importance to take into account the artist in an attempt to understand a work of art that if he didn't know about him, he would make up a character for him - so for Tolkien, it seems, an artist could be discovered, dug out from his work, in fact it almost seems that he felt it necessary for an understanding of the work to have the possibility of a 'dialogue' with that author - even if Tolkien had to create the author in order to have the dialogue.

Aiwendil

09-08-2004, 12:58 PM

The work is in a sense a 'manifestation' of the worker, the effect the worker has on the world, the 'imprint' he makes on the physical or mental universe around him. There must be some personal aspect to the work, & some 'transcendent' aspect, if the work is true art (imo).

Well that's the crux of our disagreement. I'm afraid I hold fast to the view that the art is valuable in itself, without reference to its creator, though again I don't think that this makes studying the author unimportant. I recall some old threads where I argued this; I'll dig them out and link to them if I get a chance.

Anyway, I wonder whether there's any value in further discussion of the issue, with such a fundamental disagreement.

And I still wonder to what extent this is all anything more than a disagreement about definitions.

Edit: Here are those links; each of them touches on issues we've also touched on here, though they cover a lot of other ground as well:

Book of the Century (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=171)

Are There Any Valid Criticisms? (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=2085)

Dumbing Down the Books (http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=514)

davem

09-08-2004, 01:25 PM

'Is 'Art' transcendent, or does it have a transcendent dimension, or put us in touch with one.

Perhaps the argument is between the Platonists & the Aristotelians, in which case it probably never will be solved.

Replace 'transcendent' with 'impersonal', objective. Did Middle earth come to us from Tolkien, or through Tolkien. It seems to me that your position is almost Platonic in its own way, taking the art, Middle earth, as a 'given' a thing which exists in & of itself, not arising from Tolkien, because if it did arise from the mind of Tolkien alone, then how can you not see Tolkien's beliefs & values as central to an understanding of it?. It seems that on this question I'm arguing for it being the product of a man's mind, so the owner of that mind must be taken into account if we are to understand what it produced, while you are almost arguing that is should be seen as an objectively existing thing, which is just a 'given'. I become the 'subjectivist' & you the 'objectivist'. :eek:

The Saucepan Man

09-08-2004, 06:28 PM

Has Bêthberry gone? *Saucepan breaks out the port and cigars* :p

Ah, but then the meaning of the reading act would be to generate pleasure for the reader. The reader would still be 'using' the text to realise some 'purpose'.Well of course you are right. If someone derives enjoyment from a book, and nothing else, it still means something to them. But I was thinking more in terms of a class distinct from your "agnostics" and "believers". On your definitions, both of these classes are aware that there is some meaning to be derived from the book beyond the story itself, but the "agnostics" take their meaning from the text alone, while the "believers" are convinced that the meaning derives from something beyond the text. To "atheists", there is no meaning beyond the story itself, which simply serves to amuse them and perhaps divert them for a while from the realities of life (to which it bears, for them, no relation).

Such a limited and shallow purpose is sad and boring, but it still proceeds toward and through the meaning of the reading act for the reader.I would disagree that such purpose is either shallow or boring to those who approach the book in this way. These readers may find meaning to their lives elsewhere, or perhaps they regard such meaning (in spiritual terms) as unimportant. They might well consider it boring to look any further into LotR beyond the story itself, while finding fascinating other pursuits which you or I would find mind-numbingly dull. But I would not dismiss pure and simple enjoyment of the story told in LotR as shallow and dull, and I rather suspect that Tolkien wouldn’t either.

And, while we are on the subject, I am not so sure that the term "agnostic" (the group to which I imagine that I have been relegated :rolleyes: ;) ) is appropriate in this context, since it implies an uncertainty as to the existence of any meaning beyond the story itself. Your definition of this class, on the other hand, holds that they are aware that such meaning exists. It is just that they are not too bothered about pinning it down, and are content to simply apply their notion of it to themselves in whatever manner seems appropriate.

Nevertheless, I accept your definition. I am quite content to accept that there is meaning within LotR beyond the story. It "means" something more to me than just a good story. To me, this is a consequence of Tolkien tapping into issues central to human existence and experience, whether they be archetypes, character traits, aspects of morality and so on. And I don’t doubt that this was both intentional (in some respects) and subconscious (in others) on Tolkien’s part (although, as has been said, his intentions and subconscious motivations would have changed, however imperceptibly, over time). But I would class myself as “part-believer”, because I do have an interest in exploring such ideas (otherwise, why would I keep returning to this thread). It is just that this “external meaning” is not something which is central to my life (whether in relation to LotR or otherwise). And I have no difficulty in accepting and understanding those who regard such matters as unimportant, irrelevant or fruitless (the confirmed “agnostics” and the “atheists”).

Bêthberry

09-08-2004, 08:45 PM

Humming and in a gentle temper tonight, Bethberry glides in with trays full of smoked Stilton cheese, camembert, paté, light salads and leafy greens, crackers and a variety of fresh breads. Sniffing the air, she quietly throws open the windows to air the room out and then pours herself a large glass of port. She lights candles in empty wine bottles and takes a chair.

Leaving aside for now the categories and classifications of readers, I would like to refer back to something davem.

No, but you'd know that the monkeys weren't trying to write a beautiful piece of music, that they weren't trying to communicate anything to you, or inspire any emotional response, so any response you did have to the music would have its source solely in you. That's not the case if Beethoven wrote it - that fact adds another 'dimension' to the work - it was written with intent - specific intent, to produce a specific response in its hearers. Beethoven wrote it for a reason, it exists for that reason, & if he hadn't had that reason to write it, it wouldn't exist, & you wouldn't ever have experienced your favourite piece of music. From this point of view, the artist/composer/scientist is as iportant as what they produce, even if their intention/motivation is ultimately unknowable. The work is in a sense a 'manifestation' of the worker, the effect the worker has on the world, the 'imprint' he makes on the physical or mental universe around him. There must be some personal aspect to the work, & some 'transcendent' aspect, if the work is true art (imo).

Let me draw on a personal experience here. From time to time, I come across old letters, notes, commentaries, recipes, written by hands who are no longer here. These written messages are inexpressibly precious to me, coming as they do from those who will never write again to me. These messages were no grand expressions of literature. They express nothing greater than the daily routine and activities in the lives of the writers and some thought and reflections on those affairs. Sometimes to my chagrin and shame I found them tedious in their banality. They were written with no greater intent than out of love for me and to share something of their time with me, who lived thousands of miles away.

Now my fingers trace the letters, because for me handwriting is the ineffable trace of the human being. And in the absence of the authors who wrote them, those messages take on new meanings, meanings which the writers did not intend and which I never at the time thought of. The passage of time and the absence of the writers has given them new meaning.

Now, I collect those flimsy pieces of paper and ink and store them in a box. Someday someone will find that box, looking through the effects I leave behind and, if I am important enough or if my own writing reaches enough people, maybe someone will pore over those shards of memory, trying to piece together their importance for me and the meaning the messages disclosed. Or maybe just those I leave behind, close to me, will do that. And they will provide another layer of meaning upon those pages and the handwriting. And I could say the same thing of the delicate pieces of crochet work which my mother produced before she could no longer use her hands. Those pieces had a beauty at the time of their creation, but they have a more substantive meaning now, for in the tiny stitches I can now see the evidence of her struggle with her looming incapacity and fate. I could not see that then. It is only later, in retrospective, that the evidence comes forth.

We read intent backwards, just as you say, davem Tolkien did in his work on the Beowulf poem. In order for Tolkien to arrive at his understanding of the poem, he, as you say, "attributed motives, desires and beliefs" to the poet. This, then, is Tolkien's process as a reader and interpreter. Yet we have no way of ascertaining whether these motives were in fact the poet's motives or whether they rather functioned to help Tolkien produce his interpretation. He as reader uses this poetic personae as an entry point to help him arrive at an understanding of the poem. He reads backwards. Our understanding of intention is often like this, arrived at reading backwards.

This is an important part of the reading process, but it does not necessarily or logically reflect the actual intentions of the author at the time of writing.

*stops to refill her port and then sits back comfortably in a large leather chair.*

davem

09-09-2004, 12:49 AM

We read intent backwards, just as you say, davem Tolkien did in his work on the Beowulf poem. In order for Tolkien to arrive at his understanding of the poem, he, as you say, "attributed motives, desires and beliefs" to the poet. This, then, is Tolkien's process as a reader and interpreter. Yet we have no way of ascertaining whether these motives were in fact the poet's motives or whether they rather functioned to help Tolkien produce his interpretation. He as reader uses this poetic personae as an entry point to help him arrive at an understanding of the poem. He reads backwards. Our understanding of intention is often like this, arrived at reading backwards.

All of which I accept, but...

I think with Tolkien there is something more going on - the 'Elf-friend' figure. If we take The book of Lost Tales, for example, we see that it is not simply a collection of old stories - it is a collection of old stories which Eriol-Aelfwine has passed on. Eriol is not just a peg to hang the story on, he is the conduit of story, he makes Faerie available to later generations. I thnk this is why Tolkien felt it necessary to (re)construct the figure of the Beowulf poet - stories only exist if they are told, &so there must be a teller. We have the same thing with the other Elf-friends throughout the stories, & they are the central figures in the two time travel stories.

As Flieger has pointed out Tolkien himself is the greatest Elf-friend, & in a sense he is a character in his own stories - he is the one who translates, passes on, the contents of the Red Book - LotR exists because Tolkien the Elf-friend has served as that conduit of story, from the Third Age to ourselves. Effectively he has written himself into his mythology. So we have, in a way, two Tolkien's, one the Oxford Professor, who can, if one wishes, be put aside, but the other Tolkien cannot, because he has become absorbed, by his own intention, into the mythology, as its conduit to ourselves.

So, how different are these two Tolkiens? Are they the same man, or is the 'translator' Tolkien different from the man, with different motives & aims? How did the translator Tolkien come into possesion of the copy of the Red Book which he translates & passes on to us - did Tolkien the man have an explanation for that?

This is what we miss - the chain of story - when we ignore the role of the storyteller, which was central to Tolkien's mythology - all the 'texts' are retellings & redactions - they are all accounts of events told by storytellers - 'living shapes that move from mind to mind', not simply the events themselves, but the events being told & retold.

Bêthberry

09-09-2004, 08:15 AM

posted by davem
This is what we miss - the chain of story - when we ignore the role of the storyteller, which was central to Tolkien's mythology - all the 'texts' are retellings & redactions - they are all accounts of events told by storytellers - 'living shapes that move from mind to mind', not simply the events themselves, but the events being told & retold.

Oh, I have never said that the role of storyteller in the tales should be ignored. Far from it. Look at how Chaucer plays with the personae of tellers of tales in Canterbury Tales. Medieval literature is full of this fascinating multiplicity of perspectives, a multiplicty which became increasingly restricted as we developed concepts of "Author" and the standard Nineteenth century omnisicient narrator.

But this is a far, far jump from the kind of investigation into Authorial Intention which you have been positing in the past, to my mind.

davem

09-09-2004, 08:55 AM

But this is a far, far jump from the kind of investigation into Authorial Intention which you have been positing in the past, to my mind.

I'm not changing my position, merely coming at it from another angle. My point has always been that authorial intention, in fact authorial 'presence', has to be taken into account if we are to understand a work of fiction - particularly so with this work of fiction, where the author is not simply adopting a Chaucerian role a la Canterbury Tales, but plays a central role in the existence of the story - the Elf-friend is not merely a redactor, he is a living link with a lost past - literally so in the case of the Notion Club Papers.

Tolkien stands both 'outside' his mythology as its creator & inside it as its 'translator', & so he, the author, the man Tolkien, must be taken into account not just because he himself is a character in the secondary world, but because the whole world is a product of his own experience & exists because he desired it to exist.

The Saucepan Man

09-09-2004, 10:28 AM

authorial 'presence', has to be taken into account if we are to understand a work of fiction - particularly so with this work of fictionWhat do you mean by "understand"?

My point, as always, is that different people will have different goals in this regard, will adopt different approaches (which may or may not require an understanding of authorial intent and/or involvement) and will reach different conclusions. I doubt that I would consider most of them "wrong" in doing so (and I only say "most" because I am excluding the likes of the white supremacists).

Ultimately, what is the purpose of a work of fiction such as LotR? To be enjoyed? To be analysed and/or interpreted? To provide enlightenment? To change patterns of behaviour? Most probably Tolkien intended all of these things to one degree or another. But clearly he could never have expected every one of his readers to experience all of them. Is it not therefore the case that the purpose of the work is personal to the individual reader and depends upon what he or she expects and, in practice derives, from it? Regardless of his original intention in creating a work, once an author publishes it he effectively gives carte blanche to each reader to "use" it in whatever way seems best to that individual. In light of this, how can we ever truly "understand" the work?

davem

09-09-2004, 12:54 PM

SpM I can't deny that's what readersdo, but can we assume that Tolkien wanted to communicate something specific, whether his readers picked up on that or not?

In the Beowulf essay he re-constructs the poet, tells us his motives, & what he wanted us to understand. He doesn't ever say 'This is my opinion, this 'poet' is entirely my own invention & interpretation, if you don't like it go find your own'. He clearly believed that an artist has an intent, means something, wants too communicate something to his audience. If Tolkien thought that way about art, then clearly he intended us to approach his own art in that way.

Is there any value in attempting to understand Tolkien's meaning - to the extent we are capable of doing so? I'm simply uncomfortable with this idea that the reader has nothing to learn from the artist, that the artist has nothing of value to teach. & that ultimately, there's no point even making the effort to look outside one's own experience, to the wisdom & experience of another.

Aiwendil

09-09-2004, 03:03 PM

Davem wrote:
I'm simply uncomfortable with this idea that the reader has nothing to learn from the artist, that the artist has nothing of value to teach. & that ultimately, there's no point even making the effort to look outside one's own experience, to the wisdom & experience of another.

I don't think that anyone posting in this thread has made that claim. I think it is quite valuable to study the artist; it can provide tremendous insight into the work. The question is not whether studying the author is worthwhile; it is whether the author's views are the ultimate aribiter of opinions about the work and the only source of value for the art.

And still I wonder to what extent the debate on this thread is simply a case of everyone arguing at cross-purposes. One group says that different readers have different views; the other concedes this. The other says that the author wrote the book for a reason and that studying him is worthwhile; the first group grants this.

What does it mean to say that the author is the final arbiter of "canon"?

Bêthberry

09-09-2004, 04:03 PM

davem posted
I'm simply uncomfortable with this idea that the reader has nothing to learn from the artist, that the artist has nothing of value to teach. & that ultimately, there's no point even making the effort to look outside one's own experience, to the wisdom & experience of another.

Aiwendil posted

I don't think that anyone posting in this thread has made that claim. I think it is quite valuable to study the artist; it can provide tremendous insight into the work. The question is not whether studying the author is worthwhile; it is whether the author's views are the ultimate aribiter of opinions about the work and the only source of value for the art.

May I add my voice to what Aiwendi has here written. If I decide, after reflection, that further discussion is worthwhile, I might return to reply to his other question.

