‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

Though I may be contradicting earlier statements of mine, something occurs:

Accepting 'Faerie' to be a different 'state' of perception, if it is a state that we can all access, it has 'objective' existence. This leads to the question of what, exactly, it is - but we can only theorise about that, & those with a religious bent will offer religious speculations.

A more interesting question in the context of this thread is how we judge the 'canonicity' of Tolkien's Faerie. Do we base our judgements about what is 'correct' in Tolkien's vision, ie, which versions of the stories & which of Tolkien's interpretations of them we include as 'authoritative' & which we reject, on what Tolkien does with what he finds & Faerie & brings back to us & presents as Middle Earth (or Faery), or do we base our judgement on how accurately he reports Faerie to us?

We could decide that everything in LotR is 'canonical' & cannot be questioned, because it is the account Tolkien gave us - but statements about Faerie made in it may conflict with the 'truth' of Faerie - maybe he chose not to accept something he found there because it conflicted with some tenet of Catholicism - was there any self imposed restriction on what he reported to us? And if there was, which side do we come down on.

In other words, are we looking to Tolkien to provide us access to Faerie, & perhaps through Faerie, access to something beyond that - as Niggle's painting could provide a viewer with a glimpse of the 'real' place it depicted, yet that place was seen in the end to be merely 'the best introduction to the 'Mountains', & its over those Mountains, in the end, that we must go. Or is Tolkien's Middle Earth to be taken as Art, a thing in itself, which has a value solely in & of itself? Or, to boil it down, should we see the Legendarium as being 'for' something - either for something in this world (to teach us about this world, our place in it & how we should live) or as a pointer to the Road' out of this world (the way over the Mountains), or should we simply 'experience' it as having no meaning beyond itself?

If the first, then Tolkien could be way wrong, even in LotR, in his statements about Middle Earth - which is not to say he is wrong, merely that we would be reading the story as a kind of 'guide book', or a map which we consult before undertaking a journey somewhere other than Middle Earth, & we could consult other maps & guide books at the same time & try to find where all the different versions agree, & where, if at all, they disagree. So, Faerie is an objective place or state we are seeking to enter into, & possibly pass beyond the writer of the guidebook(s), the drawer of the map(s).

If the second, then the Journey is not to somewhere 'beyond' Middle Earth, but into & through Middle Earth itself - so that the book 'Lord of the Rings' is 'Niggle's painting', & the Mountains & beyond is our experience of Middle Earth as we read it, & it points the way to nothing beyond itself. But then we get stuck, because Tolkien is using ancient symbols, myths, traditions. He is dealing with 'eternal' themes - death, love, sacrifice, beauty & those things are what strike the deepest chord in most of his readers, so we are forced to ask whether what we are responding to is simply Middle Earth itself, or what it points us towards, & requires us to confront - or at least offers us the opportunity to confront.

It leaves us with the question, 'Is Tolkien's Legendarium 'canonical' in terms of Faerie, or isn't it? Should we require it to be? Well, if Faerie is objectively 'real' & a 'state' closer to ultimate 'Truth' than the 'reality', physical & psychological, which we currently inhabit, & if we see Tolkien's work as if not the 'best' then at least a good 'introduction to the Mountains', then it should be as 'canonical', as 'true' a depiction of Faerie as possible, & we should reject anything in it which doesn't correspond to the 'known' of Faerie (known through the original legends, symbols & stories), & hold up to strict scrutiny any 'new' things which Tolkien has introduced. If it is a tower built to enable us to look out on the Sea, then we will require that it has been built within sight of the Sea, not a thousand miles inland, & that it is tall enough, & has windows facing in the right direction. Of course, maybe the Sea doesn't exist, or maybe what we will find when we reach the top of the tower stairs is a painting of the Sea, inspired by the idea of the Sea, not meant to show us the way to the Sea, but simply there to be experienced as a work of art in its own right.

