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Does anyone else see this in Tolkien, and identify with a particular character in the way Helen has mentioned?
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Helen and Child, this is interesting. I have never, ever wanted to play or be an elf. Hobbit, yes; dwarf, yes; elf, never. I have never been impressed by all their alleged luminosity. This morning, while waiting for my daughter in the orthodontist's office and reading the
Letters I came across this, for me, utterly fascinating quotation:
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But I kept him [Tom Bombadil] in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out. I do not mean him to be an allegory--or I should not have given him so particular, individual, and ridiculous a name--but'allegory' is the only mode of exhibiting certain functions: he is then an 'allegory', or an exemplar, a particular embodying of pure(real) natural science: the spirit that desires knowledge of other things, their history and nature, because they are 'other' and wholly independent of the enquiring mind, a spirit coveval with the rational mind, and entirely unconcerned with'doing' anything with the knowldgedge: Zoology and Botany not Cattle-breeding or Agriculture. Even the elves hardly show this: they are primarily artitists. (Letter 153)
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Right there is explained why "I" am a Bombadil and lack any sympathy with elves. Also fascinating in that I spent years studying this very idea of artistic creation as a false desire to control, frame, limit or dominate life by turning it into an aesthetic object. I'm not sure if this will make sense to any of you, though. And I guess this takes the discussion completely off-topic.
Bethberry Bombadil