The Saucepan Man

09-09-2004, 05:04 PM

I think it is quite valuable to study the artist; it can provide tremendous insight into the work. The question is not whether studying the author is worthwhile; it is whether the author's views are the ultimate aribiter of opinions about the work and the only source of value for the art.Like Bêthberry, I endorse what Aiwendil has said entirely.

But I would also add this. When LotR was first published, the text itself, together with the text of The Hobbit, were all that readers had to go on. Later, when Tolkien changed the Foreword, he added some autobiographical material, but it was limited. Other bigraphical material concerning Tolkien was limited too. So, friends and family aside, only those who were moved to write to him (something that he came to regard as rather bothersome) or take the time to do some delving could stand any chance of learning anything about the man himself. Tolkien was perfectly aware of this. Indeed, he no doubt positively encouraged it, as I understand that he was a very private person. So, he surely must have recognised that the vast majority of his readers would know nothing about his intentions in writing the book or his views on the themes covered. He could not expect (and would no doubt have been horrified at the thought of) every reader bombarding him with their questions. So, while I agree that authorial detail can be immensely valuable (to those who are interested in it), it was simply not available to many of his readers.

I myself knew almost nothing about the man until roughly 18 months ago, when I first joined this site. I didn't even know that Tolkien was a religious man. This despite LotR having been my favourite book for some 25 years. And I most certainly do not regard any of the five or so times that I read the book during that period as being less valuable than when I read it now.

Which is probably why I am so keen to stick up for those who read and digest the book, apply what meaning they see within it to their own life (if they are so inclined) and delve no further.

davem

09-10-2004, 02:57 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by Aiwendil
I think it is quite valuable to study the artist; it can provide tremendous insight into the work. The question is not whether studying the author is worthwhile; it is whether the author's views are the ultimate aribiter of opinions about the work and the only source of value for the art.

Like Bêthberry, I endorse what Aiwendil has said entirely.

Not the ultimate, just the prime arbiter & source of value, & the one to which the greatest weight should be given. Its about understanding what another human being has to say to you, not about your opinion of what he's saying. And how can you even have an opinion of what he's saying if you don't listen as objectively as you can? What I bring to reading Tolkien's works has little or no value, (imo) in comparison to what Tolkien has to teach me.

Bêthberry

09-10-2004, 07:38 AM

Its about understanding what another human being has to say to you, not about your opinion of what he's saying. And how can you even have an opinion of what he's saying if you don't listen as objectively as you can? What I bring to reading Tolkien's works has little or no value, (imo) in comparison to what Tolkien has to teach me.

I will assume, davem, that you have taken this position as a rhetorical or logical strategy, to attempt to redefine the discussion rather than as a literal statement that we who do not agree with you do not listen to others but operate out of our own personal vanities and egotism. The first I consider a fair part of discussion; the second I consider unfair and disrespectful of the many who have given a great deal of thoughtful time and effort to this thread.

Where are we to find this person who you want to teach us? You seem to treat the concept of Author as separate from Art, some kind of validating or authorising principle which helps us understand the Art (aka the Text). Thus, it seems to me, you would give priority to such extra-textual statements as can be found in letters, diaries, personal reminiscences.

For me at least, I would regard this position as denying the value and integrity of the Art; it says that peripheral and extraneous statements must take precedence to the Art/Text, which somehow fails to identify itself adequately and must be explained. This is like saying that readers cannot understand literature without some sort of guiding hand.

It seems to me that this concept of Author is a substitution for God as source of ultimate meaning. (Forgive me if this offends your personal beliefs or values, or those of others.) I would say that, if the Art / Text is to have some sort of universal or transcendent value, it ultimately must be given to the ages; it must be understood anew for each generation/reader.

And what do you mean by "listening objectively"? Are you suggesting that SpM, Aiwendil, Fordim and I are reading solipsistically and self-centredly? Am I not to bring my understanding of Anglo Saxon literature to bear on my reading, or my knowledge of northern myths and other mythologies? Can I not bring my understanding of why people find such worth and value to quest literature? In short, must I leave behind other Art/ Texts in order to listen to your god-like Author?

Maybe I can put it this way: When I listen to and speak with the people around me, I am invariably involved not just in decoding idiolects (mine and theirs) but the entire range and variety of dialects which make up the English language and the social culture of my time. It gets a little crowded at times, but to suggest that there is just one valorising or validating voice, the person I am speaking with, limits the nature of language. When we speak with others, there is always this balancing or negotiating of one out of many, of listening to the unique voice out of the plurality that makes up language.

Treating Author as God strikes me as limiting the Art very much. It isn't that I don't listen to Tolkien, but that I bring to my conversation with him my conversations with other Artists as well. And Tolkien now being dead, that conversation must involve the Art he left behind.

davem

09-10-2004, 08:17 AM

I will assume, davem, that you have taken this position as a rhetorical or logical strategy, to attempt to redefine the discussion rather than as a literal statement The first I consider a fair part of discussion; the second I consider unfair and disrespectful of the many who have given a great deal of thoughtful time and effort to this thread.

To be honest I was simply putting my own position as clearly & concisely as possible, & I can't see that anything I said implied lack of respect for you or anyone else. Its just I find the alternative position too close to 'deconstructionism' - which has always screamed Emperor's New Clothes!!! to me. Simply, I hold to the position that we are obliged, in so far as that is possible to give prime importance & weight to the author's views. I see the art as a manifestation of the artist's will & desire, & as his or her attempt to communicate an experience of the trancendent. As far as Middle earth is concerned the author is 'God'.

Maybe I can put it this way: When I listen to and speak with the people around me, I am invariably involved not just in decoding idiolects (mine and theirs) but the entire range and variety of dialects which make up the English language and the social culture of my time. It gets a little crowded at times, but to suggest that there is just one valorising or validating voice, the person I am speak with, limits the nature of language. When we speak with others, there is always this blancing or negotiating of one out of many, of listening to the unique voice out of the plurality that makes up language.

But surely the other person's 'voice' is the only thing worth concentrating on in the conversation, as its the only new thing, the only unknown, so the only thing worth paying attention to - all the other things you mention may be present, but they are obstacles, & should be (as far as possible) transcended, & only accepted as impediments to communication.

For me at least, I would regard this position as denying the value and integrity of the Art; it says that peripheral and extraneous statements must take precedence to the Art/Text, which somehow fails to identify itself adequately and must be explained.

No, it says that in the case of Tolkien in particular the art is the artist, & vice versa.

In short, must I leave behind other Art/ Texts in order to listen to your god-like Author?

As far as humanly possible, I'd say.

Are you suggesting that SpM, Aiwendil, Fordim and I are reading solipsistically and self-centredly?

I'm suggesting we all are (myself included), & that that's a bad thing, & gets in the way of our understanding what an artist has to say to us.

The Saucepan Man

09-10-2004, 08:28 AM

davem

09-10-2004, 08:55 AM

SpM I'm saying, as far as possible we must empty our minds, listen to that author as carefully as possible, take in what he/she has to say to the best of our ability, understand as far as we can theirwhole message, what they want to communicate to us, & then make a judgement on it, 'infect' it with our own baggage, etc. We must begin from a position that the author is smarter than we are & has something important to teach us (& whether you, or Aiwendil or Bethberry realise it, that's the position I adopt in regard to your posts on this thread )

The Saucepan Man

09-10-2004, 09:08 AM

SpM I'm saying, as far as possible we must empty our minds, listen to that author as carefully as possible, take in what he/she has to say to the best of our ability, understand as far as we can theirwhole message, what they want to communicate to us, & then make a judgement on it, 'infect' it with our own baggage, etc. Why must we? Are you talking about everyone who reads LotR, those who are interested in delving further than the text, or just those who are interested in having this discourse with the author?

(& whether you, or Aiwendil or Bethberry realise it, that's the position I adopt in regard to your posts on this thread )But you are primarily, if not solely, relying on the text of what we have posted.

davem

09-10-2004, 09:24 AM

Why must we? Are you talking about everyone who reads LotR, those who are interested in delving further than the text, or just those who are interested in having this discourse with the author?

Ok, we must if we wish to understand what the author meant.

But you are primarily, if not solely, relying on the text of what we have posted.

Which is as much as I have, but I don't pretend you don't exist, & that the texts pop onto the screen of themselves - I take them as 'expressions of your minds', things that you are communicating to me. The 'texts' are the way we communicate, as much as things in themselves. 'Living shapes that move from mind to mind', & all that.

The Saucepan Man

09-10-2004, 12:22 PM

Ok, we must if we wish to understand what the author meant.Can't disagree with that. But you seem to be suggesting that we are in some way obligated to try to understand what the author meant, or at least that it is desirable for us to do so. It's there that I think we disagree, since I would hold that it is a perfectly valid response for the reader, if they so wish, to stop at the text and go no further.

Aiwendil

09-10-2004, 12:25 PM

What Are We Arguing About?

As I said before, I've been experiencing a growing uncertainty about just what disagreement we actually have in this debate. Initially it was a matter of "canon". Is the canon determined by the author or the reader or the text itself? But this question could not be directly addressed, as there was disagreement over the meaning of "canon" - the question, interesting though it was, was not well formulated.

So there ensued some debate about the term "canon" - debate which seems ultimately futile, since "canon" is just a term and its definition arbitrary.

And here we are on page 12 and as far as I can see we still haven't succeeded at formulating the question.

Is there a fundamental factual disagreement? I don't think so. We all agree that the author had a mind, even those in the "reader's freedom" camp. And likewise we all agree that readers have different ways of understanding the text and different reasons for reading it - even those in the "author's authority" camp cannot dispute that as a mere fact.

So if we do not disagree on the facts, what do we disagree about?

It must be a matter of worth or value that is in dispute. There is the claim that it is primarily or exclusively "worthwhile" to study the author. Then there is the claim that each reader's view has equal "value". And there is the claim that it is the text itself that is "valuable".

I can see no way of recasting those different claims without using words like "worth" or "value".

But what kind of worth are we talking about? Monetary worth? Obviously not. Moral worth? I don't think that's it either, though perhaps I'm wrong. I doubt that Davem would say (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that a reader who disregards Tolkien as a person is actually doing something morally bad.

If not these, then what? We might say "artistic worth" but this is a cheat - it's just the replacement of one ambiguous term with another.

The truth, I think, is that we're each talking about a different kind of worth - and because we all simply say "worth" this gets us into arguments. Each of us has some different goal in mind with respect to which we measure the value of the author, the text, and the reader.

When Davem says that the author's views are the most worthwhile, he means this with respect to the goal of understanding the author and the author's intention. I don't disagree with this. If one's purpose in studying a piece of art is to study it as a manifestation of the author, then surely one of the most valuable things one can do is to study the author.

But if one's goal is something different - say, "mere" enjoyment, then the value of studying the author will not be the same. To someone like me who is interested in studying the text itself - as a text, rather than as a manifestation of or message from the author - it is less valuable (though still valuable) to study the author.

I think the nature of the "disagreement" is exemplified by what Davem wrote in the previous post:

Ok, we must if we wish to understand what the author meant.

This is exactly the point. If we wish to understand what the author meant, then studying the author is important. But that's not what we all wish.

I think that the whole disagreement about how to define the term "canon" arises merely from the fact that we each have a different objective in mind. If your objective is that of the authorial manifestation, then naturally you'll want to define "canon" in terms of authorial intentions, since that's the concept that's of interest to you. If your objective is to study the texts themselves, you might rather define "canon" purely in terms of the texts. There's no "correct" definition - it's merely a matter of different conventions.

That leaves us with the question of whether one objective is "better" than the others. And I'm afraid I can't see any way of arguing this for any of them - why should it be intrinsically "better" to study one thing than to study another?

Edit: Cross-post with The Saucepan Man, who has essentially said exactly the same thing I did but in about a tenth as many words. I think I'll go practice tempering my verbosity.

davem

09-10-2004, 01:00 PM

Aiwendil's points are well made - as per - but unfortunately kill this whole thread dead :(

This has been one of my favourite ever threads, because we've been arguing over something that, lets be honest, doesn't actually matter a damn. But we've been forced to construct & defend positions against the most determined opposition - in my case against some of the smartest people on these boards, & I think we've learned a lot about each other in the process.

We've also, I think, learned a lot about the nature of art & what it means to different people.

I still hold to the view that all art is a 'conversation' between two individual, 'living' minds - because the art was the product of a living mind when it came into being, & feel that this is an idea Tolkien gave a lot of weight to - both the Lost Road & Notion Club Papers are about this very thing - individuals alive at one point in time communicating with other individuals in 'their' past or future. The idea of a work of art as a a 'static', fixed thing, set down without any intentional meaning (or any intentional meaning which we should take into account) seems strange to me, & I can't understand it, or relate to it in any way. The Art for me is a 'packet' of meaning - deliberate & intentional, an attempt by the artist to communicate across time & space. Tolkien, as I said, is both the creator of Middle earth, & a character within it - the last of the Elf-friends, the final link in the chain connecting us to Faerie, & that chain is a 'living process' because its links are (within the secondary world) living minds.

Does everyone accept that? That 'Tolkien' is a character within his Legendarium, as much as Eriol/Aelfwine, that he has written himself into the story? Can we discuss the 'character' of the 'translator' Tolkien & the part he plays in the story? And is this Translator Tolkien the same as or different from the Oxford Professor? Yet did Tolkien himself think of himself as both creator & creation? And if he did, how many experiences did they share? Translator Tolkien owned a copy of the Red Book, which Professor Tolkien didn't (?).

The point of that speculation is simply to show that Tolkien didn't see himself as being entirely 'outside' the Legendarium, so how can we?

HerenIstarion

09-10-2004, 03:40 PM

Aiwendil's points are well made - as per - but unfortunately kill this whole thread dead

I suppose we can revive it at later point.

This has been one of my favourite ever threads, because we've been arguing over something that, lets be honest, doesn't actually matter a damn. But we've been forced to construct & defend positions against the most determined opposition - in my case against some of the smartest people on these boards, & I think we've learned a lot about each other in the process.

Can't help agreeing :D. Same the reason for revival at some later point.

davem, if you ever show up in the Know Yer Mates, or a Member Above Ye (http://69.51.5.41/showthread.php?t=11039&page=1&pp=40) (shameless advertising, I know) thread, make sure I'm online so I can post after you. The approximate description will be:

...davem is yet unbeaten in debate. Even if opponents would not agree and would not be persuaded, they flee his persistence in defence of his position in most prolix discourses the Internet Era may yet boast of... ;)

But, if seriously, I must thank you and Fordim, for you two act like catalysts for the rest of us, making us think, write and debate after all years of 'being around', thus refuting malisious gossips that there is not much left, honestly (http://69.51.5.41/showthread.php?t=4689) :). Special thanks to Aiwendil, the brilliant performer of the 'cold shower' role, which is of vivid importance, since we could talk each other to death in our 'debate heat' but for his posts, full of common sense and logic.

yours truly,

Bêthberry

09-10-2004, 04:04 PM

HerenIstarion posted

...davem is yet unbeaten in debate. Even if opponents would not agree and would not be persuaded, they flee his persistence in defence of his position in most prolix discourses the Internet Era may yet boast of...