Tolkien can't have it both ways - he can't claim on the one hand that fantasy (including his own creation, presumably) is about seeing 'in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world' - ie, claiming that it points us towards something greater, more 'real', 'truer', & at the same time denounce the 'purposed domination of the Author', & leave it all up to individual interpreatation, or 'applicability', because if the first claim is true, & it is to show 'a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world' then the author is required to do that as accurately as possible, may be wrong, can & should be contradicted, & so Tolkien himself, even in his 'canonical' writings may be completely wrong, & other's may be right. If the second statement is correct - that it is not about the purposed domination of the author, but rather about 'applicability' then whatever the writer of the story says is 'true' for the world he has created, & the story reveals nothing - least of all the 'far off gleam or echo of evangelium' - unless the reader chooses to interpret it in that way - & any reader's interpretation is as valid as any other, & none of them, including the author's, has any more weight, or claim to the 'truth' than any of the others.

As I said, I may have contradicted earlier statements of mine here, but these are my current thoughts, as they've come to me as I've written them.

[The Saucepan Man]

I was implying that all human beings (as well as in Tolkien's world all Free People do - the pin-point quote provided by Helen up there) have built-in standard of Good and Evil (different codes of conduct of different cultures being consequent to one and the same standard), which can not be explained away without drawing in outside nature Consciousnes/Power/God to have such a standard be derived from. (HerenIstarion)

My personal opinion is that this in-built moral code (which itself varies from society to society and within societies over time) can be explained by reference to the evolution of human society (an argument which you anticipated but dismissed, H-I), but I won’t go into that here since it is an issue which I debated at length with Mister Underhill (among others) in the http://forum.barrowdowns.com/showthread.php?t=508&page=1&pp=40&highlight=philos ophy) ]Lord of the Rings and Philosophy[/URL] thread.

However, I am not sure it matters that much which rationale one adopts as the basis for morality, since I think that we can all accept that are basic moral values which (exceptions and caveats aside) we can all subscribe to. And, while Tolkien’s tales do affirm and exemplify these values, we do not need to read the texts to be aware of them. For example, I think that we can all agree that killing is wrong, without needing to read LotR to tell us that. So I do not think that it is this moral code that “Faerie” puts us in touch with. Rather, in my view, it is something much deeper and more primordial. That said, I still I haven’t really got a handle on exactly what it is or why it should enchant us so. And perhaps, for reasons already stated, I shouldn’t try.

Tolkien can't have it both ways - he can't claim on the one hand that fantasy (including his own creation, presumably) is about seeing 'in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world' - ie, claiming that it points us towards something greater, more 'real', 'truer', & at the same time denounce the 'purposed domination of the Author', & leave it all up to individual interpreatation, or 'applicability' … (davem)

That seems to me to be a very pertinent point to raise, davem, since Tolkien does, as you suggest, appear to make both claims in his writings. I haven’t got the Letters to hand, but I was reading them last night and came across two extracts that very much supported the latter view. One was a quick comment to the effect that LotR is about nothing except for itself. The other, in a letter to his Aunt I think, concerned Leaf by Niggle. He set out the ideas that he had in mind when writing it and then went on to comment that (while they might be of interest to his Aunt) they should have no bearing on the reader’s appreciation of the story itself.

If I was to try to reconcile the conflicting views that you have highlighted, davem, then I would speculate that, while he had a settled view (based upon his beliefs) of what it was that he experienced in “Faerie” and hoped that readers of his tales would experience the same, Tolkien nevertheless recognised that he could not impose that experience on his readers, since they will be free to interpret it in whatever manner seems appropriate to them.

[mark12_30]

Meaty stuff, davem.

I think it's both more complex and more simple than that.

Faerie tales (of any kind) transport the reader out of *this* world into a secondary world, with its own rules, so that when the Truth permeates the fabric and the reader tastes it, it is acceptable and has appeal. The reader embraces it and likes it. As, when Tolkien made Good Beautiful. In this world, despite our skepticism, good is beautiful, if you have the heart to see that; and spending time in his world has enabled lots of young teen fans to set aside skepticism and choose good where they otherwise would not. (See the many and varied posts in Novices and Newcomers to this effect.) Having encountered Truth in a faerie story, the hope is that when the reader returns to *this* world, he will recognize that truth, in our example that goodness as desirable (and good) when he sees it here, and it will appeal to him as it did in the other world. And in the lives of many teen fans (and elders) this is beautifully effective.

In order for that to succeed, Tolkien does not have to create The World Of Faerie. He has to create a world into which faerie can permeate. But that world has to be consistent-- or we lose trust. Aragorn has to be Aragorn; Gollum has to be Gollum; and Elves have to be Elves-- or *we* lose trust in the storyteller, and our skepticism kicks in. We might as well have stayed in *this* world.

