Thank you for your interest, friends. My feet are still on the ground, my intestines are intact, and my limbs still attached; so you have been merciful.
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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
The 'truth' about understanding lies in the tale and its life beyond the author. A tale, once published, is like a child who has grown up and moved away from Mum and Dad. It is responsible for itself.
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- from
Canonicity, post # 26
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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
...I think is vital in discussing Middle-earth, that we respect the extraordinary experience of reading his texts and engaging with his stories rather than demanding that there is any one particular way of reading him. This is my way of understanding sub-creation and it is one which will respect any fair and honest reading of Tolkien as the experience of the reader. Like Tolkien, I believe that meaning is not imposed by fiat but created by the web of words. In our acts of discussing Tolkien lie the essence of sub-creation, not in a reductive archeology.
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- from same post
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Originally Posted by davem
...the 'spell' is cast for most of us without the background history. If we choose to move beyond the 'unexplained vistas' we have to risk the loss of enchantment. The more we discover, the more 'fixed' Middle Earth becomes...
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from Canonicity, post # 27.
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Originally Posted by davem
Moving into ME, is at once fascinating & restricting. One often has to suspend not only disbelief, but also disapproval, & accept what Tolkien has given, in order to understand his vision. When one comes out of ME one can then make a decision on what one likes & what one dislikes. But we then risk disenchantment - breaking a thing to find out what it is made of.
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Originally Posted by davem
I reject the 'Dome of Varda' & related ideas & prefer the earlier 'primitive' (in Tolkien's word) version of the story. I said it was 'silly' - what I meant was it was not 'enchanting' - not to me - & is like choosing to print the fact. It neither enchants nor inspires, so I choose the earlier account. I mean no offence to the author, but we have to choose, & judge. If one version enchants me & the other doesn't, I think I know which choice Tolkien would approve.
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When I began this thread, I had not yet read these two posts. I was not altogether surprised at their applicability to the issues this thread raises. I almost included "broken enchantment" in the title of the thread, but realized that I have two different issues on my mind, and that thread shall have to wait a little while.
Part of my "beef" is the breaking of the enchantment. I don't want it. In point of fact, I have begun to understand (thank you Canonicity debaters) that sometimes a beloved thing must die in order for a more powerful, life-giving thing to be born. The question remains whether I am willing to allow the original enchantment to die. This breakage, this destruction, of the original enchantment, is what I feel Christopher's work does for those who delve there. I do have some of those works, but I have been very, very picky. I have
Unfinished Tales and
The Lays of Belerian. I have read the histories of the war of the ring, and some of Morgoth's Ring. I have so far been unwilling to let the spell be broken.
davem (and others) point out that the Sil would not have been finished during his lifetime, no matter what. This is probably true because Tolkien was a human who never stopped growing. This makes sense to me. It is, in retrospect, one of the things that has fed into my broaching of this thread. I've been working on my own mythology for twenty years, and am now almost at the age when Tolkien began his writing of LotR. I am not so vain that I compare myself to Tolkien in genius or intellect or ability, but myth-making is my chosen passion. And I can imagine that I may write and write my whole life long and some Christopher will come along and publish Histories of my stuff post-mortem. That is a distinct fear for me. I suppose it runs along the lines of wanting to be around to see one's grandchildren. Enough personal stuff. I just thought I should mention that so you might see where part of this probably derives for me.
Just a few general replies to points made which, because this post is getting long, I'll refrain from quoting specifically (you know who you are).
1. HoME is indeed an "attempt to tear apart the tower to see what it's made of" in so far as it is a breaking of the enchantment woven by TH, LotR, and UT.
2. I know, and stated, that what I wished for was impossible.
3. Whereas most (if not all) of what Tolkien wrote is worthy, all that you are saying is that what we have is very good. I acknowledge that; but I still wish for something better ... or at least I did, unless the death of the enchantment is the necessary precursor to the birth of something better...
4. As to the Sil's completion prior to the publication of LotR, it was complete enough for publication as it was. Lalwendë's quote from JRRT's Letters is applicable to this, of course, but in that sense nothing anybody writes can be called finished.
5. As to wasted and/or misspent: well, maybe those words are indicators of my own fears more than a commentary on Tolkien's life work (indeed, they were the clue).
6. The words you use,
Helen, are all quite loaded: "story fan" versus "world fan" versus "philosophy fan"; what kind of eucatastrophe; faerie versus revelation; in short, I'm not sure what to understand from all of these labels. They seem like short form for whole realms of content.
7. I like the Athrabeth a lot. One of the reasons I like it is because as much as it is a philosophical discussion, it is story, grounded in a time and place and characters, which gives it shape and life and context that a mere philosophical treatise could not do. It enriches it with meaning. So in that sense I prefer story to all the Christopherian commentary.
There. I think that about catches me up.