My goodness, my dear HI whatever gave you the idea that because I have not posted in the last several hours, I have withdrawn from the discussion? :eek: :p ;)

Aiwendil

09-11-2004, 08:12 AM

So I'm like a cold shower. I like that - it works well as an epithet: Aiwendil the Cold Shower.

I just thought I should add (in case it wasn't obvious) that this has been one of my favorite threads ever as well. Perhaps this is because it incorporated so many slightly different debates, and ranged over such a wide array of topics. Most were things that had been discussed before in other contexts, but here it seemed to me we were engaged in a real synthesis of those discussions - even if one that is ultimately futile.

davem

09-11-2004, 08:19 AM

but here it seemed to me we were engaged in a real synthesis of those discussions - even if one that is ultimately futile.

Well, I think futile is maybe too strong a word - it depends what we wanted to achieve. If anything this has been one of the most productive threads on the Downs.

(though I can see how you, Bethberry & SpM would feel you were 'fighting the long defeat' :D )

Bêthberry

09-11-2004, 10:09 AM

Well now, how can I come here with something light-hearted and elegiac when I wish to clarify a few points davem made on the previous page? I feel like I have walked into one of those long good-byes, where everyone knows it is over and yet they linger just a little bit longer and one person is rather foolishly carrying on as if it weren't over. Be that as it may, I do wish to offer some observations.

davem posted
Its just I find the alternative position too close to 'deconstructionism' - which has always screamed Emperor's New Clothes!!! to me. Simply, I hold to the position that we are obliged, in so far as that is possible to give prime importance & weight to the author's views. I see the art as a manifestation of the artist's will & desire, & as his or her attempt to communicate an experience of the trancendent. As far as Middle earth is concerned the author is 'God'.

I suppose some of my statement hav
e sounded close to deconstruction. Yet my osition does not derive from those hep-cat French radicals with their fans and followers but from a more traditional scholar, the polymath George Steiner, particularly his book After Babel. Steiner has never evoked a hit parade yet he has been to my mind a faithful voice for the humanities in a century of barbarism and mockery. It is to him I owe my idea that interpretation involves a kind of translating over or through time, a life-giving performance which overcomes the barriet between source and receptor. He once called the lectures he famously delivered in Geneva for over thirty years as the closest he has come to a kind of secular Pentecost. It is that sense of the partaking of the ineffable and the transcendent which is included in this idea that the reader, any reader, must be, to use the French word, an interprèt.

davem again!
SpM I'm saying, as far as possible we must empty our minds, listen to that author as carefully as possible, take in what he/she has to say to the best of our ability, understand as far as we can theirwhole message, what they want to communicate to us, & then make a judgement on it, 'infect' it with our own baggage, etc. We must begin from a position that the author is smarter than we are & has something important to teach us (& whether you, or Aiwendil or Bethberry realise it, that's the position I adopt in regard to your posts on this thread )

I don't understand why the reader must become a tabula rasa for this to happen. What is there in this confrontation with the Artist which demands that we must prostrate ourselves and empty our minds, to be filled newly with his ideas? This is no model of communication to me but a totalitarian takeover. Why, if you are valuing the human identity in your reading so much, must readers deny themselves and wipe out their identity?

guess who!

But surely the other person's 'voice' is the only thing worth concentrating on in the conversation, as its the only new thing, the only unknown , so the only thing worth paying attention to - all the other things you mention may be present, but they are obstacles, & should be (as far as possible) transcended, & only accepted as impediments to communication.

How will we know the uniqueness of this other voice if we forget the language we know? Rather than being obstacles, those features of language which I named function in a dynamic process to give contrast, identity, chiaroscuro to the new ideas. It is through the difference that I can begin to perceive the new meaning.

davem still

I still hold to the view that all art is a 'conversation' between two individual, 'living' minds - because the art was the product of a living mind when it came into being, & feel that this is an idea Tolkien gave a lot of weight to - both the Lost Road & Notion Club Papers are about this very thing - individuals alive at one point in time communicating with other individuals in 'their' past or future. The idea of a work of art as a a 'static', fixed thing, set down without any intentional meaning (or any intentional meaning which we should take into account) seems strange to me, & I can't understand it, or relate to it in any way. The Art for me is a 'packet' of meaning - deliberate & intentional, an attempt by the artist to communicate across time & space.

Perhaps it all comes down to where we place this sense of the static. You accord to the Artist a complete control of intention and will. I am more hesitant about the nature of artistic creation, othe artist's mind to know completely what goes on in the cauldron of writing. As I quoted elsewhere today, Steiner said "The heart can be manifold, even self-contradictory." For that reason, it is not that I deny intentional meaning, but rather see it as always and ever being limited by the human condition of babel, the confusion of tongues. You seem to want to include the Artist in the Art. He is there, along with many other personas, but to think that he would be knowable or discernable with absolute certainty is I think as difficult as to know intimately the minds of all those around us. When we can so easily misunderstand the living, how much greater is our possible confusion over the dead?

Thus, for me, this place where interpretation occurs, the reader as [i]interprète[i], is the space between the text and the reader--not either one in a hierarchy over the other, but in equilibrium. It is not a static , carved in stone commandement, but the process of making meaning, and it works both ways. It is not an imposition of the reader's solipcism or egotism upon the text (althought it can be that, and when such happens, such interpretations do not stand the test of time), but a dialogue out of which new meaning occurs. And sometimes the new meanings will include the possibility of things which the Artist did not intend or realise but was held there in the text, in plenitude, waiting for fulfillment. And that fulfillment is ever-ongoing, ever-not yet completed.

So, all in all, I think I agree with Aiwendil that we are differing over matters of definition rather than substance.

davem

09-11-2004, 01:17 PM

I don't understand why the reader must become a tabula rasa for this to happen. What is there in this confrontation with the Artist which demands that we must prostrate ourselves and empty our minds, to be filled newly with his ideas? This is no model of communication to me but a totalitarian takeover. Why, if you are valuing the human identity in your reading so much, must readers deny themselves and wipe out their identity?

Only temporarily, until we have taken in & assimilated what the other has to say to us - the more baggage we bring with us, the harder it will be to hear what the other is saying. It is the admission of profound ignorance which enables us to learn anything new. Once we have learned we must analyse & judge. But that analysis & judgement must be made based on what the other has taught us. The more baggage we hold onto the less objective we are.

How will we know the uniqueness of this other voice if we forget the language we know? Rather than being obstacles, those features of language which I named function in a dynamic process to give contrast, identity, chiaroscuro to the new ideas. It is through the difference that I can begin to perceive the new meaning.

Of coourse, but those are the tools by which we perform our analysis, not the means by which we listen.

Perhaps it all comes down to where we place this sense of the static. You accord to the Artist a complete control of intention and will. I am more hesitant about the nature of artistic creation, othe artist's mind to know completely what goes on in the cauldron of writing. As I quoted elsewhere today, Steiner said "The heart can be manifold, even self-contradictory." For that reason, it is not that I deny intentional meaning, but rather see it as always and ever being limited by the human condition of babel, the confusion of tongues. You seem to want to include the Artist in the Art. He is there, along with many other personas, but to think that he would be knowable or discernable with absolute certainty is I think as difficult as to know intimately the minds of all those around us. When we can so easily misunderstand the living, how much greater is our possible confusion over the dead?

This is our struggle, but one worth making, to my mind. The artist exists in the work, & is therefore knowable, & if we don't make the effort to know the artist, how can we ever truly know the art? It is not in the certainty, but in the attempt - we honour the artist & validate his work by that attempt. To give up & dismiss the attempt as impossible is an aknowledgement of failure before we even begin.

Thus, for me, this place where interpretation occurs, the reader as [i]interprète[i], is the space between the text and the reader--not either one in a hierarchy over the other, but in equilibrium. It is not a static , carved in stone commandement, but the process of making meaning, and it works both ways. It is not an imposition of the reader's solipcism or egotism upon the text (althought it can be that, and when such happens, such interpretations do not stand the test of time), but a dialogue out of which new meaning occurs.

But doesn't dialogue require a clear (or as clear as possible) distinction between self & other? If we don't, as far as possible, shed our baggage, then to a great extent our 'dialogue' is only with our own past selves. It is an inner, not an outer dialogue, & we end up only talking to ourselves, & hearing our own voices, & 'learning' only what we already knew.

As to 'making meaning' - this implies that there is no 'objective' meaning, only imposed meaning. Meaning, or Truth, or Reality may simply exist - & it hasn't been disproved yet. It seems to me that its only from the point of view that there is no 'meaning' beyond what we ourselve impose that leads us to deny the 'living' presence of the artist in the art, & leads us to value our familiar baggage over the new & unknown. If we won't put aside (as far as we are able) what we've brought with us, how can we judge anything at all - we can only judge ourselves, what we think - the 'new' merely throws us back on ourselves, into self analysis. The art is glass - but is it a window, or only a mirror?

Bêthberry

09-12-2004, 08:50 AM

Once again, I think, you express a dichotomy too starkly and too rigidly. It is neither window nor mirror. We see through a glass, darkly, davem.

This has been for me as for you others, one of my favourite threads even if at times we just went around in circles. Until the next thread ...

davem

09-12-2004, 01:43 PM

We see through a glass, darkly, davem.

Oh, but this is it - the whole thing, the unanswerable question:

Do we see in the glass or through it?

Bêthberry

09-12-2004, 03:38 PM

Given all our thoughts on this thread about Who is the Author, and Authorial Intentions, and Truth, and Where to Find the Author, I think it would not be inappropriate to offer this comment from one of Tolkien's Letter. It is Letter # 229 and Tolkien has been writing in despair about the introduction to the Swedish translation of LotR. Many thanks to Estelyn for bringing this comment to my my attention.

Why should I be made an object of fiction while still alive?

:p :) :D

davem

09-13-2004, 01:28 AM

Why should I be made an object of fiction while still alive?

Why would Tolkien make himself into an object of 'fiction' - because that's exactly what he does. He is a character within the mythology - he is the translator of it - in the original Foreword, in the Prologue, & especially in appendix F. He is much an 'object of fiction' (ie a character within his secondary world) as Eriol/Aelfwine.

The Legendarium is not simply a collection of stories, they are the stories collected & passed on by an Elf-friend, in order to pass on knowledge of the past, to keep alive the knowledge of & connection with Faerie. He is a translator of ancient lore, as Bilbo was. He exists within his secondary world, as well as outside it.

Tolkien exists as a figure within the secondary world. He's written himself into it - why?

Lets take your approach. Someone with no knowledge of Tolkien the man, with only LotR to hand, sets out to analyse the work, understand it to the best of his ability. Taking the text itself, he will not simply find the characters within Middle earth, he will also find numerous references to a 'translator', someone who came into posession of a copy of the 'Red Book' of Westmarch. Now, will this reader take this 'translator' as a character, wonder whether he is 'simply' another invented character, or 'just' the author? Won't he ask to what extent the author & the translator are one & the same, & to what extent they differ?

Why the 'fiction' of translation at all? What was Tolkien attempting to do? The fiction is unnecessary if the book is just a fantasy novel. But if we look at the Legendarium as a whole we find the 'Elf friend', the human who meets the elves & is responsible for passing on the ancient, lost lore to mankind. Tolkien makes himself into an elf-friend within his Legendarium.

Its not just about the individual tales, its about their transmission. There is always a 'living' link to the ancient past, the tales move from mind to mind. The writer is not 'external' he is part of a single long tale (cf Sam & Frodo's conversation on the stairs). Tales are passed on from mind to mind. They don't exist unless they're told.

So, don't ask me why Tolkien should be made an object of fiction - ask him why he did it to himself. His answer might surprise us all.

HerenIstarion

09-13-2004, 03:03 AM

Do we see in the glass or through it

The whole mode of narration, as you rightly observe (i.e. Tolkien as elf-friend, object of his own fiction), suggests through option.

The external data (i.e all the biographical information implying that Tolkien was inventing his world suggests in option.

But, by and by, I find that I come to conclusion that it does not matter and, that, in fact, you can not tell which mode is more ‘correct’, and the choice between the two comes down to belief, or trust, or, still better term, to estel.

By belief here I do not mean any particular set of religious or theological statements, merely trust of authority

My wording may be a bit clumsy here, please bear with me, I'll try to be as explicit as I'm able to.

Any piece of knowledge any given person may possess if not professionaly concerned with the issue depends on belief. Per instance, I 'know' that earth is round contrary to what I observe with my very eyes as its flatness (or 'foldedness', as my dwelling is in a mountainous country), as I trust the authority of books I've read about the subject. I 'know' that stars are balls of gas, that there is such a place as Duke University, that Kangaroos live in Australia and G.W.Bush is president of USA because of said trust. For I haven't seen neither of them things with my very eyes, their existence is untested and unknown quantity for me in any way. Even if I find an eye witness to existence of these, I still have to lean on trust in authority of the witness.

Now in subcreation the very much discussed suspension of disbelief comes into play. But ‘suspension of disbelief’ is a negative term. Replace it with ‘trust in authority’, and in the glass option is immediately replaced with through the glass. And if the skill of the sub-creator is great, and subcreation produced approaches perfection, it is impossible to tell which is more real – the world one sits on in a chair with a book or the one described in the book.

The Matrix – is being in it bad because it is [sub]created? For there is no way of telling for those inside it? Were there any guarantee (and I have that suspision even before parts 2 and 3 were released) for Neo, when he leaves Matrix, that what he had chosen is not mere exchanging of one Matrix for another Matrix, which, in itself is inside the thrid one and so forth, like to set of nesting dolls?

That was bothering me when I raised the issue of morals. The existence of Moral imperative, somehow, seems to be definitive for ‘realness’ or cogency of any given world. Middle Earth has that in abundance (the imperative is not 'because I will profit' but 'thus shall I sleep better'). And hence my clumsy attempt on crooked logic with probability of existence of imagined things (post #408)

Or, on any given irritation ME responds with appropriate reaction, just like normal world would, even if in a bit idealised way.

Or another clumsy analogy – suppose there existed a robot in all ways like to human being, i.e., there were no way of telling it were a robot – all its organs, members and looks perfectly like to those of human being. Further suppose, that imitiation were so perfect that emotions were imitated too – i.e. robot cried when hit, and expressed fear, affection or love in a way similar to that of human

Would it be correct to say that robot can not experience love, if it said that it loved, and expressed it as a human would do?

