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Originally Posted by davem
No, it was The Sil which made LotR possible. If The Sil had not existed there would have been no LotR. TH provided the reason for Tolkien beginning LotR. That reason was soon left behind & LotR became the culmination of The Sil, not the sequel to TH.
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This line of argument doesn't really make any sense. I could equally say it was my mother who made me possible and if she had not existed there would be no me. But my father had to exist in order to provide the impetus for me to be created. Just as The Hobbit had to exist to make LotR exist.
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Originally Posted by davem
I think everyone has accepted that the tone & mood of TH is 'unique', that the Elves, Trolls, Goblins, the narrative voice & even the character of Gandalf are 'wrong' in the context of the rest of the Legendarium. The only arguments against my position seem to be 1 - Tolkien wrote TH & it makes references to The Sil & 2 - Bilbo was 'elaborating' his story & had a middle-class bias against against 'foreigners'.
Nobody has provided a convincing argument that TH fits the mood & tone of the rest of the Legendarium.
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What I have yet to see is any convincing argument to say that tone matters all that much.
I have to draw davem's attention to something he said in the
What breaks the enchantment thread.
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Originally Posted by davem
Its interesting that some things, some connections we make - whether its a connection with 'children's literature', a particular religious morality, or whatever will break the spell for us, while others won't - connections with other myths or symbols. So, it seems to be an entirely subjective thing - its not the author's fault. He doesn't break the spell - we do, by what we bring to our reading. Its not the author's faillure, but our own - if it was the author's failure it the spell would be broken for every reader at the same point in the story. The fact that what breaks the spell for some doesn't break it for others proves that the author has not failed.
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As davem says above, if the 'spell' is broken then it is not due to the author, it is due to the reader. The Hobbit enchants the majority of 'Downers, who have accepted it into the Legendarium. I say that clearly Flieger was bringing in a whole cartload of 'baggage' to her reading of The Hobbit. Interestingly in the 'enchantment' thread there are several people who say that the 'spell' was broken when they read The Hobbit but that they found a way into the story (and indeed, there are many instances in LotR where the same thing occurs) - that is a more commendable approach than to look for an intellectual loophole and exploit it to explain why a text was not 'enjoyable' to an individual reader. Listening to what was being said I felt intense disappointment that the arguments of a critic which had been constructed to explain her
personal lack of enjoyment may be taken to heart by Tolkien fans.
Yes, the tone is unique, but then the tone of those chapters dealing with the battle for Gondor are also unique, and so are the words of the Chapters in the Old Forest, and the words of the Scouring of the Shire and so on...we even see differing styles of Poetry within the text. Tolkien's work is shifting in tone and style throughout, and so it simply ought not to be taken into any account when considering if something fits the Legendarium. What matters is the story.