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Well, even on a simplistic level of imagery, there can be much variation and room for creativity. In your mind's eye, summon up your Frodo. Hopefully he bears only a passing resemblance, if that, to Elijah Wood. Really see him. What color exactly is his hair? Is it curly? How curly? How long? What about his eyes? See the shape of his face, see his characteristic expressions. Are his teeth straight? Picture his clothes. What's the fabric like? The colors? What do the buttons on his waistcoat look like? How does he walk? What do his fingernails look like? How does he smell? Can you see him clean and freshly bathed in the Shire? Dirty and lean and tired in his bones and clad in orc mail in Mordor? Forget the books. The books don't matter right now. Tolkien was the catalyst, but the Frodo that was created between you and him isn't his anymore. He's not all yours either -- no one ever heard of Frodo until Tolkien thought him up -- but he *is* unique, different from all the other Frodos in all the other minds of other readers.
Now of course we can progress beyond simple imagery into deeper and more ambiguous concepts. An author may dramatize a profound truth you've always felt but never been able to express. He may open your mind to new concepts or new ideals, which you are able to articulate only after having read his story. He may reveal ambiguities or doubts in a belief you were previously sure of.
Readers may come away from LotR having drawn meaning about the concept of honor, for instance. We can discuss what honor means to the characters, what it might have meant to Tolkien, what it means to us in light of the story, how our own concepts of honor agree or disagree with the story's, how they may have been influenced by the story, and so on. In fact, it's what we do here all the time.
It is in the fusion of Tolkien's intention and our own reading experience that meaning is found or created. If it were only Tolkien's intention, there'd be nothing to talk about, and if it were only individual reader experience, we wouldn't have the basis for a community. Meaning is found in the dance between reader and author, mind and mind, heart and heart.
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