What breaks the enchantment?

[Bêthberry]

I don't wish to turn this into an "I said/you said" argument which does not move the discussion forward, but I do want to clarify a point. I didn't say, Lalwendë that you personally used the Redbook as a handy recourse. The pronoun I used was we and I choose it deliberately (is there a BD 'we' as well as a royal we? ), for this point has been used in the past by many others (myself included I bet), at least as I recall some of the many discussions in my time here, so I wasn't so much stating something about your argument, as the general tendency "we" have here.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I only notice it now because it has been brought to my attention by other readers.

Does that mean that we can't learn new things from our discussion here but must always return to our own first readings? Is something invalidated if we didn't notice it in our first flush of love reading? And what if someone noticed it on first reading/reading in the context of abandonment to story? Does that make it irrelevant if one person sees it and others don't?

Originally Posted by davem

One could make a stab at an explanation along these lines...

Tolkien has set up in the foreword the conceit of LotR being a translatioon of the Red Book. It is a work with two main narrators - Frodo & Sam, but we are also told that the accounts have been 'supplimented by the learning of the wise'. We are also informed that the book from which Tolkien 'translated' the story was not the original book but a copy. He even includes an aside by Findegil the King's copyist.

What we seem to have then, is a version of the original work, which has been 'supplimented' through various copies & finally translated[ by an Oxford Don in the 1940's.

This kind of point is why I suggested a thread might be interesting, to see how far this conceit can be taken in the text itself.

As a general theory or a good stab, I think you have stated how it could possibly work, davem. However, I think for it truely to exist in the text to justify the stylistic differences, we would have to see far more evidence of its workings.

We would, I think, have to have the kind of text similar to the Bible, which is very much a heterogeneous text. We could see things like the incomplete collation of the two creation stories in Genesis. We would have the story 'interrupted' by ritual prescriptions and laws, as Leviticus interrupts the story of Exodus. (I am not stating this literally, but as an example of the kind of variation.) We could be swept away by various kinds of story elements, symbolic as well as prophetic, and by various types of narrators. We could have psalms and the Song of Solomon beside narrative. We could see how various chapters are dependent on previous ones for their story elements, as occurs in the New Testament. This is just an example for elucidating what I would think might appear in such a 'handed down' text. And I'm sure other old narratives would offer their unique elements of textual tradition. I'm not saying this is the only one. Nor am I discounting the possibility that Tolkien could use the conceit in his own unique way.

However, I think we would see far more variation in the style, in the story elements, in the narrators' voices than we have at the moment. Right now, I think the conceit of the Redbook and the translations of various authors is just a conceit, nothing more. I don't think Tolkien 'built it into' the story. It is a bookend piece, part of the delightful story elements, but I don't think it plays a part in the story proper. Thus, I don't think it can really account for the variations of style.

I think a thread about this might be interesting, so this thread can remain devoted to littlemanpoet's topic. And his example, which is sitll unremarked upon.

[davem]

'Lor' bless you...

Well, we have two alternatives - we can look within the secondary world for an explanation or outside it. Looking outside it, we have alternatives again. One, there is the possibility that it slipped past Tolkien - as Shippey points out it is the kind of exclamation a working class person of Tolkien's period make come out with, so Tolkien used it without thinking. Second, it is a kind of 'half hidden' Christian reference, which again could be conscious or unconscious on Tolkien's part. Third, we can consider the origin of the word 'Lord'. It is anglo-saxon & derives from the word 'hlaford' or 'loaf keeper', referring to the head of the household. So, not necessarily a Christian reference, but its possible.

Approached from within the secondary world it is both more difficult to account for but it is also more evocative - it leads us to ask 'who is this 'Lord' who Sam is invoking? Is this one of only two direct references in the whole of LotR to Hobbit religion (the other one being Merry's exclamation of 'Lawks!' in Three is Company).

What I'm saying here is that 'Lor'/Lawks' only become a problem if we read with primary world baggage in our minds. If we do, then these exclamations may break the spell for us, if we can leave that baggage at the door then far frombreaking the spell they actually add depth by providing a mystery to be solved. They actually make Middle earth a bit odder & more mysterious than it at first seemed. Did the Hobbits have any 'religious' beliefs at all?

Of course, whether Tolkien slipped up or not, what his actual reason was in using these phrases is another question. Its only their primary world connotations that risk doing any damage to our experience. In the other current thread, on 'What ain't there...' we're discussing exactly this kind of thing - the question is, didn't hobbits ought to have some form of belief? If so, what form would it take? Go with the 'conceit' for a moment. Tolkien has a text to translate, he comes across two references to some kind of 'Higher power' in this text, but without any context. What does he do - excise them, or substiute some modern colloquial equivalent? Probably the latter.

