Tolkien and the Book

[davem]

Originally Posted by Bb

Not so with the elves, though. They've embalmed their memories. Their tragedy is that all they do is look back. There is no active growth principle in their art.

Maybe. I do wonder whether the works they create - from handicrafts to Lorien - are straight recreations of what was, or whether they are 'idealised' versions, which they have built up in their minds over the millenia. If they have no (or few)books & depend mainlElves y on memory then maybe those memories aren't as 'fixed' as they may at first seem. Human memory seems to work not through exact recollection but rather through a process of 're-creation' - is Elven memory totally different?

Whatever. I've asked a few times on various threads why the Elves don't 'sub-create' in the strict sense of creating secondary worlds in the mind - ie fictions - which Tolkien claims is innate in us as children of a Creator. Is Lorien (& Rivendell, Gondolin, etc) such a -sub creation? If so, then to what extent are they 'copies' & to what extent 'enhancements' (ie, fictions)? Certainly, their innate sense of sadness & loss will affect how they experience reality, so even if they were to copy/store things in as pure a form as they were capable of, they would not prove to be objective sources. They don't, after all, 'embalm' facts but perceptions.