The Saucepan Man

09-13-2004, 08:00 PM

...davem is yet unbeaten in debate. Even if opponents would not agree and would not be persuaded, they flee his persistence in defence of his position in most prolix discourses the Internet Era may yet boast of...Hmm, surely the defining feature of this thread is that the main protagonists have resolutely refused (or found themselves unable) to flee it. :D

No 'tis like the Ring, drawing us ever deeper into the discussion, revealing yet more layers of complexity and hinting at hidden depths of discourse yet to be discovered and charted.

though I can see how you, Bethberry & SpM would feel you were 'fighting the long defeat' Alas, unlike Galadriel, I have failed to pass the test and will not fade and pass West to the Unchattering Lands. I will remain within the realm of Canonicity to carry on the fight. :p

Davem, I presume that you seek to argue that, since Tolkien included himself as a character in his own tale, this strengthens the argument for the importance of taking account of his views and intentions when we seek to understand the "meaning" of the story. But I would say that, if anything, it does the opposite. Since he includes himself as a fictional character (to carry the fiction that the events described date from a real period in our pre-history), then surely all that we need know of this fictional character should be present in the text. He plays a very small role in the tale and acts purely as its archaeologist and translator. Within this fiction, the account was written by various Hobbit hands and unearthed and translated by the fictional Tolkien. He plays only a very limited editorial role in providing notes on translation and, on rare occasions (restricted almost entirely to The Hobbit and the Shire-based beginning of LotR), including the odd "story-teller's comment". Isn't that all we need to know about him (the fictional Tolkien, as opposed to the factual author) to understand his role in the story?

But, as Aiwendil said, where does this discussion really get us? I recognise that there is a certain value in taking account of the author's thoughts, views and intentions in seeking to understand what he was trying to tell us in LotR and his other works, just as I recognise the value in Bêthberry's literary approach and Child's historical approach. Equally, I can see the value in considering the spiritual and metaphysical aspects of Tolkien's works. Contrary to the impression that I may have given, I am not entirely averse to the idea that his stories can put us in touch with some greater truth (or even Truth ;) ). Indeed, earlier in this thread, I recall being rather attracted by davem‘s concept of “enchantment” and I related how this resonated with the vision of sorts that I experienced when first reading LotR and which I can still vaguely recall when I read it now.

But, like Aiwendil, I believe that the differences arise when we try to ascribe degrees of value to these various approaches. We are all coming at it from different angles and bringing with us our own experiences, disciplines and beliefs. So we are each bound to ascribe greater (personal) value to some approaches than to others. Which is why I would maintain that (within certain boundaries that are morally, socially or legally imposed), no one approach is objectively more valuable than any other. It depends upon personal standpoint. I see nothing wrong if an individual’s purpose in reading the book is pure enjoyment. That’s how I have approached it on the majority of occasions that I have read it. Yet, my perspectives have changed. I am now more interested in looking for meaning within the book, in its historical, mythological and literary foundations and, yes, in what Tolkien himself was trying to get across to us. That change has come about since I joined the Downs, as a direct result of discussions such as this and others like it.

And therein lies the value of this discussion. Thanks to the contributions from all concerned in this thread, I have been compelled to think, to reassess and to look at things from an alternative perspective. As a result, my own perspectives have changed and that, I think, has great value in itself. (Although that is not to lessen the enjoyment value of this thread and I would add my voice to those who have expressed how much they have enjoyed participating in it.)

Personally, I do not feel that the discussion need be over, although I do feel that, for me at least, it does perhaps need to “move on”. (I would add that I am not seeking in any way to curtail the ongoing discussion in the posts that precede this one. It is simply that, from a personal standpoint and for the reasons stated above, I feel unable to add much more to it.) So, in an effort to explore other avenues of Canonicity (although possibly at the risk of killing the thread completely), I will pose a further question.

It seems to me (although I may be wrong on this) that there is general agreement that what I would describe as “pure canon” in the context of Tolkien’s works can only include the events, locations, creatures and characters described in the texts which he published during his lifetime. This, of course, will include the thoughts, feelings and motivations of the characters where they are sufficiently and unambiguously described. Basically, I am talking about those issues of “fact” about which we can all agree because they are there in the text in black and white. Of course, there may still be grey areas, even within this category. For example, some may question the existence of Stone Giants within Middle-earth and ascribe the references to them in The Hobbit to exaggeration on Bilbo’s part when he came to set down his adventure. Nevertheless, I think that we could all reach consensus on a whole range of issues concerning Middle-earth, namely the overwhelming majority of those "facts" set out in the published texts (The Hobbit and LotR).

Now, as I have touched on previously (many many pages back), I would not include The Silmarillion within this category, as it was not finalised and published by Tolkien within his lifetime. Had he done so, it almost undoubtedly would have been different (although most probably not profoundly so). Also included within this category are the other “unfinished” materials that were published following Tolkien’s death, most particularly Unfinished Tales, the HoME series and (to the extent that they bear upon issues of “Middle-earth fact”) the Letters.

So, my question is this: Why is it that Tolkien enthusiasts invariably take as “canon” anything specifically stated in these “unpublished” materials which does not contradict (or which can be reconciled with) anything stated in the “published” texts? Time and time again in discussions on this board (and no doubt in discussions on other boards like it and in “real life” discussions between committed fans of Tolkien’s works), someone will come up with a fact stated in Unfinished Tales or one of the HoME series or the Letters and the stated fact is generally accepted as “true“. The same thing occurs in games in the Quiz Room. Facts sourced from these materials are accepted as the correct answer to a question concerning them. Similarly, sites such as The Encyclopedia of Arda and books such as Tyler’s The Complete Tolkien Companion recite such facts as, well, facts. But why is this, given that they were not included as facts within the texts published during Tolkien’s lifetime (and were therefore subject to change should he have sought to include them within a published work)?

It seems to me that there are some “unpublished facts” which are supported by the published texts and make perfect sense in light of them. An example would be the statement made by Tolkien in (I think) a number of his Letters to the effect that (leaving Bombadil aside) no one could willingly have destroyed the Ring. Although I cannot recall this being clearly stated in LotR, it is (to my mind) implicit in Frodo’s inability to destroy it. If someone else could have carried out the deed, then it devalues Frodo’s character. Another example would be the existence of Eru. As far as I can recall, he is not specifically referred to in LotR. He only features in the “unpublished materials” (in which I include, as I have said, The Silmarillion). But his existence makes sense in the context of LotR, given the strong sense of providence implicit within the story.

Perhaps that’s the answer. We accept the “unpublished facts” because they derive from Tolkien and they make perfect sense within the context of the texts that were published within Tolkien’s lifetime. Of course there will, for some of us, be “unpublished facts” which do not ring true. A personal example which I relayed earlier (again a long way back on this thread) is Tolkien’s account in one of his Letters as to what would have happened had Gollum seized the Ring but not stumbled into the Fire of Orodruin. Tolkien suggests that he would have sought to resolve his desire for possession of the Ring with his feelings towards Frodo by throwing himself into the Fire. That just does not ring true to my conception of Gollum’s character (although it will no doubt make sense to others). But such examples are rare, and will almost always fall within the realm of speculation. So what is within us Tolkien aficionados that makes us all respond to the vast majority of “unpublished facts” with the same degree of acceptance? What is it that makes these matters “ring true” to us? And if there are matters which do not ring true to us on a personal level (such as my reaction to the Gollum example cited above), are we, as Tolkien enthusiasts entitled to reject them?

Well, my intention was to open up a new channel for discussion, but I suspect that I have merely provided the means of re-opening issues that have already been debated at length here. Nevertheless, I have sought to focus the issue as best I can so, if you will, have at it.

davem

09-14-2004, 01:12 AM

I suppose this simply rephrases the question of whether there is some underlying objective 'reality' - because otherwise we would simply accept everything Tolkien wrote as 'fact' - why is it that some statements by Tolkien would feel 'wrong'? That would imply that some statements are 'right', & that even Tolkien could be wrong in the facts he stated about Middle earth. What strikes me most strongly is this sense that on some level we feel we can judge even Tolkien to have got things 'wrong' - even Aiwendil & I agree that some of the later writings (Myths Transformed) where Tolkien rewrites the cosmology, are 'mistakes' - they don't work - as CT himself more or less admits. Why this general agreement on where Tolkien got it right & where he got it wrong?

As to Tolkien's role in the mythology:
He plays a very small role in the tale and acts purely as its archaeologist and translator. Within this fiction, the account was written by various Hobbit hands and unearthed and translated by the fictional Tolkien. He plays only a very limited editorial role in providing notes on translation and, on rare occasions (restricted almost entirely to The Hobbit and the Shire-based beginning of LotR), including the odd "story-teller's comment". Isn't that all we need to know about him (the fictional Tolkien, as opposed to the factual author) to understand his role in the story?

One could argue the same in regard to Eriol in the Lost Tales, but I don't think that actually stands up in his case. Aelfwine is actually a major character, with a detailed history, & to an extent Tolkien never completley rejected this 'framing device'. The point for me is that The 'translator' role is not necessary, & Tolkien, like the writers of every other fantasy novel could have left the idea out. It is this idea that Tolkien is merely passing on an already existing story/mythology, that adds to the verisimilitude of the world. We are repeatedly told by the translator, 'this really happened, I'm not making this up', & on some level we believe that, feel it to be true - because we have a sense of what is 'correct' & what is 'incorrect' - this has been pointed out in one of the currect 'Women' threads, the way some events in the story feel 'wrong' & 'break the spell' - but how are we making this judgement, & what are we basing it on? If the Art has no inherent 'meaning', does not 'refer' to or connect us with something 'objective' then where does the feeling come from? Because (imo) it is a different kind of feeling to the one I get with other works of fiction - I often feel that a writer has lost the plot, or failed to write a convincing character, or forced a situation in order to tie up loose ends, but almost never get the sense as I do with tolkien on rare occasions, that he has written something 'wrong', that it 'didn't happen that way'.

The Saucepan Man

09-14-2004, 05:13 AM

I suppose this simply rephrases the question of whether there is some underlying objective 'reality' - because otherwise we would simply accept everything Tolkien wrote as 'fact' - why is it that some statements by Tolkien would feel 'wrong'? That would imply that some statements are 'right', & that even Tolkien could be wrong in the facts he stated about Middle earth. What strikes me most strongly is this sense that on some level we feel we can judge even Tolkien to have got things 'wrong' - even Aiwendil & I agree that some of the later writings (Myths Transformed) where Tolkien rewrites the cosmology, are 'mistakes' - they don't work - as CT himself more or less admits. Why this general agreement on where Tolkien got it right & where he got it wrong?I agree that my question touches on the issues that you have been exploring, davem, for the reasons that you have stated. Although the "objective reality" theory does not provide the only answer. It could simply be that, having inwardly digested Tolkien's Middle-earth writings, we have become conditioned to his style and to the "atmosphere" (for want of a better word) of the world that he (sub) created and that we are therefore able, almost instinctively, to recognise what fits within that style and that world and what doesn't.

And it's also worth bearing in mind that there are areas where we, as individuals, will disagree on what fits and what doesn't. It is clear from discussions on this board that we will have different views on certain issues which will be incapable of being proved objectively as "right" or "wrong" by reference to Tolkien's works. The issue of homosexuality is one such issue. I personally see no reason why homosexual characters should not exist within Middle-earth, indeed it would seem strange to me if they didn't. And yet others see no place whatsoever for same sex relationships in Middle-earth. Similarly, when I raised the Gollum example above on another thread some time ago, there were those who posted to the effect that Tolkien's speculation on this point worked for them. And there are no doubt those who will happily accept Tolkien's re-writing of Middle-earth cosmology which you and Aiwendil find objection with. These individual variations in what fits in Middle-earth and what doesn't would seem to mitigate against the "objective reality" theory.

And yet, viewed at from the angle at which I have re-phrased the issue, I can see merit in the theory. There is, to use an oxymoron, a "fictional reality" upon which most, if not all, of us can agree, comprising the body of unpublished material which does not conflict with, or which can at least be reconciled with, the published works. It may even go further than that to encompass fan fiction writings (such as Mithadan's Tales of Tol Eressea, which seem to have met with almost universal acceptance) and individual theories on Middle-earth facts and events. Since this material is "unpublished" (in the sense that I am using the word) and, in the case of "universally acceptable" fan fiction etc, does not even flow from Tolkien himself, there is no reason why we should accept it as forming part of our image of Middle-earth almost without question. And yet we do. Why would this be if it were not in some sense real to us, even if it is a "fictional reality"? Hmm, I need to ponder this further ...

HerenIstarion

09-14-2004, 06:59 AM

davem

09-14-2004, 07:34 AM

Just a minor point, for I believe the status of being published is less definitive to the canonicity issue then it may seem. It is very much circumstantial affair - if there were no shortages of paper in the post-war England, or if prior to the war the reader of the publishing house have seen the whole bulk of materials sent in, not the fragments of lays only, or if the post offices worked less or more bona fide and lost or did not loose (this latter we do not know, of course) one or more letters in correspondence of Tolkien with his publishers, if, if, if, if etc,

This is a good point - something I speculated on in the latest Chapter by Chapter thread, where as Awendilpoints out CT says in HoME 7 that Bilbo's song of Earendil that appears in the published text is not the final version, the one that Tolkien intended to publish, its just that when it came time to send the poem to the publisher the final text was mislaid. So, if in the new 50th anniversary edition due out in November (which is supposed to be a definitive version, overseen by CT, & according to the publishers the LotR asTolkien would have wished it to appear) the final version of the poem replaces the one we've had for 50 years, which would be the 'canonical' version? It will include the facsimilies of the pages of the Book of Mazarbul which Tolkien wished included, but were left out for cost reasons - should they be included, as Tolkien originally wanted them in, or excluded, as Tolkien didn't publish an edition including them in his lifetime. And what about smaller errors in the text - ie, in the scene where Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli are pursuing the Uruk Hai, Aragorn finds Pippin's tracks, & says that they must be Pippin's as he was 'smaller than the other' CT points out that this obviously should have been 'smaller than the others, as the first version is quite insultingly phrased. So, which version should stand?

Bêthberry

09-14-2004, 08:15 AM

Oh, this should be fun. More bones with some meat this time to throw into the cauldron of story.

We shall have to look at the structuralists of the last century who amassed their versions of fairy stories and consider their methods in determining the "prime" or "first" version out of which all others derived. Except we would be working forwards.

Or, we could all just dance on the head of a pin. It would be a springle ring dance of course.

:D

Fordim Hedgethistle

09-14-2004, 10:44 AM

I can see the debates now: how many BDers can dance on the head of a pin?

And would they be winged or not, as they did so? :D

Aiwendil

09-14-2004, 10:54 AM

Davem wrote:
I suppose this simply rephrases the question of whether there is some underlying objective 'reality' - because otherwise we would simply accept everything Tolkien wrote as 'fact' - why is it that some statements by Tolkien would feel 'wrong'?

Again we come to the "underlying reality" idea, which, I must confess, I still don't really understand.

Is this underlying reality just a convenient shorthand for referring to some specific fictional reality, such as "Middle-earth as Tolkien would have intended it if he had lived long enough to come to a final decision on everything?"

Is it a Platonic reality - the "essence" of Middle-earth - that exists, factually, on a different plane from our reality?

Is it a literally real place?

At different times, it has seemed to me like each of these contradictory definitions was intended.

But, like The Saucepan Man, I must say that I find it odd to maintain both the fundamental importance of the author and the objective existence of Middle-earth. It seems to me that you can't have it both ways. If Middle-earth has an objective, independent existence and Tolkien was merely "discovering" then you cannot see his work as essentially a manifestation of himself, any more than you can see the Pelopponesian war as a mere manifestation of Thucydides.

