[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Busy with a holiday weekend here with little time for keeping up. But in the mean time, Lal could you explain what you mean by this phrase?

Thanks muchly and see y'all after the festivities.

Plenty of things The story of LotR is expressed mostly through the eyes of the Hobbits as they undertake their journeys. Tolkien also uses varying styles and forms within the text itself - moving from poetry (itself of various types, including both comic and epic) through the style of the sagas, through Boys' Own adventure etc etc... He also expresses character via speech and deed instead of via internal monologue. And that's just for starters...

Boro - Rowling is a good example here. I think in some ways she does approach language, but it's quite limited. I wonder if that's because of her preferred narrative style or just to keep it simple for her target audience? Where she does tackle language is in her use of names - Dumbledore's for example are quite revealing (it's worth a look on Wikipedia for some more ideas on what her names mean).

But there's the rub for me. Tolkien's original intention for writing was to find a place for language, to position his created languages within stories - as where would language go if it was not for stories? For him, narrative and language were inextricably linked, a much older way of looking at the idea of story. Maybe it's not that Burgess was wrong, just that he was only referring to modern views of the novel?