‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Mister Underhill]

SPM: For example, if the interpretation of LotR as supporting the white supremacists' views is a "wrong" interpretation, then the corresponding "right" interpretation is that LotR does not support their views.

I don’t agree here. The thinking isn’t complete. The right interpretation is not simply a negation: “does not support their views”. To refute a wrong interpretation, we should be able to show why it is wrong. It’s not x because it is y. I don’t want to delve too far into the particulars of Stormfront’s interpretation and refuting it. Perhaps you see what I mean.

Whether a text supports or expounds any particular moral tenet may in itself be a matter of interpretation.

Indeed. Though I think there are themes that, in broad stroke at least, will not be debatable. Also, I did not say that these themes will always be obvious or clear-cut, only that they would be there.

But I do thing that, to some extent, we are nevertheless subconsciously responding to the text and, in that sense, interpreting what it means to us, as we read it. Otherwise, I am not at all sure that we would undergo the enchantment in the first place.

When we read SoWM, for example, we begin to form interpretations about the characters, the events that happen to them, and their reactions to those events. Nokes’s reaction to the Fairy Star, to Alf, and so on, lead us to an interpretation of Nokes. We wonder, what is the meaning of the mysterious message give to Smith by the Fairy Queen? And the revelation that [SPOILER ALERT -- skip to the next paragraph if you've not read Smith...] Smith himself apparently is the Fairy King must also be interpreted. What does it mean?

In davem’s excellent post about 'A Shop on the Edge of the Hills of Fairyland' (#154), he describes quite eloquently a key quality of the appeal of the picture: the questions about story elements and characters that it evokes: “...why would a shop be there, what does it sell, who to, & who would run such a place? There's a whole story there in the title, & its almost like, on some level, we feel we 'know' that story, but just can't quite remember it, & desperately want someone to remind us how it goes.”

davem: Yet this is exactly what we have in Smith... We are simply seeing a series of unconected scenes, & visions, with no connecting narrative... The point of the story - if there is one, is that merely wandering in Faerie is of value, & enchanting enough.

Hmm... ‘the point of the story’? Do I detect meaning? Interpretation? But you save yourself with the escape hatch of “-if there is one”.

I agree in a sense that SoWM is more dreamlike, more like a poem, though I think the story does indeed transmit meaning. Tolkien’s own words betray him. In letter 299, he applauds the sentiment that “To seek for the meaning [of the story] is to cut open the ball in search of its bounce.” Yet in the same letter, only moments later, he says: “But the little tale was (of course) not intended for children! An old man's book, already weighted with the presage of bereavement.” Here we already have hints of meaning and intention.

I personally feel that SoWM is, at least in part, a dramatization of the ideas, sentiments, and philosophy found in On Fairy Stories, and is one of the more autobiographical – dare I say allegorical? – pieces that Tolkien ever wrote.

Nevertheless, I do sympathize with your sentiment that a story is meant to be experienced rather than dissected, at least while you’re reading it. And I get that reading a story versus talking about a story is a little bit like the difference between dancing and talking about dancing. One is the experience, one is talking about the experience. But I think the thing that distinguishes a good story from a purely sensual – but meaningless – experience, like an amusement park ride, is that stories do have meaning. They say something, even if it’s something that affects us on such a primal level that no words can ever express it adequately. A story is its own expression.

This post is already too long, so here I’ll just tip my hat to Fordim for building a very thought-provoking bridge between Truth and truth.

[The Saucepan Man]

Just a quick one to respond to Mister U.

I don’t agree here. The thinking isn’t complete. The right interpretation is not simply a negation: “does not support their views”. To refute a wrong interpretation, we should be able to show why it is wrong. It’s not x because it is y.

Yes, I agree that when we seek to refute a "wrong" interpretation, we do get into meaningful interpretation. But there will be any number ways of interpreting the text to do this, and so we get into territory where there is no one interpretation which can be objectively shown to be "right". Which is what I meant when I said that it does not follow from the fact that an interpretation is "wrong" that there will be one corresponding "right" interpretation, save for the meaningless negation.