Littlemanpoet [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. I'd like to read your writing, do tell me where I can find it?
Quote:
|
... perhaps the basic difference between LOTR lovers and those who are not, is that we who love LOTR recognize Middle Earth as REAL in a sense that the humdrum work-a-day, death-and-taxes, rush-hour-traffic so-called "reality" we deal with every day, is not.
|
I do think there's a teensie-weensie element of "them and us" here, and one that's natural and indeed reassuring here at Barrowdowns, as we share a passion and an interest in the works of Tolkien.
But am I not sure exactly how you quantify the imagination awakened by Tolkien in terms of a "reality" that supercedes the daily humdrum. In some ways, I think, imagination that is
exercised, and given
tools, by literature - tools of narrative, meaning and insight that we can apply to all our experiences - then that imagination actually
invigorates and
suffuses our everyday life with depth and colour.
Tolkien, and other great literature, can lend a sheen of heroism to our petty struggles, it can awaken us to pathos and empathy for those we see and meet, it helps us strip away the facades and rituals and see the patterns and pressures that shape the way we are, it allows us to confer a sense of destiny upon our chance mishaps, and it can give us hope and - sometimes - a certain faith in ourselves, others, and the unexpected. In this way, rather than change 'reality', or being an alternate (or preferable) 'reality', Tolkien and other great art simply mediates all our perceptions.
This isn't anything to do with mechanically thinking
"what would Gandalf do?", or daydreaming about meeting Viggo Mortensen/Liv Tyler etc. ... it is the unthought and sometimes unwelcome framing and legitimising of our sadness, our smallness, our humanity, in terms of beauty, truth, justice and struggle.
All great art can do this, from the utterly, gritty "death-and-taxes" narrative to the most florid and surreal stream of consciousness.
And, to link to my earlier post, some works, whether fantasy or not, allow us to hide from all of this and escape into something we know IS unreality, where swords do ring with an eldritch light and castles shimmer on distant hills ... and there goes
Raven Swordpolisher and his unreliable loincloth again [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Peace
Kalessin
[ December 12, 2002: Message edited by: Kalessin ]