[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

There is a logical problem with his theory of enchantment which davem sidesteps and refuses to acknowledge by saying, since we can't know how our unconscious operates, we can't know how it affects our response.

There may a 'logical problem' with my approach, but it seems yours presents us with a logical impossibility - how can we possibly know what is 'unconscious'? If we knew how our unconscious minds operate, what they contain & how they affect our reading, then they we'd be conscious of them, wouldn't we. Anything we discover about our unconscious contents & processes immediately becomes 'conscious'. I'm saying we can only take into account what we are aware of, not what we aren't aware of. That seems to me to be simple logic - but then I never went to college.

davem assumes that his manner of reading/approaching the text will always and automatically achieve the 'right result' of the expected enchantment which the author desired.

No he doesn't - that would be 'assuming that which is to be proved'. What davem is doing is taking part in a debate, & putting forward his particular theory for discussion.

Or maybe he just thinks that any experience of the story as story is valid, I don't know.

Maybe he thinks that, maybe he doesn't. Maybe he hasn't decided. It certainly sounds from that sentence like Bethberry has decided some experiences of the story as story are invalid

Is the nature of fantasy/enchantment completely dependent upon this idea of "the strange"? Can fantasy only be about the 'not-yet known and experienced'?

Davem would speculate that its about the 'not-yet-known', the 'undiscovered country', but also about the 'blue remembered hills' - which is as much 'hand luggage' as he's prepared to alow on this particular flight...

If so, then it is doomed always to have diminishing enchantment, for once we know the world, it will no longer be strange.

No - because our experience may become deeper & more profound with each reading. The one thing likely to prevent that happening is if we are too weighed down with all the theories, beliefs & conceptions we've built up around the story, so that the experience becomes little more than looking into a mirror.

Or are we supposed to throw out our previous readings of the book as "baggage" before we reread?

We should perhaps try & leave behind our previous interpretations of the book, so that we may be open to new things. Proverbs 26:11 & all that sort of thing....