One major point of parables, myths, faerie stories, is that in entering into them, we set aside our skepticism.

Old Testament: look at Nathan describing the Old Man’s one precious lamb, and the rich man who took it from him instead of taking a lamb from his own plentiful herd. David's guard was down, and he was furious at the rich man on behalf of the Old Man who only had one precious lamb. David condemns the Rich Man as heartless and cruel. When Nathan says, "That's what you did to Uriah when you took Bathsheba, " David is pierced to the heart. Why? Because his guard was down, his skepticism was inactive.

There were dozens of ways to tell that parable. It didn't have to be an old man; it didn't have to be a lamb. It could have been a little boy with a pet bird, or whatever. But the point was, David's guard was down, and he was vulnerable and open when the truth finally struck.

Now-- if the parable had been inconsistent *within itself*, or had given itself away as overtly moralizing: "Listen, David, and I'll tell you how you really sinned with Bathsheba--” David’s guard would have been up and the truth wouldn't have gotten through to his heart.

This is why I look at consistency for each story. Smith has to be consistent within itself, cover to cover. Roverandom has to be consistent within itself, cover to cover. Or our skepticism rears up, and we harden our hearts before the Truth can penetrate. Lord of the Rings has to be consistent within itself, or the spell is broken. Generally speaking, when the spell breaks, our heart closes.

That's why I think you COULD write a good (great!) Trotter story. Make it consistent from cover to cover; make me believe in Trotter, that he is who he is (not a surrogate Aragorn!), he lives where he lives, he does what he does. And then if Faerie invades, if Truth shines through, I might be open to that glimpse beyond-- beyond Trotter, beyond where he lives, into Truth.

Going back to your post:

In other words, are we looking to Tolkien to provide us access to Faerie, & perhaps through Faerie, access to something beyond that - as Niggle's painting could provide a viewer with a glimpse of the 'real' place it depicted, yet that place was seen in the end to be merely 'the best introduction to the 'Mountains', & its over those Mountains, in the end, that we must go.

I think we should look for that in any good faerie story.

Or is Tolkien's Middle Earth to be taken as Art, a thing in itself, which has a value solely in & of itself?

While it's true that a work of art has a value in and of itself, it's not true that therefore it has no transcendent value.

The painting of St. Catherine in The Boston Museum of Fine Arts is a beautiful work of art, a magnificent example of The Painter's Craft in and of its own right. The lighting is superb; the colors are effective; the woman's clothing folds realistically; her facial expression is realistic. The building is realistic. The storm outside is realistic. The crucifix looks like a real crucifix. Yes, it has value as a Painting, as Oil On Canvas; it is a painter's example of How To Do It Right.

But-- it also pierces my heart, with desire, with hope, with longing, with passionate faith. Very few works of art in this world have affected me the way that painting has.

So-- Tolkien's statements (that seem to conflict):

Tolkien can't have it both ways - he can't claim on the one hand that fantasy (including his own creation, presumably) is about seeing 'in a brief vision that the answer may be greater—it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world' - ie, claiming that it points us towards something greater, more 'real', 'truer', & at the same time denounce the 'purposed domination of the Author'

Yes he can-- because he is not after the author's domination. He is after the interaction between the heart of the reader and that encounter with Truth. And the Truth is beyond the author's control; the Truth transcends the author.

The author can drive the bus, he can know the road, he can stay on schedule; but it is the passenger who must have open eyes to see, and be receptive and open to the sights he sees. If his eyes are closed because of horrible driving, that's the driver's fault. If his eyes are open and he sees a glimpse of Truth-- the driver can only take credit for helping the passenger feel secure enough during the bus ride that he doesn't have to close his eyes.

(Saucie, we cross-posted...)

[mark12_30]

A scattered afterthought:


The domination of the author in allegory is due to the one-on-one correspondence, indicating that the author chooses where the reader is allowed to look. That tends to actually limit the truth that can be revealed. A faerie story like LOTR, or Sil, or Beowulf or Sir Gawain, in removing this one-to-one, opens up the view. (struggling...)

Allegory is as if the bus driver curtained all the windows but one, or (even) mounted a periscope on the bus, and offered the passenger the opportunity to look out of it in a certain direction. It forces the passenger to trust the bus driver much, much more. Or, it opens the heart less.