On the other hand, if art is really to be thought of in the modern way as a manifestation of the artist, then Middle-earth's origin, in fact its entire existence, is in Tolkien himself, as an artist.

Personally, I don't go for either view - Middle-earth as a real place or art as a manifestation of the artist. But my point here is simply that those two views seem to me to be inconsistent.

As for why we are capable of feeling that certain parts of the text are "wrong" - I see no real mystery about this. For a fact about Middle-earth to seem incorrect it only need contradict, explicitly or implicitly, another fact or set of facts about Middle-earth, one that the reader in question takes to be "true". In the case of The Saucepan Man's example about Gollum - here, based on the facts given in LotR, The Saucepan Man concludes that Gollum would have acted in a certain way had he regained the Ring at Mt. Doom. Tolkien's claim contradicts his conclusion, so he considers Tolkien's claim wrong. The contradiction need not be simple or literal.

In the case of Myths Transformed, I, at least, feel that the new cosmology was "wrong" in the sense that it damaged the story. There was no need for, nor in fact possibility of, Tolkien making the Silmarillion scientifically believable; hence the contortions he went through trying to achieve that believability only harmed the story. I don't need to hypothesize that there is a real Middle-earth and that it started out flat in order to come to this conclusion.

mark12_30

09-14-2004, 11:09 AM

Again we come to the "underlying reality" idea, which, I must confess, I still don't really understand.

Tolkien also asked a similar question, it seems to me:

Whence came the wish, and whence the power to dream,
or some things fair and others ugly deem?

davem

09-14-2004, 12:38 PM

I must say that I find it odd to maintain both the fundamental importance of the author and the objective existence of Middle-earth. It seems to me that you can't have it both ways. If Middle-earth has an objective, independent existence and Tolkien was merely "discovering" then you cannot see his work as essentially a manifestation of himself, any more than you can see the Pelopponesian war as a mere manifestation of Thucydides.

On the other hand, if art is really to be thought of in the modern way as a manifestation of the artist, then Middle-earth's origin, in fact its entire existence, is in Tolkien himself, as an artist.

Ok, lets take Niggle's tree - did Niggle 'invent' the tree, or did he merely 'communicate' the real tree's image to the world? The Tree may have a real existence but that doesn't invalidate Niggle's role in making the idea of it available to those who couldn't exprience it directly. What Niggle does is not unimportant, his role is in no way negligeable. Niggle is a vital part of the process of comunicating something REAL.

Its not a case of 'having it both ways'. Niggle's painting is of THE Tree, but at a particular moment in time, from a particular angle, but the Tree itself is a living thing. Niggle makes available an image of it. Whether we're speaking of a 'Platonic' reality here is another question, & I don't think it is that, exactly.

I think Tolkien was 'in touch' with something, but what its exact form & nature is, I can't say - its too abstract - Truth, Reality, Meaning. Tolkien gave it a particular form, in order to make it accessible & understandable. I'm not wishing to imply that Middle earth exists exactly as Tolkien described it. But there is 'something' there which is communicated to the reader by the stories. The stories open us up to something which cannot be expressed directly. Like parables they communicate in symbolic form something which can't be communicated any other way -not platitudes about self sacrifice & loss & good vs evil, but some other, underlying Truth about us & our nature.

The form Tolkien gives to those 'Truths' are his own, so he is vital to the comunication process. Those 'Truths' are to my mind essential things. I can't be clearer, but the alternative, that they are simply stories, with no inherent connection to that 'Truth' doesn't work for me, & I can't understand it, because for me, that 'Truth' is a fact. Whatever it is - if I ever experience it directly I am convinced that my response will be like Niggle's on seeing 'his' Tree - it will remind me of nothing so much as Middle earth.

HerenIstarion

09-14-2004, 02:06 PM

Is it a literally real place?

Sometimes I think it is both and the third too :).

Er... how do you define real?

If the real world is the one communicated to the brain by means of senses, than Tolkien's world is real, just the routes of communication are poorer - merely sight, no other senses taking part in the process. I suppose, if I were from the day of my birth, say, placed into some locked room, and my only means of getting data about outside world were books, on my own, unless told by someone that Tolkien's was a 'fiction', I would believe it to be the history, and maybe reject some genuine and verily real biography as a work entirely made up?

If real is something which conforms to standard of 'reality' inherent to human beings, than something may be more 'real', less 'real' or as 'real' etc. Like PC helmet and gauntlet and costume (I don't know the correct terms, but I believe you know what I mean). If the programme substituting the 'real' world is done prefectly, there is no way of telling you are inside it. But, there is no way of telling that what we experience now is not such a substitue, but 'real' world either. (er, Matrix, of course, may have had something to do with it, but not much - that piece of thinking was done long before Neo. Nevertheless, Matrix may be a goodly illustration to it)

Furthermore, if there were such a 'standard of reality', some built-in ability of recognition of it, than the fact that LoTR 'rings true' for such a great number of people may be an indicator of:

A. The world Tolkien described is the real place (I certainly knew it was real up to my middle teens. Than I grew up, but sometimes I still wonder - which of me - the one dozen years back or the current one, - is right?)
B. His skill of an artist was so great, and subcreation so perfect, that the likeness to real world achieved is astounding

But, even if it were B option we are in for here, the distinction somehow ceases to matter? As in both cases we react to it as to 'real place'? (Unless, of course, some Morpheus (not the old type, the other one, one of leather coat and red pill) comes to drag us out of it)

Besides, the question (with a capital T stuck into it) hovers somewhere beyond sight, yet very much present - um, where exactly the built-in standard of reality came from?

PS

If it does remind you of invisible cats in chairs, please do not hesitate to inform me :)

Lalwendë

09-14-2004, 02:35 PM

I resisted for long enough...

Everyone makes their own 'truths', this is the nature of us as individuals. Why else would there be so much debate over the meaning of things like Tolkien, the Bible, politics, etc. When I say we 'make' our own truths, these are obviously tempered by what we learn along the way, our upbringing, our life experience, what someone else on the 'Downs thinks. Eveyone brings their own truths to Tolkien as readers. For example, I have a big interest in archaeology, history, words, and as such, I pick up on these things in Tolkien. Others may have strong faiths which they bring to the books and so they pick up on these aspects. I even know someone who views the books in a marxist way. All these differing ways of reading don't mean that I can't necessarily appreciate the other person's point of view - I want to know what other people think.

I do think that the writer creates his (or her) 'world', and sets out their vision of 'truth', and that it is there for our taking, but that we also bring ourselves to the work. When a person reads, for example, a political text, they are looking for a meaning, but those parts which resonate with their own experience are the parts which they will take most away from. And, a reader will also pick up on other parts of a text and assimilate this as a new aspect of their 'truth'.

Words are a frightening thing, the writer puts them down intending one thing, but the reader can take away a whole other meaning. As an example, I have written speeches in my line of work, and these take a long time to perfect, as every word must be carefully placed, yet those who hear them do pick up on things all the time which had lain unnoticed. And this is the spoken word, which is tempered by nuance and gesture; the written word has a lot more potential to cause debate. After all, who hasn't written an e-mail that has been taken the wrong way?

We have facts about Middle Earth (or think we do, some are also debatable), but as for meanings of things in the text, we all take away differing ideas - and I'm all for it, or else there would be no 'Downs and no enjoyable debate, which in itself can help us to form new 'truths'.

Aiwendil

09-14-2004, 02:55 PM

Davem wrote:
What Niggle does is not unimportant, his role is in no way negligeable. Niggle is a vital part of the process of comunicating something REAL.

I agree. And I certainly do think that Tolkien is important as the author, and would be important as a mere historian if in fact Middle-earth literally did exist and he had literally discovered it. My point was that if you see Middle-earth as a real place that exists independent of Tolkien, then you cannot see it as being ultimately subservient to and completely predicated upon Tolkien's will. To put it another way: would you say that the real Middle-earth defines canon or that Tolkien's intent defines canon?

HerenIstarion wrote:
Er... how do you define real?

You might not want to ask me that question. I'm afraid that if I begin to answer it I'll have trouble stopping. If you really wonder what I think about it (or are interested in an extremely long-winded but fascinating debate) you might want to take a look at the later pages of this thread at the Tolkien Forum (http://www.thetolkienforum.com/showthread.php?t=11358).

But honestly I don't think it's necessary to get into metaphysics or empiricism. What I mean when I ask whether it's a "real" place is simply whether it is a place in the same way as Madagascar or Canada or Mars. And if not, then what is it?

The Saucepan Man

09-14-2004, 06:15 PM

Just a minor point, for I believe the status of being published is less definitive to the canonicity issue then it may seem.My point in taking the works published by Tolkien during his lifetime as "pure canon" is that these are the texts that he actively placed in the hands of his readers (whatever he may have intended had the circumstances been different). Once published, they could not be altered, save in minor, primarily typographical and philological, respects which did not actually change the facts presented. With one very important exception, namely the change that Tolkien made to the Riddles in the Dark chapter in The Hobbit to reconcile it with the story that he was writing in LotR. This incident seems to me to be highly significant in two respects. First, it indicates that it was important to Tolkien that his published works were complimentary rather than contradictory. And secondly, it is apparent that he felt it necessary to come up with a reason as to why Bilbo would have related the first (inaccurate) account of how the Ring came into his possession, so as to explain away that account having been given in the original editions of The Hobbit. These two factors suggest to me that Tolkien attached great importance to the publishing of his works, ie the process by which they were placed in the hands of his readers.

So, while the "published" works are, in effect, cast in stone, it is quite possible (and indeed quite likely) that the "facts" which were published following his death (in The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, the HoME series and the Letters) would have taken on a different shape had he published them himself. They therefore potentially, but by no means certainly, incorporate the facts about Middle-earth that he would actively have placed in his readers hands, had he had the opportunity and/or inclination to do so. That is why I do not class these materials as "pure canon" along with the texts published in his lifetime.

But it is not a definition that I would go to the wall for. I am quite content to class the "unpublished" materials as part of the "canon" of Middle-earth. Doing so, however, only makes the answer to the question that I posed clearer. We accept the materials in these "unpublished" texts, to the extent that they are unambiguous and do not conflict with, or can be reconciled with, the "published" texts because they do in fact form part of the fictional account of Middle-earth. It makes it more difficult to reject them if they do not "feel right" to us, but I think that we can still do so where they are the product of speculation on Tolkien's part (such as my Gollum example) or where it is apparent that Tolkien had not reached any final conclusion on them (as I suspect is the case with the cosmology of Middle-earth, although I have not read the relevant texts myself).

Furthermore, if there were such a 'standard of reality', some built-in ability of recognition of it, than the fact that LoTR 'rings true' for such a great number of people may be an indicator of:

A. The world Tolkien described is the real place (I certainly knew it was real up to my middle teens. Than I grew up, but sometimes I still wonder - which of me - the one dozen years back or the current one, - is right?)
B. His skill of an artist was so great, and subcreation so perfect, that the likeness to real world achieved is astoundingI would, of course, unhesitatingly go for B (with the caveat that I do not see it as astoundingly alike to the real world, but rather astoundingly internally consistent and credible as an alternative world). That, no doubt, is where I was going with my "fictional reality" idea. He was not, of course, such a skilful artist as to be able to produce a world which does not jar in some (and different) respects with some people. Then again, what artist, having produced such a wealth of material, would be? (Don't answer that, Helen ;) .)

We know that (infinate parallel universe theories aside) Middle-earth does not exist because we know that it is a work of fiction. And if we get into questioning whether Middle-earth might exist because we cannot definitively prove that it does not exist, then we start questioning the very basis of reality itself. Who is to say that the world around me is not simply a figment of my imagination, or a dream from which I shall shortly wake up? Well, who indeed. But where does that kind of analysis get us on a practical level? We have to have a basis for determining reality, and the starting point is the evidence provided to us by our senses and by those that we trust. And that evidence tells me in no uncertain terms that LotR et al are works of fiction.

I think Tolkien was 'in touch' with something, but what its exact form & nature is, I can't say - its too abstract - Truth, Reality, Meaning. Tolkien gave it a particular form, in order to make it accessible & understandable. This is, of course an entirely different proposition to saying either, on the one hand, that Tolkien's world rings true to us solely because it is incredibly well crafted or, on the other, that it does so because it actually physically exists. I don't doubt that there is something within Tolkien's works that can put some of those who read them in touch with some very basic and fundamental aspects of human nature, but I have probably already made my thoughts on this issue quite clear at various stages during this discussion. So I will take it no further, save to reiterate that, like Aiwendil, I do not believe that a spiritual or metaphysical explanation is necessarily required.

Finally, massive kudos to Lalwendë, who manged to say in one single post precisely what I have been trying to say throughout much of this thread. :rolleyes: :D

davem

09-15-2004, 01:48 AM

Everyone makes their own 'truths', this is the nature of us as individuals.

Does this work? What exactly does 'truth' mean in this context? Opinion? can something be considered 'true' simply because an individual believes it? Doesn't it have to be related to 'Facts', to a concept of what is TRUE. Mathematics doesn't work in that way, why should metaphysics? If we're all simply to pick what we like, believe it, & have it generally accepted as 'true' because of that, where do we end up? Its equivalent to people rejecting the established moral code (Ten commandments, whatever) because they refuse to be bound by traditional morality & feel they should be free to determine what is moral & immoral. What we usually end up with in most cases is people constructing a 'moral' code for themselves which permits them the freedom to do whatever they wish & only forbids them to do things that they wouldn't want to do anyway. A Nazi or a paedophile could construct a 'moral' code of their own which declared that death camps or child abuse is 'good', & if we all construct our own moral codes without reference to anything 'objective' or 'transcendent', & determine our own 'truth' how can we argue with them? If we set out to stop them doing what they have determined is 'good' then our only justification would be that our 'truth' (though no more 'valid' than theirs) is backed by our superior strength - they become in their own minds 'martyrs', being persecuted for their beliefs.

So the question is still whether the Good, the True, the Real exist metaphysically, & provide an objective standard by which to judge the individual's own concepts of good, true, real.

In other words, I don't think we can simply dismiss the question by saying that we all determine 'truth' for ourselves (well, not unless we live in [b]H-I[/i]'s cell, or alone on some island.

If there is some metaphysical Reality, Good, Truth on which we can base our judgements, measure them against, then my feeling is that it cannot be experienced directly, in terms of what we call 'facts ' in this world. It could only be communicated through symbolism, parable, metaphor. Now all those things can be perverted to a greater or lesser degree, but that's not inevitable. My feeling is that we have an innate sense of 'Right', 'Real', 'Good', 'True', & that when we encounter it we respond to it. We know that herding people into gas ovens or abusing children is WRONG, not because we have happened to construct our own 'truth' which confirms that, but because, even though we might not be able to cite a long list of 'logical' facts against it (its not like either of those practices is likely to lead to a threat to the existence of the human race - overpopulation is a major problem & any practices which 'thinned out' our numbers may even benefit our survival - let the weakest go to the wall - if the strong go to the wall in defense of the weak, who'd be left to defend the weak: they wouldn't survive long anyway). But we don't think that way, & not for 'logical' reasons.