Hope this makes sense.....

[HerenIstarion]

Hlaford, supplied with 'lawks' and given the agricultural society of the Shire, may give rise to certain suspicions - Corn King type of religion? Which, viewed from the 'Primary World' persepctive, may be seen as just another 'consciouly so' hint at Christianity?

Mind that neither remark is that obvious. It would certainly be hard to suspend disbelief if Sam exlaimed 'Jesus bless you'. How many people consciously connect 'lawks' with Christianity these days?

We sing duet, sir davem But you are good at your own sig, and reptiles of the mind don't stand a chance, it seems.

I refer to the manifold authorship issues:

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

Yes, much is altered in Tolkien's later writings. The difficulties arisen from such a situtation are usually solved by yours truly on the following ground - the whole of the legendarium is presented as collection of legends and stories by different authors. There is no need for different authors to agree on every point they recount

I suppose it works for LoTR too.

Imagine it is not reading, but listening in rounds by the fire-side, when each story-teller continues the threadline passed on by the previous one. They all speak the same story, but in different words and styles, and adding of their own slightly. Some extra beards not accounted for in previous telling, some extra feet to the height of the enemy, but that is minor, and the flow is what counts. Keep an eye on the fire for the enchantment, and don't let the knowledge of the fact it's being electrically heated distract you

General tendency, yes. We, Augustus Bonifacius Rex, Basileus etc tend to use it in such a way . Why not, if it is presented as such? Even if it is a trick, not 'real magic' on Tolkien's part, it works wonders.

Concluding thought: It was 'willing suspension of disbelief' was it not? The accent falls on 'willing' here.

[littlemanpoet]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Of course, it could be that Tolkien created that forst step in a way which is a lot more subtle than transitional fantasies, but I would argue that the very oddness of The Shire, and the fact that it represents no England that ever existed beyond the poetic constructs of memory, does make it immediately immersive.

I think you're right. This thread is especially for me a means of thinking about the writing/reading process in terms of my (to be post mortemly published I'm sure) work of transitional fantasy. The primary world that I feign in my story is, as you say in regard to Austen and others, not real. It only has to be real enough to enchant the reader; that is, as Fordim has reflected, for the reader to co-create the feigned reality. The degree to which Tolkien went to achieve this is frankly astounding, and maybe impossible to duplicate.

As for "out of sync", I see how that applies to the Shire. I will enjoy considering how that applies to my story.

As to specific examples (which I'm responding to out of context because I'm lazy and/or lack time):

Eomer's verse works for me because it's alliterative and within the oral tradition that Tolkien based the Rohirrim on.

Gimli's high-flown speech in the Last Debate seems like it needs the "multiple writers" explanation, because he just didn't talk like that earlier. Think of his words to Eomer at their first meeting. Or to Galadriel at the gift giving.

I like Eowyn's "dwimorlaik" very much. It just feels so Germanic/Anglo-Saxon.

As for the attempted explanations of "lawks" and "Lor'", that stuff didn't stand out to me in my "love reading". But then I was only age 12. Nor did it stand out to me in any reading before this current one. The only way that this works for me is to use the conceit that Tolkien is translating some generic semi-polite expletive.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

(1)Does that mean that we can't learn new things from our discussion here but must always return to our own first readings? (2)Is something invalidated if we didn't notice it in our first flush of love reading? (3)And what if someone noticed it on first reading/reading in the context of abandonment to story? (4)Does that make it irrelevant if one person sees it and others don't?

I hope you don't mind my numbering for the sake of referential short hand:

(1) This question is more difficult than it seems on the surface. Whereas the discussions here and knowledge gleaned elsewhere do enrich our understanding and appreciation of LotR and other of Tolkien's works, it comes at a price. At least, we (some of us) are required to "pay more" in terms of trying to experience secondary belief in re-readings.

(2) Certainly not! But knowledge comes with a price of that first naiveté lost (and I mean that in the best sense of the word).

(3) It will affect the reader's experience of the story such that it may hinder secondary belief.

(4) Certainly not! It will at least make for interesting discussions on this thread!

Originally Posted by HerenIstarion

It was 'willing suspension of disbelief' was it not? The accent falls on 'willing' here.

