Bombadil: The Reader - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

juhsstin · 09-02-2003, 10:02 AM

first off, new here, hi all!

when i read this article, i was enthralled. i really buy into it.

in response to gwaihir's criticisms, i feel that you are trying to take beier's theory too literally (or something). am i really to expect that the character of tom bombadil is actually supposed to look like my physical self? in that case, he would not have described him at all.

i suppose what i'm really getting at is the difference between identifying/resonating with a certain character and actually entering the world of the book. i'm not saying that we actually physically enter the world of the book as tom B (that is impossible), but if we had physically entered it in a pleasantville sort of way, bombadil is our guy. it's as if tolkien is trying to remind us that this is just a book

"But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out."

who is left out? the reader, reality, the real world as we know it. and by doing so he actually makes the fantasy world all that more vivid by implicitly implementing it as part of our physical real lives. i'm getting really abstract and crazy so i'll stop. but the last thing i'll say is that it reminds me of Disney's TRON where flynn comes down to the computer world as a god of sorts, when in fact he is just a human in the "real world".

and in the end, the world of LOTR really means nothing to us. we don't actually care about the ring because, to us, it isn't real. that is why we can't protect it or destroy it.

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09-02-2003, 10:02 AM	#1
juhsstin Pile O'Bones Join Date: Sep 2003 Posts: 20	first off, new here, hi all! when i read this article, i was enthralled. i really buy into it. in response to gwaihir's criticisms, i feel that you are trying to take beier's theory too literally (or something). am i really to expect that the character of tom bombadil is actually supposed to look like my physical self? in that case, he would not have described him at all. i suppose what i'm really getting at is the difference between identifying/resonating with a certain character and actually entering the world of the book. i'm not saying that we actually physically enter the world of the book as tom B (that is impossible), but if we had physically entered it in a pleasantville sort of way, bombadil is our guy. it's as if tolkien is trying to remind us that this is just a book "But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out." who is left out? the reader, reality, the real world as we know it. and by doing so he actually makes the fantasy world all that more vivid by implicitly implementing it as part of our physical real lives. i'm getting really abstract and crazy so i'll stop. but the last thing i'll say is that it reminds me of Disney's TRON where flynn comes down to the computer world as a god of sorts, when in fact he is just a human in the "real world". and in the end, the world of LOTR really means nothing to us. we don't actually care about the ring because, to us, it isn't real. that is why we can't protect it or destroy it.