So, my position is that the Good, True, Real are 'facts', but not 'facts' that can be tested in a lab. They exist & it is possible to know them & to communicate them to others, to speak of them. Clearly this was Tolkien's original intent, at least, & though he seemed to shy away from saying it in his later life, I don't think he ever lost or rejected that desire. Even in his depiction of orc speech he shied away from putting really foul language into their mouths. He wished to communicate his love of the natural world, his values, to us through his 'fiction' but I don't for a minute believe that he felt he had 'invented' those values, any more than CS Lewis did.

His fiction was an attempt not simply to pass on those values, but to 'awaken' his readers to the direct experience of them. Obviously he struggled over the best way to do that, to give a form to those 'Truths' which would make them as accessible as possible. Mythology for him, a self consistent, 'believable' mythology was the most effective way.

The question is not simply how we read the books, what we bring to them, how we interpret them. Its also whether Tolkien was right, & whether that 'metaphysical' reality is true. Has Tolkien anything to teach us that we don't know, or more importantly, anything that we've forgotten?

The Saucepan Man

09-15-2004, 02:47 AM

Does this work? What exactly does 'truth' mean in this context? Opinion? can something be considered 'true' simply because an individual believes it? .. Its equivalent to people rejecting the established moral code (Ten commandments, whatever) because they refuse to be bound by traditional morality & feel they should be free to determine what is moral & immoral. What we usually end up with in most cases is people constructing a 'moral' code for themselves which permits them the freedom to do whatever they wish & only forbids them to do things that they wouldn't want to do anyway.But when Lalwendë talks of "personal truth", she is referring to the individual reader's personal interpretation of a fictional text. That is a world away from actions that impacts upon others or upon society as a whole. I see no contradiction between individuals choosing to interpret a fictional text as they see fit while at the same time considering themselves bound by society's moral and legal values in their interactions with that society and others within it. It is only when they come to share their interpretation with others, either through discussion or publication, that such social values will have any bearing upon that interpretation.

So the question is still whether the Good, the True, the Real exist metaphysically, & provide an objective standard by which to judge the individual's own concepts of good, true, real.I believe that the concepts you identify can be scientifically explained, while acknowledging that their basis in science cannot be definitively proved. I am not definitively rejecting a metaphysical origin, but rather simply making the point that it is not the only possible explanation.

His fiction was an attempt not simply to pass on those values, but to 'awaken' his readers to the direct experience of them. I do not disagree with that statement. But, as I have said, a metaphysical explanation is not necessarily required for the values which he was seeking to pass on.

Lalwendë

09-15-2004, 03:51 AM

My feeling is that we have an innate sense of 'Right', 'Real', 'Good', 'True', & that when we encounter it we respond to it. We know that herding people into gas ovens or abusing children is WRONG, not because we have happened to construct our own 'truth' which confirms that, but because, even though we might not be able to cite a long list of 'logical' facts against it

I was indeed talking of readers' individual responses to texts - it's those darned words again, wreaking havoc...

Our sense of right and wrong is learned. If we did not learn these things then we would exist on the primitive level of survival and instinct alone. As children we are disciplined if we steal, or swear or use bad manners. Witness the unfortunate children who do not have parents or guardians who care to teach them, they do not gain an understanding of what society at large sees as right and wrong, and they act against society. If we did not learn about the horrors of the Nazi regime then we would not know that these things happened and these things are wrong. And the men who were involved in these things, many of them were taught that this was the right thing to do, they learned that they did these things or they would face the cruelty of the regime themselves.

Our 'truths' are learned. The things I have learned and my experiences have resulted in one of my 'truths' being that all religious beliefs are equally valid, and that they are also personal. But many do not think this, even those closest to me, as their 'truth' is different, they have one belief, or no belief and their 'truth' is this.

Recently there was a link to an article which linked elements of LOTR to the Iraq war; many of us found this ludicrous and wondered why this argument had been constructed. But the person who wrote it was applying their 'truth' to the text. While I did not agree with it, I learned something from it (maybe not what the writer intended, though...). And others on the 'Downs also did not agree with it, which showed that there is a consensus about certain 'truths' held by others, that they do not have as much validity as others. This shows that we have our individual 'truth', but that we are also swayed by collective 'truth'.

Edit: And my contribution to the argument, this is part of my own 'truth', and others have different 'truths'. This might seem like philosophical fence-sitting, but this is all part of what I am trying to say.

HerenIstarion

09-15-2004, 04:41 AM

With great respect of much common sense and logic displayed in the process, I rather lean to define 'personal truth' of Lalwende's post as 'opinion'.

Remember the murderer and his 'personal truth' of some pages back. I am forced to bring him/her back again, even if it is foricble dragging in of 'real life' into 'bookish' discussion.

For if we stick to the 'personal truth', we loose the right of judgement of any action not by ourselves. If 'personal truth' is what matters, than Nazis (again, mentioned in the previous) were rigth in doing what they've done - their actions were in compliance with their own 'personal truths'. Sauron was right - his 'personal truth' required an order that he only could carry out. Saruman was right, etc, etc. and the whole plot of LoTR degrades down from "Holy War of Good against Evil' down to mere strive for survival, where strongest lives on, taking not fit to the wall. Or, how you judge which 'personal truth' is better? For you will judge it, no doubt about it. Everyone does it on daily basis - Mr. X is better than Mr Y, as the latter beats his wife. But why beating of one;s wife is bad, if 'personal truth' is what matters - surely, Mr Y's 'personal truth' allows for such a behavior?

When one compares something to another thing, he/she inevitably compares both to some standard of 'eternal good', something inherent, built-in. The one which complies more is therefore counted as 'better', any action can be measured against it, and come out more true, less true or as true as some other action.

So, my opinion is as good as yours, and yours as good as mine, if it is only an opinion. Say, I like blue, and you red. Both are equal. But if in pursuit of my warm feeling, I paint your house blue, is it right? My 'personal truth' allowed me to do it. Well, convention tells me that the house belonging to someone else is not mine to pain blue, but if I proclaim that my 'personal truth' does not recognize such a 'bourgeois' and 'Philistine' conventions, and if I insist on my right to paint it blue, I'll end up in jail.

And I would not be able to appeal to justice, for the whole concept of justice is lost if all we have is 'personal truth'. I'd be merely outnumbered by similar 'personal truths' which agreed upon convention that painting other people's houses blue is to be punished by jail sentence.

Lalwendë

09-15-2004, 06:36 AM

This thread is sucking me into the quicksand like so many others have been drawn in before me :eek: ...

Yes, when I say 'truths' I am talking about our opinions and beliefs (whether religious, political, philosophical) which we bring to the text. I see I should be distinguishing between our moral 'truths' and our opinion 'truths'. Words again...

I still think that as humans we must be taught our way in the world. This does not mean that if someone goes against society that they can get away with any heinous crime just by claiming that 'they did not know any better'. We must put these things into context and while the person is appropriately punished if necessary, we must also ensure that they learn.

The difficult thing is that our morals and our opinions can be very indistinct at times, and getting back on topic and tying this in with Tolkien, I can see that he recognised this. The example I often draw upon is the character of Gollum - I could discuss him for a long time and still come to no conclusion about whether he was good or bad.

davem

09-15-2004, 10:10 AM

It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. elf & Dwarf in company walk in our daily fields; & folk speak with the Lady of the Wood & yet live, & th esword comes back to war that was broken in the long ages ere the father's of our fathers rode into the Mark! How shall a man judge what to do in such times?'

'As he ever has judged.' said Aragorn. 'Good & ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among elves & Dwarves & another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'

'As much in the Golden Wood as in his own house'. As much in fiction as in 'real' life. Fiction doesn't have different rules, & 'personal truth' is not different in fiction. An immoral act is an immoral act, because our standards of judgement are (or should be) constant.

If I judge the events of 9/11, or the recent horrors in the school at Beslan, to be 'Wrong' & the terrorists who commited them judge them to be 'Right', is that really just down to the way I've been brought up? And is my judgement no more 'True' than Osama bin Laden's? Both equally valid? Yet if they aren't equally valid, then on what can I base my claim that my judgement is better, if not to some objective standard?

This kind of moral equivalence of all views is what produces the Saruman's - why shouldn't one see Sauron's point, surely he is doing what he believs is 'right'? In fact, maybe he is right - its all down to point of view after all, & if you can't beat 'em, join 'em'.

I can't understand this approach of judging fiction (the 'Golden Wood') differently from fact ('one's own house'). This approach - our morality is simply what we've been taught is simply another form of denying the artist has anything to teach us, & that all we find in a work of art is what we bring to it, everything is subjective. But that's the way the Ring corrupts, it convinces you that everything is relative, & your own 'good' is as valid as any other, because all there is is 'survival of the fittest' - ie of the 'fittest' 'good'. But that's where the 'wraithing process' begins, because if there's no objective standard by which to judge (''As heever has judged.') then where's the hope?

Tolkien is stating his position very clearly in this scene, & saying that it is based on an 'objective' standard, & if its 'objective' then (for Tolkien at least) it applies in every 'world'.

The example I often draw upon is the character of Gollum - I could discuss him for a long time and still come to no conclusion about whether he was good or bad.

Its not a question for me of whether Gollum was 'good' or 'bad' he did some good things & some bad things - ie he made moral choices, & immoral choices at different times, & we can all distinguish which was which, because we judge him not by his moral code, or our own, but by an objective standard, as Aragorn points out.

The Saucepan Man

09-15-2004, 11:10 AM

Davem, I think you are misunderstanding what Lalwendë and I are saying. Neither of us is saying that individuals view fiction and reality from two different moral perspectives. Of course, peoples’ morals remain the same whether they are reading a novel or the newspaper.

But Lalwendë's first post on this point (#470) was not discussing morality at all. Rather, it was simply pointing out that different individuals have different perspectives, beliefs and experiences and will therefore react differently to a text and take slightly different things from it. Surely there is nothing controversial in that. I think that the use of the word “individual truth” may have led to this confusion, but Lalwendë has made it clear that, by this, she indeed meant “individual opinion”.

So, to start talking about the road that Saruman went down on top of that seems slightly odd to me. :eek: But, since you and HerenIstarian have raised the issue of morality in the context of what she said …

First, I should reiterate that I believe that there is such a thing as a moral consensus (or standard, if you prefer), or at least a consensus on what comprise basic moral values. (There are, to my mind grey, areas, such as the question of capital punishment which I raised earlier on this thread, but lets stick with the basics.) Although I believe that these basic moral values do not necessarily require a metaphysical explanation, that matters not for the purposes of what I say below.

Now, there are undeniably people who will read a piece of fiction such as LotR from a moral standpoint which differs from the consensus (we discussed some of them earlier – the white supremacists). The point that I am trying to make is that, while their moral standpoint will be “right” to them as individuals, it will be “wrong” as far as the moral consensus is concerned. So, they will have to face the consequences (social, legal etc) if they seek to interact with others in society on the basis of their individual moral standpoint.

To use an extreme example, if someone was to read LotR and decide that it justified unprovoked attacks on Arabic people simply because the human allies of Sauron came from the east of Middle-earth, that would be unacceptable from the point of view of the moral consensus.

But, although we can seek to persuade, we cannot (unless we bring in the thought police) force those whose moral outlook differs from the “standard” to conform to it. Now, if Tolkien was, through LotR, seeking to persuade people towards the moral standard, all well and good. I salute him. But there will always be those (including amongst those who enjoy the book) who can, or will, not be persuaded.

davem

09-15-2004, 12:55 PM

Ok, I accept that in making my points I have presented other's points in too extreme a way, but I'm not sure I can go along with all the distinctions you make. When Tolkien has Aragorn say:

'Good & ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among elves & Dwarves & another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'

He is surely stating that in his view morality is not subjective - he says a man must discern the diference between good & ill, rather than choose for himself. The implication is that the Good exists objectively, & is not something we must decide on for ourselves. This seems to imply that we don't have freedom to decide what is good, only to discern it & live up to it. So, while we may have 'different perspectives, beliefs and experiences ' we are not free to use them as an excuse to decide what constitutes the Good.

So how much weight should we give to our own beliefs? In Tolkien's view it seems that even our personal perspectives & beliefs can be 'wrong', out of synch with the Good, & if so they have to be changed. This was my point about, as far as possible, putting aside the baggage we bring with us & listening to what the artist is saying, in order to be able to discern the Truth which is 'out there'. In other words, we may have 'different perspectives, beliefs and experiences' but as Aragorn tells Eomer, that's no excuse for not acknowleging the 'facts' & doing the right thing.

So from Tolkien's perspective its not correct to say:

if someone was to read LotR and decide that it justified unprovoked attacks on Arabic people simply because the human allies of Sauron came from the east of Middle-earth, that would be unacceptable from the point of view of the moral consensus.

because it wouldn't simply be unacceptable from the point of view of the moral consensus, it would be wrong from the point of view of the Good, whatever the moral consensus happened to be, because the 'moral consensus' only has value to the extent to which it corresponds to the Good.

HerenIstarion

09-15-2004, 01:01 PM

Um, moral consensus... let us count - Sauron and his allies outnumbered people of the West at least ten to one. So, the moral consensus was against Aragorn & Co. and Gandalf must have been morally pervert...

But that is just a prank of mine. I understand your position SpM, when overheated on the issue I was correctly checked back by Aiwendil (the Cold Shower :)) - up there, on page 11.

It seems to bounce back on Canonicity issue with regards to the quote provided by davem (I remember using it in similar situation back on page 6 or 7, i.e. - we are discussing in circles, it seems) - i.e. the author believed in the standard which was set, no deviations. Following Aiwendil the reader should believe the standard too only whilst suspending his disbelief - reading the book - as it is a given fact for ME only - the Good is one for everyone and everywhere. There is no given 'fact' of similar nature for our world (unless the circumstantial evidence of existence of such concepts as Good and Evil does not convince you). I wish we could extrapolate it outta da text, but, - this is 'real' world, where sheer number defines the truth. Can't beat them, but won't join them either.

But I have stumbled upon an idea here - the fancy is upon me that I finally know why LoTR is so popular. Of course, there is a spell, there is a plot, and there is a language, but the moral Fact is what draws many of us in - it is the world where Good is, where Truth is, and the task is only to discern them, not to find them in the first place, as is the case in ours. That is, for most of us. For, unfortunately or fortunately, I maintain that every man, in his heart of hearts, knows what is Good, with or without upbringing. We just have wagonload of good excuses not to see it. It does not help our yearning for standard Truth, though, so we find our solace in ME, where it is at the same time harder and yet easier to be a 'good guy'.

Opinions re: of course, we have different opinions - um, I reckon this thread would not reach its length without such a multitude of opinion :)

cheers

Lalwendë

09-15-2004, 01:26 PM

This approach - our morality is simply what we've been taught is simply another form of denying the artist has anything to teach us, & that all we find in a work of art is what we bring to it, everything is subjective.

davem - I do not say that all we take from a text is that which we (consciously or not) seek to find within it:

When a person reads, for example, a political text, they are looking for a meaning, but those parts which resonate with their own experience are the parts which they will take most away from. And, a reader will also pick up on other parts of a text and assimilate this as a new aspect of their 'truth'.

