Tolkien the Metafictionist

[littlemanpoet]

Part of a poem I wrote back in 2002 seems an apt answer:

my hope
that you see
the world in color

That, too, is metaphorical.

I would find such comments objectionable if they weren't so sad. I'm left wondering what someone, who has such little use for metaphor and depth of reality, finds so compelling in LotR that one would spend so much time on a site like this discussing it?

[Mithalwen]

I know that Tolkien's work is fiction but I love the level of detail that makes Middle Earth so vivid, that as you read LOTR you glimpse the Silmarillion. It isn't real but it has a plausibility about it, a degree of coherence and scope it does seem different from the likes of Alice, which i loved but which doesnt have the same hold on me and which is clearly made up with its dream conceit...oh I am finding this idea hard to express.

I suppose what it boils down to is that Tolkien may be no more real than other fantasy novels but I find it hard really to find it less real than other mythologies which I know aren't real either. They may have elements from genuine events but are they not just asbmade up albeit by more people over a longer time. Does that process make them more real than the synthetic mythology produced from the learning and imagination of one man?

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I find your choice of words here objectionable: needlessly inflammatory.

Well, I could say the same about yours. So what do you do about that?

"We", as in the readers. That's all.

But do you mean all the readers? That is simply not true for all readers.

Use of we in an article meant to persuade often does just the opposite to a critical reader. Use of we is often a trick by the writer to create a connection to the reader of the article. See how often it is used by Edmund Wilson in his notorious review of Tolkien at http://www.jrrvf.com/sda/critiques/The_Nation.html , when Wilson is not instead using the word one. Don’t use either word to persuade people.

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Part of a poem I wrote back in 2002 seems an apt answer:

my hope
that you see
the world in color

That, too, is metaphorical.

So you use a metaphor for anyone who sees the world differently than you do. What does that prove? Not a thing. I am in reality not colour-blind and someone who is might otherwise see the world as you do.

I reject your metaphor as not applicable and inappropriate and insulting.

I would find such comments objectionable if they weren't so sad. I'm left wondering what someone, who has such little use for metaphor and depth of reality, finds so compelling in LotR that one would spend so much time on a site like this discussing it?

You are left wondering about something which you should be able to easily figure out, or perhaps you can’t understand anyone who feels differently than you do about anything.

In his prologue to the second edition, Tolkien writes, “As for an inner meaning or ‘message’, it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical or topical.”

I am quite aware that Tolkien wrote in letter 142:

I think I know exactly what you mean by the order of Grace; and of course by your references to Our Lady, upon which all my own small perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded. The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. That is why I have not put in, or have cut out, practically all references to anything like ‘religion’, to cults or practices, in the imaginary world. For the religious element is absorbed into the story and the symbolism.

But to take this fully one must be a Roman Catholic and believe in the Virgin Mary as a being of unusual power in the world. Are you?

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

I know that Tolkien's work is fiction but I love the level of detail that makes Middle Earth so vivid, that as you read LOTR you glimpse the Silmarillion. It isn't real but it has a plausibility about it, a degree of coherence and scope it does seem different from the likes of Alice, which i loved but which doesnt have the same hold on me and which is clearly made up with its dream conceit...oh I am finding this idea hard to express.

I suppose what it boils down to is that Tolkien may be no more real than other fantasy novels but I find it hard really to find it less real than other mythologies which I know aren't real either. They may have elements from genuine events but are they not just as made up albeit by more people over a longer time. Does that process make them more real than the synthetic mythology produced from the learning and imagination of one man?

I agree almost entirely with this. I can think of fantasy novels that seem as real as Tolkien when I read them, and also some fantasy works that others like more. Others become a chore to read. But there is no fantasy novel or mythological text which seems as real as the real world.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Well, I could say the same about yours. So what do you do about that?

Personally I take "religious nut" as a complement, but others could see it as an insult. If you aren't open to perhaps being a little less confrontational in your posting, then I will say nothing more.

Originally Posted by jallanite

Use of we in an article meant to persuade often does just the opposite to a critical reader. Use of we is often a trick by the writer to create a connection to the reader of the article. See how often it is used by Edmund Wilson in his notorious review of Tolkien at http://www.jrrvf.com/sda/critiques/The_Nation.html , when Wilson is not instead using the word one. Don’t use either word to persuade people.

I wasn't trying to "persuade" anyone. I was simply stating a thought about the matter.

Originally Posted by jallanite

I can think of fantasy novels that seem as real as Tolkien when I read them, and also some fantasy works that others like more. Others become a chore to read. But there is no fantasy novel or mythological text which seems as real as the real world.

And that is your opinion, to which you are welcome. Please respect those belonging to others.

