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Originally Posted by Fordim
Jenny, on the other hand, you seem to see the Shire as a bit more removed from our world than do I. That is, when Bilbo or the other hobbits go about their daily lives in the Shire it doesn't seem to break the enchantment for you if you have to perform a bit of imaginative sleight of hand, quickly and silently substituting something like SASSAFRAS tea for 'real' tea when you read it.
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Ah, Fordim, I find your elegant summation of my stance delightful, and yet I would like to take a moment to elaborate.
To me, when Tolkien described hobbits as essentially English, that means that an Englishman, one of Tolkien's fellows, could walk into Hobbiton and feel a sense of homieness, of comfort and recognition. Little people, with little goals and near horizons, who live a life essentially alike to that of every man, worried about his own family and lands, with little regard to the larger things that happen around him as long as his comfort is secure.
Therefore, the little everyday habits which mark the life of our traveler have their mirrored correlaries in the lives of the hobbits. He smokes a pipe; so do they. The esoteric question of whether his tobacco and theirs are quite identical genetically is mostly moot: that isn't the point. The point is that our traveler, seeing Bilbo contentedly smoking outside his door, can immediately sense and understand the thoughts, emotions, lifestyle, economic state...everything worth knowing about Bilbo can be observed or inferred from his attitude outside his door, idle on a sunny morning, blowing smoke-rings. And the only reason our traveler understands this is because he has the same habit.
That said:
I am the sort of person who never finishes a story. In fact, rarely do I even get to the all-important step of beginning the actual narrative. Those who play in RPs with me (especially if you've completed a joint post with me) know that I have an annoying habit of writing long narrative posts, beginning to end, in a few minutes, so the ability to write in narrative isn't the problem. When the story is my own entirely, I get so bogged down in details that I can never get around to starting the story. I am fascinated by the
how of the worlds I create. I care less about what happens to my characters than how their peers make their living, what rituals and holidays inspire and motivate them, when they celebrate and why...
I once derailed a science fiction story with an elaborate plot because my calculus wasn't up to the task of defining the orbit of the planet the tale was to be set on. Why was this so terribly important? Because without that I couldn't understand the turn of seasons, and without that the cycle of agriculture, and in the end the entire economic system of this planet rested on one fact I didn't have the knowledge to create.
By this long tangent I mean to say only that I am obsessed with details. It's fine with me if sugar doesn't mean sugar as I know it, or if pipe-weed or tea aren't the same plants as I'm familiar with, but I have a pathological need to know what they are...