This I view as part of the process of reading and engaging in culture in general. We view the text with our own, individual eyes and minds, and we recognise aspects which do resonate within our own experience. But we also learn new things, new 'truths'. I wouldn't try to deny this! But exactly what these truths are that we are learning from any one text, they could well be different from what the next person is picking up on.

I for one, should hate to think that there is a right and a wrong way to understand a text, as this would reduce the pleasure in reading and re-reading, throughout the many and various stages in my life; each time I go back to reading LOTR I have been through new experiences and the text resonates in many different ways each time. Perhaps I respond to my reading on a deep emotional level to some degree, but to do otherwise would seem clinical to me.

I have one example here of how my own 'truth' changed and how it affected my reading of LOTR. Before I suffered a massive accident I had always read Frodo's behaviour as being entirely attributable to the power of the ring and thought at no deeper level about this matter; now with my new experience, I can see Frodo's actions and reactions in the light of my own experience, and I see my suffering reflected in his. Others would not accept this at all, but this is not wrong of them.

And another thing. This is a good discussion, and I am learning a lot from it, but there are people who would think it was morally wrong to discuss the nature of morality at all.

HerenIstarion

09-15-2004, 01:32 PM

Lalwendë, you are stuck now just like to us, your doom hence will be to come back to this thread and haunt it, forewer! :rolleyes:

PS

mwa-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

PPS

We need some discussion of definitions again, I believe. Aiwendil, I haven't read the whole 9 pages of the link you provided me with yet (lack of time), but the 'meaning of meaning' discussion on the last page was enlightening, thank you :)

Aiwendil

09-15-2004, 06:24 PM

HerenIstarion wrote:
We need some discussion of definitions again, I believe.

Ah! There's my signal (just as Tom Bombadil can be summoned by song, I will inevitably appear in the rare case that someone actually asks for a discussion of definitions).

I must say that I'm somewhat confused by the turn the thread has taken. One moment the discussion concerns "canonicity", the question of the author's importance, and the nature of imaginary worlds. Then suddenly I find myself reading a tirade against moral relativism and even a passing discussion of metaphysics.

I think that the biggest mistake that people tend to make in philosophical-type discussions is the transmutation of an argument on one level into an argument on another. You see this kind of thing all of the time in discussions of free-will, for example - someone will make a psychological or sociological argument as if it can prove a metaphysical point.

I think that something like that is happening here, or trying to happen. It's tempting to resort to real-world moral philosophy in arguing a point about a fictional world. But if you want to have a meaningful discussion regarding that fictional world, you have to suspend your moral disbelief, as it were, and accept that world's morality. I, for example, don't subscribe to the notion in real life that an objective moral code has its source in God. However, in a discussion of Tolkien's work I will unhesitatingly argue that Eru is the ultimate source of good.

So with respect to the validity of different interpretations of morality in Middle-earth, real moral philosphy ought to be completely superceded by Middle-earth's own moral philsophy. Of course it's still quite possible for there to be disagreements about what that moral philosophy is, exactly - but the presumption must always be that, to the extent to which there is a clear moral philosophy outlined in the texts, it must be taken as correct.

Davem is right - there is no question that in Tolkien's universe, morality is objective. But I don't see that anyone has argued otherwise.

I feel like I still haven't grasped how exactly the discussion made this, I would say, false turn. But we ought to be careful to have at least some idea what we are arguing about and then to rely on arguments that do in fact have point with respect the topic.

I understand even less how metaphysics comes into it.

The Saucepan Man

09-15-2004, 06:52 PM

Um, moral consensus... let us count - Sauron and his allies outnumbered people of the West at least ten to one. So, the moral consensus was against Aragorn & Co. and Gandalf must have been morally pervert...

He is surely stating that in his view morality is not subjective I am most definately not saying that morality is subjective or that it is dependent upon weight of numbers (although there are those who would make such arguments). There are many examples, past and present, that convince me that this cannot be the case. Perhaps the word "consensus" is wrong, so let's go for "objective moral standards".

... the 'moral consensus' only has value to the extent to which it corresponds to the Good.Again, a misunderstanding arising from my use of "consensus". My point is that "objective moral standards" do correspond to the concept of "good", whether you believe their source to be some higher Authority or you believe that they developed that way because what's "good" is good for the continuation of society and therefore the human race as a whole. In telling a tale of good and evil, Tolkien was reflecting these objective moral standards. I don't think we disagree on this, although we might disagree on the origins of morality.

... the moral Fact is what draws many of us in - it is the world where Good is, where Truth is, and the task is only to discern them, not to find them in the first place, as is the case in ours. That is, for most of us. For, unfortunately or fortunately, I maintain that every man, in his heart of hearts, knows what is Good, with or without upbringing. We just have wagonload of good excuses not to see it.Well, to an extent (and disregarding those bothersome capitals ;) ), I agree with you. But I don't think it's that simple. As I have said, there are, in real life, massive grey areas on the borders of "morality". Whereas, its Boromirs and Gollum/Smeagols notwithstanding, LotR is essentially a very "black and white" tale. Subject to limited exceptions, it is easy to tell who is good and who is evil, and easy to see why they are so. It's not quite so easy in real life.

Is the terrorist who wins independence for his country and becomes a great statesman good or evil? There are, in our recent history, examples of such people who are hailed as great heroes. Were the sailors, adrift at sea in a lifeboat, who drew straws and murdered and ate their comrade so that not all of them would die, good or evil? Moral conundrums abound in real life, but are rare, it seems to me, in LotR. What does it, or any of Tolkien's other works, have to tell us in this regard?

I for one, should hate to think that there is a right and a wrong way to understand a textWell, courtesy of those repugnant white supremacists, I have to acknowledge that there are "wrong" ways to read LotR. But I agree that there is no one "right" way. (I seem to recall having a conversation with Mister Underhill on this many pages ago ...).

we are discussing in circles, it seemsUndoubtedly, but not ever-decreasing ones, it would appear. ;)

Edit after cross-posting with Aiwendil:

I must say that I'm somewhat confused by the turn the thread has taken. One moment the discussion concerns "canonicity", the question of the author's importance, and the nature of imaginary worlds. Then suddenly I find myself reading a tirade against moral relativism and even a passing discussion of metaphysics.As I understand it, this conversation arose around the proposition that Tolkien's works in general, and LotR in particular, reflect moral standards in our world and that we can learn from it in this regard. I don't necessarily disagree with that as a general proposition, although I see the sources of morality in Middle-earth and our world as different (as, like you, I accept that concepts of good and morality in Middle-earth derive from Eru).

davem

09-16-2004, 01:25 AM

But Tolkien didn't draw a distinction between the moral value system of Middle earth & the moral value system of this world. The worlds differed in their inhabitants, geography, etc, but not in their underlying moral value system. There are 'grey areas' in both worlds, but I think this is not because the Good, the True & the Real are different in the two worlds, but because circumstances dictate how closely we can adhere to them.

Middle earth & this world are (in Tolkien's eyes) fallen worlds, & we are fallen inhabitants of those worlds. Therefore we cannot live up to the required standards, but we have to try to the best of our ability. Boromir fails to live up to that required standard, & there are understandable reasons - his background, his experiences, his beliefs - but Tolkien is clear in his attitude to Boromir - Boromir does wrong when he tries to take the Ring, whatever Boromir himself might believe at the time. Its not that 'In Tolkien's universe morality is objective' as Aiwendil puts it, its that from Tolkien's pov morality is objective, in a man's house or in the Golden Wood. The distinction simply doesn't stand for Tolkien. Its like claiming that Jesus sets out one moral value system in his parables, but that the moral value system in this world is different. Tolkien's original intent was to awaken people to an objective moral value system through his stories, by presenting that objective standard to us through an invented mythology.

This is why I don't see Aiwendil's point:
I must say that I'm somewhat confused by the turn the thread has taken. One moment the discussion concerns "canonicity", the question of the author's importance, and the nature of imaginary worlds. Then suddenly I find myself reading a tirade against moral relativism and even a passing discussion of metaphysics
because for me they're two aspects of the same thing. The issue is about what the author is doing & how successfully he does it. Of course, if you believe it is 'art for art's sake' then the two things are totally seperate, if you believe the art had a moral purpose then its different aspects of the same thing, like discussing Shakespeare's intent in Hamlet, his philosophical value system, & asking how well he communicated it to his audience via his 'secondary world' of Elsinore. If Elsinore & its inhabitants had not been believable his message would not have communicated itself as effectively as it did. Or if Elsinore had been believeable as a secondary world, but the 'metaphysics' unconvincing the play would not speak to us. I don't see the seperation. The message must be convincing, & so must the means of comunication. Truth communicated through Art. The Truth must be true & the Art must be artistic or no-one will care, it will not speak to anyone.

I for one, should hate to think that there is a right and a wrong way to understand a text, as this would reduce the pleasure in reading and re-reading, throughout the many and various stages in my life; each time I go back to reading LOTR I have been through new experiences and the text resonates in many different ways each time. Perhaps I respond to my reading on a deep emotional level to some degree, but to do otherwise would seem clinical to me.

This isn't what I'm saying - my own re-readings of the text bring me new insights & understandings - I learn something new each time, because I'm more open to the truth the older I get & the more experiences I have, but the Truth is constant, & its about coming closer to it.

Lalwendë

09-16-2004, 05:38 AM

One moment the discussion concerns "canonicity", the question of the author's importance, and the nature of imaginary worlds. Then suddenly I find myself reading a tirade against moral relativism and even a passing discussion of metaphysics.

Well, one of the things I was hoping to get at from my first post on the thread was that in my opinion, there is a lot of weight in the theory that the reader constructs meanings - but I think everyone has picked up on the more philosophical side (and there's nothing wrong with that, it's an interesting discussion).

Anyway...if you take on board that each reader does have differing opinions and experiences then it is not such a big step to realising that there is potential for each reader to construct 'truths' of their own. Whether these truths are valid, correct, or moral, then this is up to that reader to convince us (although sometimes we'd rather they didn't bother). In the case of people who read racist meanings into a text such as LOTR, then it is nigh on impossible that they will convince anyone. That SPM mentions this hints to me that someone indeed has constructed this meaning. I don't want to be convinced of such people's arguments, so there's little chance of me ever wasting time in reading such a theory apart from to argue why I think they are wrong, but I may consider reading such ideas if I happened upon them, in much the same way that I like to read the letters page in The Daily Mail as they are invariably diametrically opposed to everything I believe in. I hope this makes sense?

About there being a concrete 'truth' within Tolkien's work - yes, I agree that this must be the case, as it is a work of art. The 'real' world is infinitely more chaotic and random so there is (in my opinion) little chance of finding truth within it - you are lucky if you do find truth within it. But, while Tolkien had his 'truth' which is there to be found within his work, by the very nature of words and semantics, readers will inevitably find other 'truths' of their own. Which critic was it who proposed the theory that the reader was important in constructing meaning? I cannot remember, I have blotted it from my mind since graduating. :rolleyes:

***

Yes, it appears I am now doomed as I have been drawn into the evil 'C' thread. :eek: It is the Corryvreckan of the 'Downs.

It reminds me of one of those discussions you have where everyone's having a drink and in what seems like no time at all, you find yourself sitting in a smoky room at 6am with eyes like pinholes, having set the world to rights....It's been a long time... :)

davem

09-16-2004, 06:47 AM

Which critic was it who proposed the theory that the reader was important in constructing meaning?

I think it was Bethberry ;)

Bêthberry

09-16-2004, 08:20 AM

Originally Posted by Lalwende
Which critic was it who proposed the theory that the reader was important in constructing meaning?

I think it was Bethberry ;)

Ha ha! If I recall, my suggestion was not to give priority to any particular part of this Trinity of Author, Book or Reader, but to consider the space between them as as an active process of the human mind. In fact, my point is not so very far from davem's statement of his reading--that each new reading generates new awareness and understanding. I simply say that out of respect for the act of reading, I do not denigrate any stage of that process, whether it is the first, hesitant or 'naive' reading or subsequent more knowing ones. As I said earlier on this thread, there will be much that some can learn from even as incomplete or skewed a reading as that of the White Supremacists--a point which I think Lawendë is making here.

I learn something new each time, because I'm more open to the truth the older I get & the more experiences I have, but the Truth is constant, & its about coming closer to it.

So, davem's experience reading examplifies my point that the reader's own stand is part of how he or she is able to understand the text. I suppose another way of saying this is that some of us want to define the issue by the destination while others of us wish to say that it is the journey itself which is our interest.

However, now that davem has drawn me back in here, let me say that what has kept me away from this current focus on "Truth" or "moral worth" is what I see as a confusion of semantics. I mention it now to bolster my reputation as a nitpicking pedant ;) but also to suggest how 'meaning' can be slippery.

I won't copy and paste the number of times most of you, HI, SpM, Aiwendil, and davem if not Lawendë also--Fordim is playing cat and mouse now have used the word "objective". Here is just one example.

davem posted

Tolkien is clear in his attitude to Boromir - Boromir does wrong when he tries to take the Ring, whatever Boromir himself might believe at the time. Its not that 'In Tolkien's universe morality is objective' as Aiwendil puts it, its that from Tolkien's pov morality is objective, in a man's house or in the Golden Wood. The distinction simply doesn't stand for Tolkien. Its like claiming that Jesus sets out one moral value system in his parables, but that the moral value system in this world is different. Tolkien's original intent was to awaken people to an objective moral value system through his stories, by presenting that objective standard to us through an invented mythology.

Now, I can surmise that 'ojective' makes a nice flip side to 'subjective' particularly when the position of reader is being refuted as incomplete or partial. However, in my experience, the kind of permanent, eternal standard which is being alluded to more usually is referred to as absolute.

I know that 'objective' often stands in for 'unbiased' and 'unaffected by personal feelings' . I also often carries very positive connotations, derviving from our expectations of the scientic or 'empirical' method as the one less prone to error.

However, in my experience, the kind of unchanging moral worth being posited here is "absolute", meaning free of any 'arbitrary standard,not comparative or relative" , something 'unequivocal, certain, sure," something "full and perfect."

As I said, nitpicking pedant. But HI had asked for definitions.

Aiwendil

09-16-2004, 10:00 AM

But Tolkien didn't draw a distinction between the moral value system of Middle earth & the moral value system of this world.

Yes, but I do. And so do many others. The essence of my argument, which I still think is sound, is twofold:

1. You cannot use Middle-earth's morality to prove a point about real world morality - the fact that you or Tolkien or anyone else thinks that these are the same does not logically necessitate that they are the same.

2. A debate over moral philosophy in the real world cannot prove a point about Tolkien's world's reality, because the latter simply is what it is, regardless of whether or not the real world's morality happens to be the same thing.

I understand that Tolkien thought that the morality of the real world is the same as the morality of Middle-earth; and certainly that makes it worthwhile to look at Tolkien's moral philosophy if one is interested in Middle-earth. But what matters here is Tolkien's view - regardless of whether or not that view is correct.