No, actually it's slightly more complicated. Willing suspension of disbelief is necessary once the enchantment has already been broken. Secondary belief, by contrast, is the reader "co-creating the feigned reality" with the author. I do find davem's argument persuasive that in a well-feigned secondary reality it is the reader's responsibility to work with the author. However, I still think that the more one knows about writing and reading, the greater the difficulty in co-creating. This is also true given a greater difference between Tolkien's cultural context and the reader's; no fault of either writer or reader, but a consequence nonetheless.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

However, I still think that the more one knows about writing and reading, the greater the difficulty in co-creating. This is also true given a greater difference between Tolkien's cultural context and the reader's; no fault of either writer or reader, but a consequence nonetheless.

Just some musings about this. Do you mean that, with subsequent readings and more conscious awareness of literary affects, that the sense of the true meaning of ordinary life, which is revealed through the enchantment with the subcreated world, is lost? Or do you mean that the link between the two becomes harder to maintain? Would this mean that writers themselves no longer experience this joy, either in their own writing or when they read other fantasy?

I would have thought that, since Tolkien's view of the imagination is tied in so closely with language, the creation of meaning, that the more one understands how words mean, the more one is able to join in that subcreative activity. (By the way, I don't deny the importance of the reader working with the text. I would use text rather than author.)

It seems to me that any sense of fantasy which is so heavily based on the virginal or naive first reading has to be doomed to a kind of linguistic fall unless one can account for new meanings which come to the imagination upon subsequent readings. Or if there is some other kind of relationship between primary and secondary world. If the only value of fantasy is this defamiliarising quality which makes us see our world newly, then once that act has been achieved, ...

The other point which can be made is to ask whether these breaks you feel in the enchantment are sufficient to destroy the final overall affect of consolation, recovery, joy. I mean, how long must an epiphany be?

By the way, I've just read some stuff about George MacDonald, who of course greatly prefigured Tolkien and Lewis in attributing the value of the imagination to fantasy. I thought it might be useful here to consider.

One difference between God's work and man's is, that, while God's work cannot mean more than he meant, man's must mean more than he meant. For in everything that God has made, there is layer upon layer of ascending significance; also he expresses the same thought in higher and higher kinds of that thought; it is God's things, his embodied thoughts, which alone a man has to use, modified and adapted to his own purposes, for the expression of his thoughts; therefore he cannot help his words and figures falling into such combinations in the mind of another as he himself had not foreseen, so many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the relations involved in every figure, so many the facts hinted in every symbol. A man may well himself discover truth in what he wrote; for he was dealing all the time with things that came from thoughts beyond his own.

This rather fits the Tolkien letter you referred to earlier, that he had not initially seen things in Galadriel that he later saw (or had pointed out to him). So, if Tolkien had a sense of coming closer towards discovering the story rather than inventing it, why cannot the reader also have this experience, as the two are joined in the act of subcreating?

I'm not sure any of this is very coherent or lucid.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

It seems to me that any sense of fantasy which is so heavily based on the virginal or naive first reading has to be doomed to a kind of linguistic fall unless one can account for new meanings which come to the imagination upon subsequent readings.

I don't think its about basing our sense of fantasy on 'on the virginal or naive first reading'. Its about (for me) finding new depth & meaning within the secondary world rather than attempting to supply that depth & meaning from an external source - ie the Primary world.

This rather fits the Tolkien letter you referred to earlier, that he had not initially seen things in Galadriel that he later saw (or had pointed out to him). So, if Tolkien had a sense of coming closer towards discovering the story rather than inventing it, why cannot the reader also have this experience, as the two are joined in the act of subcreating?

This should be our goal on re reading any text, but we should look to the text itself (& the supplimentary work by the author) & our own speculations & surmises about it rather than attempting to find 'relevant' connections outside it - if we want the enchantment to deepen. If we bring in too much of the primary world we may find that the secondary world isn't strong enough to hold it & it will start to unravel - this is our part in the co-creation of the secondary world. We have to assist in the building of it, rather than simply standing around, looking at things & saying 'You know, this is really such & such - I think I'm being had!.'

In his continuing 'meditations on Galadriel Tolkien 'realised' that she was a kind of Virgin Mary figure in the sense that they shared certain symbolic attributes, but she never became merely an allegory of Mary. She could always stand alone as a figure within Middle earth.

Now, I'm not saying its not interesting to make connections between Middle earth & the primary world - I've indulged in that kind of play myself, but while it can be entertaining what I've found is that it takes me away from the actual experience, the 'enchantment'. Its fine to say 'This reminds me of so & so' - in fact, we can't help but be reminded in some cases, but to go beyond that & say 'This must equal that, they're the same thing' is asking for the spell to be broken.