[Lalwendë]

there are two aspects of the story that you are paying particular attention to as structural devices: the Ring (properly, the quest to destroy the Ring) and the land.

The central aspect to the whole tale is that of the need to destroy the Ring; even when we are not with the Ringbearer, he is still in our minds, and he is in the minds of the characters we meet, no matter how far away they may be. He is effectively 'lost' to them, and for us too, when we get to Book 3. Yes, the Ring is the focal point, yet we are not with it at many turns in the narrative, we don't know where it's gone to. The reason that moving the focus away from the Ringbearer's quest works is that we still have it in mind, through the other characters' minds.

And then we follow the characters as they move through this world, we see the changing scenery with them, even discover it as they discover it for the first time. When we see Lothlorien for the first time, we see it through Hobbit eyes, we are there with them and get that same sense of wonder. Is this kind of structure linear though?

could I say that you 'see' (you have a highly visual imagination!) the story as a circle about a single point?

When I say that I 'see' Middle Earth, I mean that is so vividly described, the entire landscape jumps straight off the page for me. The addition of maps makes it even more real, as journey and distance can also be traced. Every 'world creation' book ought to include a map!

it would appear to me that the essential structure of the story (in this view, if it is your view) is a largely moral one, in which the 'blot' of evil at the heart of an essentially 'good' creation must be expunged.

I think it is an essentially moral story, and on the surface this morality is clear, as it must be, to make a take of good/evil work. And yet, underneath, there are so many grey areas that at its heart it is no simple tale of good versus evil. The only truly 'good' force is the earth itself, the stage on which all these events happen (and is it good, if you think of the innocents who may have died when Numenor was drowned?), I find it impossible to say that one race or another is essentially good, as they all have their failings.

(lal help me again deneument

Oh heck! I wish I'd paid more attention in my French lessons, I still can't get my head round these spellings.

denoument, denouement, denoumente....beauracrat, beurocrat, beaureaucrat....