I say this because if real moral philosophy is to be debated, things will quickly come to an impasse. I also worry that we are on the point of seeing a claim like "if you disagree with Tolkien's moral philosophy then you don't fully appreciate his work". If such is in fact your claim, then there's no more to be said. And if such is not, then I don't see how anyone's opinion about real moral philosophy enters into the discussion, provided that one "suspends moral disbelief" as it were, when dealing with Middle-earth.

Bethberry wrote:
However, in my experience, the kind of unchanging moral worth being posited here is "absolute", meaning free of any 'arbitrary standard,not comparative or relative" , something 'unequivocal, certain, sure," something "full and perfect."

"Absolute" works for me. I don't really see a problem with "objective" - depending only on the object - the real world - rather than on the subject - the person viewing the world. But "absolute" in this context means exactly, or almost exactly, the same thing. I don't see, by the way, any reason that "absolute" must mean "full and perfect"; it simply means "the same across the entire domain", "not relative".

davem

09-16-2004, 10:41 AM

I also worry that we are on the point of seeing a claim like "if you disagree with Tolkien's moral philosophy then you don't fully appreciate his work". If such is in fact your claim, then there's no more to be said. And if such is not, then I don't see how anyone's opinion about real moral philosophy enters into the discussion, provided that one "suspends moral disbelief" as it were, when dealing with Middle-earth.

Well, as you say, you have to accept it within Middle earth if you are to appreciate his work, because it will not make sense unless you do. But then why would you not accept it outside Middle earth? What I mean is, why would you consider it invalid in the context of this world? Is it that while 'in' Middle earth you 'force' yourself to think in a way that is naturally alien to you, or that is in conflict with the way you normally see things? Tolkien's position is that that approach is invalid, & I think if we are to engage with an artist we can't just say 'I think you're wrong' & leave it at that. What is 'wrong', or 'incorrect', or 'invalid' in Tolkien's philosophy? Why does it only apply within Middle earth?

I can't say that my understanding of Tolkien's Art is superior (or inferior) to yours, or anyone else's. I would say that I don't change my moral stance when I enter into Middle earth, so I find I'm not required to deliberately alter my perspective, to think myself into the secondary world. I find the idea strange - that one would have to stop for a moment before beginning to read & think 'Right, now I have to adopt a different moral value system, in order to understand & orientate myself to this otherworld.

Now, I say that not as a Christian, because I don't think its necessary to be a Christian to orientate oneself into Middle earth. I don't think the moral value system is specifically Christian - & this is where to an extent I can see where you're coming from, because there are somethings within the stories which require one to 'suspend disbelief' & accept Christian symbolism, because that will enable you to understand some of the significance of the story more easily, or in greater depth - for instance if you hold in mind the idea of Mary, & the Host, you'll get more out of the figures of Galadriel & Elbereth, & of Lembas - you're experience will be enhanced - but that is not the same as adopting a wholly different moral value system or metaphysics.

So, davem's experience reading examplifies my point that the reader's own stand is part of how he or she is able to understand the text. I suppose another way of saying this is that some of us want to define the issue by the destination while others of us wish to say that it is the journey itself which is our interest.

But what is this 'destination' - is it a 'place/state' which exists already, towards which we are moving - does the 'Road' lead somewhere specific, or are we making the road as we travel - is this 'destination' a place that is waiting for us, or is it simply wherever we end up?

My favourite poem (anonymous, prob. originally Middle English)

The Key of the Kingdom.

This is the Key of the Kingdom;
In that Kingdom is a City;
In that City is a Town;
In that Town is a Street;
In that Street there winds a Lane;
In that Lane there is a Yard;
In that Yard there is a House;
In that House there waits a Room;
In that Room there is a Bed,
And on that Bed a basket;
A basket of sweet Flowers;
Of Flowers, of Flowers,
A basket of sweet Flowers.

Flowers in a basket;
Basket on the bed;
Bed in the Room;
Room in the House;
House in the Yard;
Yard in the Winding lane;
Lane in the Street;
Street in the Town;
Town in the City;
City in the Kingdom.
This is the Key of the Kingdom,
Of the Kingdom this is the Key.

And, for me, that's the end of the 'Road'.

(Actually, it kind of is, 'cos I'm off to Oxonmoot tomorrow, & won't be back till late Sunday.)

Fordim Hedgethistle

09-16-2004, 10:45 AM

Fordim is playing cat and mouse now

meow

davem has already introduced into this discussion a moment from LotR that I think is useful in thinking through the issues currently at play. When Aragorn says to Éomer:

'Good and ill have not changed since yesteryear; nor are they one thing among elves and Dwarves and another among Men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the Golden Wood as in his own house.'

He does not just leave it there for Éomer to work through on his own; instead, Aragorn makes it quite clear that to “discern them” is, in this world, very easy:

Aragorn threw back his cloak. The elven-sheath glittered as he grasped it, and the bright blade of Andúril shone like a sudden flame and he swept it out. ‘Elendil!’ he cried. ‘I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the Sword that was Broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!’

In this moment we and Éomer are not being presented with a moral quandary in which he or we must or can decide how to determine moral parameters (i.e. how to differentiate between right and wrong): what Éomer is to choose between, quite explicitly, is Aragorn or not-Aragorn: “Will you aid me or thwart me?”

In this way, the question of morality is, in the context of Middle-Earth, not really a question at all – or, rather, it is a question to which the reader can respond in one of two ways: do we go along with the author in his creation of a moral system in this subcreated world, or do we not go along with him. At risk of looking like an absolutist ;) I genuinely believe that these are really the only two options. The choice that Aragorn presents to Éomer is a stark and obvious one: me or Sauron; right or wrong; good or evil. The story presents up with the same stark choice: accept M-E morality or don’t. In this case, I do not see much room for negotiation or give and take between text and reader.

At the same time, I am placed in a quandary insofar as I do not adhere to the moral vision of LotR – I am not, quite simply, a believer. I think the disturbing power that LotR has is that it makes me so want to be a believer by embodying the moral choice in the form of Aragorn. I want very badly to follow a man like him; were he to appear before me in reality I would follow him to the ends of the Earth – but he never will, so I am left in the primary world of greys and shadows, trying to make my way for myself. LotR simplifies morality in a way that’s nice to imagine, but that in no way reflects how things really are.

davem

09-16-2004, 12:45 PM

Forced to be quicker than I'd like (waits for cheers & sighs of relief to die away.......)

I am left in the primary world of greys and shadows, trying to make my way for myself. LotR simplifies morality in a way that’s nice to imagine, but that in no way reflects how things really are.

But does it not indicate how things could be? Or at the very least how, deep down we wish they were & specifically how they ought to be? But where does this desire originate? Why do we feel that way when we read LotR, & encounter Aragorn? Does it come from our past experiences? Well, not in my case.

Some 'voice' is speaking to us, & telling us things we need to hear, telling us what's wrong with ourselves & our world, & giving us a glimpse of 'Arda Unmarred'.

And I don't think that voice is Tolkien's, I think he's just passing on the words.

Lalwendë

09-16-2004, 01:49 PM

Some 'voice' is speaking to us, & telling us things we need to hear, telling us what's wrong with ourselves & our world, & giving us a glimpse of 'Arda Unmarred'.

I like this, it seems to sum up something intangible about Tolkien's world. Do we cling to his work in a troubled world? Does it give us something solid in our world of ifs and maybes? Yet to me there are still some areas which concern me, although these shift over time.

I understand and work with the morality of ME when I am reading the books; it is a created world, and as such you do need to allow yourself to be immersed in the cultural and spiritual concepts of that world. Much the same thing happens if I read about different periods in history - I must come to an understanding of the mindset of the time period to fully understand why certain events happened in the way they did. But my own concept of life cannot be wholly suspended. If I read about the Peterloo massacre, then I must know of the fears of the ruling class in order to discover why they acted as they did, yet I cannot fully suspend my modern day sensibilities and I feel righteous anger towards these people.

As I read Tolkien's work I understand his concepts of morality,in particular as I have grown older I take on board, at a deep level, the concept of yearning for a straight path to enlightenment, and yet other things slowly grow to trouble me.

This is because I am a 'mere' reader. Tolkien's concept is his vision, and while I am utterly trapped within his world, and have been for most of my life, there's a small metaphorical hole in the ozone layer of that world, which shifts about. I've probably not expressed this quite as I'd like, but I feel that it is my own personal view of the 'real' world which I cannot help but stop intruding.

HerenIstarion

09-16-2004, 03:25 PM

The choice that Aragorn presents to Éomer is a stark and obvious one: me or Sauron; right or wrong; good or evil. The story presents up with the same stark choice: accept M-E morality or don’t

Um, is it that easy? Is it not about trust rather? The reader knows who is Aragorn, Eomer does not - just a ragged cloak, and bright mail underneath. It rather comes down to 'trust/do not trust' at that moment, than to 'choose Aragorn/Sauron' dichotomy. It is always estel with Aragorn, but, so he is the King who opened the 'gate of night' and 'is victorious' and whose victory those of the 'guard [that] was not vain' should praise in psalm.

Beauty and the Beast, remember why Beast is beast - cruelty, yes, pride yes, but lack of trust too. I refer to Walt Disney cartoon, yes, the original is a bit different.

I believe we all met such a choice of 'trust/distrust' in real life, the bright mail underneath omitted. But than, it is Tolkien to let us see some ends, for Eomer on the 'green grass' there is no previously provided data. Bright mail, so what? One can be bought, stolen, faked, surely?

PS

Bb, I trust I never used word 'objective' in this here thread :rolleyes:

Nice definitions, by the way, my desire is satisfied. I believe you pinned down the salt of our debate - do we seek a destination or just having a pleasant walk? 'Canonicity' in this light will be 'do we need a guide or can manage it ourselves?' Excellent, my compliments :)

Aiwendil

09-16-2004, 09:46 PM

Well, my computer just ate the post I had spent long minutes crafting, just as I was about to hit "submit reply". So, as it's getting late now, I'll reconstruct only a few brief replies to some of Davem's points.

Davem wrote:
But then why would you not accept it outside Middle earth? What I mean is, why would you consider it invalid in the context of this world?

I hold certain opinions about the world, because having weighed the evidence I think that those opinions are the most rationally justified. If Tolkien were to present me with a convincing argument, I would alter my views accordingly. But the mere fact that he held certain opinions does not mean that I should hold the same.

Is it that while 'in' Middle earth you 'force' yourself to think in a way that is naturally alien to you, or that is in conflict with the way you normally see things?

This exaggerates the matter. It is no more difficult to "suspend moral disbelief" than it is to suspend literal disbelief. I don't have to pause before I read Tolkien and say to myself, "Okay, now in this world Elves and dragons are real". And my view of things is not really so radically different from Tolkien's. It's not as though in real life I would consider someone like Saruman good and someone like Aragorn evil.

Tolkien's position is that that approach is invalid

I don't think that Tolkien thought that all readers must agree exactly with his moral code, or else their reading is "invalid". If he did in fact believe this, then I disagree with him.

I think if we are to engage with an artist [...]

This makes me think that perhaps we're just going in circles around the impasse I identified a short while back. I don't know exactly what it might mean "to engage with an artist" but I have the feeling that it isn't what I intend to do when I read a piece of literature.

Now, I say that not as a Christian, because I don't think its necessary to be a Christian to orientate oneself into Middle earth. I don't think the moral value system is specifically Christian

Maybe it's not specifically Christian, but it is fundamentally and undeniably theistic. And I am not a theist. To a very large extent, my disagreement with Tolkien does come down to a matter of religion.

By the way, H-I, I almost missed it when you said:
but the 'meaning of meaning' discussion on the last page was enlightening, thank you

I'm shocked and delighted that you actually sat through a page or so of that debate! The metaphysics of meaning is probably my favorite subject in philosophy - in fact it may be my favorite subject of all. I hesitate to get into it on this thread for that very reason - and because I think that in the end it doesn't have much to do with canonicity.

Lyta_Underhill

09-19-2004, 01:21 AM

I believe we all met such a choice of 'trust/distrust' in real life, the bright mail underneath omitted. But than, it is Tolkien to let us see some ends, for Eomer on the 'green grass' there is no previously provided data. Bright mail, so what? One can be bought, stolen, faked, surely? Certainly, in this world of con artists and cult leaders, a true and pure leader like Aragorn is a dream of hope long given up to a cynical caricature. As a matter of fact, I imagine that, if Aragorn were to pursue his heritage in the modern Seventh Age Earth, he would be beset by both the lawful and lawless, avoided by mothers everywhere who didn't want their kids following some ragged fool on something as ominous as the "Paths of the Dead," whether or not he said it was their own choice or not!

Yes, I can see how the "real world" and Middle Earth diverge in this way. If Aragorn popped up in the modern world, he would be a true anachronism. But there are Aragorns in this world; they just don't have as clear a path. I'd love to see someone write a fanfiction about Aragorn trying to fulfill his destiny in modern London...leading the Corsair ships up the Thames...oh, watch out for that barge! *SMASH!*

Anyway, it is a pleasure to read the peregrinations of this thread through truths, perceptions, meanings, etc. and realize just how many divergent and nearly convergent viewpoints there really are!
Some 'voice' is speaking to us, & telling us things we need to hear, telling us what's wrong with ourselves & our world, & giving us a glimpse of 'Arda Unmarred'.
And I don't think that voice is Tolkien's, I think he's just passing on the words. I do get this impression, most strongly, strangely enough, from the Lost Tales, which I have just found. The rudimentary construction of what would be pieced together later and finally set down for all time by Christopher Tolkien in The Silmarillion hint at the lights as Tolkien saw them, the truths and fancies that drove him in his sub-creative fervor. He seemed more to be chasing fairy lights than moral absolutes. In a strange way, it seems to point to the path as being never-ending, perhaps not the back and forth of davem's Key of the Kingdom, or a convergence toward a single truth, but perhaps a path with a transcendant ending, or no ending, the Straight Path which none can pinpoint unless it be shown to them in a moment of revelation. The confusions and "splintering" of the modern world is something that is gladly thrown off by many who read Tolkien's tales, and indeed, as Aiwendil pointed out, it would be confusing to take a modern world view into this second reality and apply comparisons; one could not enjoy the tale for all the interference.
This is because I am a 'mere' reader. Tolkien's concept is his vision, and while I am utterly trapped within his world, and have been for most of my life, there's a small metaphorical hole in the ozone layer of that world, which shifts about. That is an interesting way to describe it, Lalwende. Perhaps close to the applicability with age and experience idea you mentioned earlier with your new understanding of Frodo's suffering after your own accident. In a way, this applicability gives us a glimpse into the "other world," not only Middle Earth, but perhaps beyond, to Faerie, the source of it all, the light behind all things. In this way, Tolkien's Arda is a true reflection of a greater world than this one, one that can be communicated through text, but which become richer once applied to the reader and perhaps correlated to the author as well. (I think this concept is one reason autobiographies are so popular.)

Well, it is late, and I got myself in over my head by daring to post again in this thread...it is all HI's fault, really! ;)

Cheers!
Lyta