I personally have sometimes felt LOTR, along with a handful of other books, to be at least as "real" as the corporal world I inhabit (since you dislike the use of "we"). Is it that way every time I read Tolkien? No. But when my mind is set the right way, and daily cares retreat temporarily, I can lose myself in the world he created so that it has as much emotional, intellectual, and even spiritual impact on me as whatever the "real" day has brought.

[Morthoron]

There once was a rumor
Of a man without humor
Who posted at night --
And always in black and white.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

"It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed." From "On Fairy Stories"

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

"It is not difficult to imagine the peculiar excitement and joy that one would feel, if any specially beautiful fairy-story were found to be “primarily” true, its narrative to be history, without thereby necessarily losing the mythical or allegorical significance that it had possessed." From "On Fairy Stories"

Good quote. Interesting his use of "allegory" though.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

And that is your opinion, to which you are welcome. Please respect those belonging to others.

Yet you seem not to respect my opinion in this matter. Fair enough. I don’t necessarily respect every opinion of every poster in this or any other forum.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Yet you seem not to respect my opinion in this matter. Fair enough. I don’t necessarily respect every opinion of every poster in this or any other forum.

While we don't have to agree with everyone here, we do tend on this forum to respect everyone, regardless of whether we agree with their opinions or not. Needless personal attacks, ad homimen attacks on the person rather than on the ideas, are not part of Downs culture and really diminish the quality of the discussion.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

While we don't have to agree with everyone here, we do tend on this forum to respect everyone, regardless of whether we agree with their opinions or not. Needless personal attacks, ad homimen attacks on the person rather than on the ideas, are not part of Downs culture and really diminish the quality of the discussion.

I quite agree. I try to concentrate on the ideas a post presents. I sometimes fail, as do we all. Still, I do not respect every opinion posted, at least when posted, but this is nothing to do with my respect (or lack of respect) for the person. But I try to treat them with respect.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Yet you seem not to respect my opinion in this matter. Fair enough.

Certainly, I respect your opinion. My issue is with the manner in which you express it. I wish that, as Bêth says, you would confine your comments to what people say, rather than the poster themselves.

[Morthoron]

I believe it was John Lennon who put it most succinctly:

"Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye."

*Blinks*

Ummm...perhaps that wasn't the right Lennon quote for this situation. Never mind.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

Certainly, I respect your opinion. My issue is with the manner in which you express it. I wish that, as Bêth says, you would confine your comments to what people say, rather than the poster themselves.

The same is true for me.

What you said was “If we didn't see Tolkien's works in particular as "real", would they be worthy of the time and effort spent on discussion, here and elsewhere?” Then you defined we as meaning “‘We’, as in the readers. That's all.”

My comments were entirely on what you said, not personal. I am a reader of Tolkien and have been for years. So is Mithalwen. In this as on any forum people at various times have disagreements with other members, on what they said. Any poster will often find that another posters comment they disagree with entirely, and then the same poster will support their comments in another area.

The difficulty with the use of we in arguments is that it often comes down to meaning I and you and essentially means you. By readers you are, as you claim, meaning readers that is all readers, and by all readers you mean you. I don’t mean you are intentionally doing it, but to a critical reader being told how they read and what they appreciate is infuriating, when it is very much not how they read or what they read. I do not think you really meant to tell me that I was not a reader of Tolkien if I did not think of his writing as real.

Well I do not think of it as real. Nor do I think of any fictional work as real. Especially fantasy fiction. Tolkien refers to the world in a fictional work as a secondary world or a secondary reality, subordinate to his own. He also for years worked as a Professor of English, in which he often thought unreal secondary works to be worthy of the time and effort spent on discussion, whether it was Beowulf, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Pearl. And in his letters he appears to consider his own work so worthy, though never considering it to be real either.

Tolkien never confuses a secondary reality with the primary reality. Two posters, you one of them, seemed to me to be doing this. If what you said is the difficulty, then, again, look at what you said: “If we didn't see Tolkien's works in particular as "real", would they be worthy of the time and effort spent on discussion, here and elsewhere?” I say yes, at least as worthy as spending time on many other kinds of amusement. That a person spends time on a play by Shakespeare or a book by James Joyce or supposedly lower levels of literature has no relation to the reality of such works.

Any literary work may feel real when one is reading it, and even later when one is engaged in the study of it. But it is still not real, and I think it wrong to believe otherwise, especially when the work is sold as fiction.

You said, “I wasn't trying to "persuade" anyone. I was simply stating a thought about the matter.”

It seems to me that many posts are an attempt to persuade others that the poster is correct. What clue did your post contain to indicate that you really didn’t mean it? Why am I to be blamed for taking you at your word if indeed you really didn’t mean it? How was I to know? Or did you mean this thought about the matter? Then why am I to be blamed for my thoughts about the matter?

Where have I not commented totally on what other posters have said in this debate, along with my own thoughts about the matter?