‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Aiwendil]

Apologies in advance for what is bound to be a long post, considering the amount of discussion that has gone on since my last one.

Davem wrote:

I didn't intend to suggest that. I would ask what their standard is, by which they measure such things - isn't it from some innate sense of right & wrong, of false & 'True'? They hold to some 'ideal' of how things should be, & compare things as they are to that 'ideal'.

As I said before, I don't think that this is the best place to launch into a discussion of moral philosophy. If we are simply talking about distinguishing false propositions from true ones - well, we have all manner of techniques for doing this - logic, mathematics, science, analytic philosophy, etc. Yes, I understand that this is not what you mean. But I am not just being deliberately obtuse. I hold that if "false" and "true" are meaningful, then these are the things one must engage in order to learn which propositions are true and which are false. But I don't think that this is the place to discuss the foundations of epistemology either.

I don't think it is possible to define 'Truth' precisely, because we haven't reached the that 'state'.

and later

I still feel that you & Aiwendil are wanting 'Truth' reduced to a set of 'facts' which you can analyse & 'see through', rather than accepting that is the 'source' of 'facts' as well as everything else.

I'm sorry; while I understand that you think that "Truth" can be a meaningful term and yet one that cannot be defined, I simply don't accept that. I don't know how to have a rational argument with someone who uses a term that (they claim) is by its very nature impossible to define. So unless there is something more that you can say about "Truth", the debate simply must stop there.

And here we come perilously close to entering into yet another big discussion for which this thread is not the place - philosophy of meaning. If anyone is actually interested in my views on that subject, and is feeling particularly adventurous, you may want to check out this monstrosity of a thread at The Tolkien Forum. It began innocently enough as a discussion of absolute vs. relative morals, but around page 4 it becomes a rather intense debate between me and someone else. Anyway, I provide the link because I don't want to simply ignore the whole matter of the philosophy of meaning that arises in relation to the term "Truth", but neither do I want to take up pages talking about it.

I don't think I am. For the enchantment to work, the secondary world must be self contained, if it is not to come across as allegory & the spell fail to be cast effectively. Only in that 'enchanted' state can we fully experience eucatastrophe, when as Helen says, our guard is down.

Forgive me; I'm merely trying to narrow in on exactly what your answer to the following question is: was the primary motivation behind Tolkien's work the communication of "Truth" to his readers?

That is a yes or no question. It sounds to me like your answer is "yes". Am I wrong?

I provided some evidence in the opposite direction earlier:

Tolkien's opinion seems likely to have changed - we have statements in the Letters to the effect that he never expected any of his Silmarillion-related work to be enjoyed by anyone but himself (and Lewis); we also have his statement that the mythology grew out of his desire to provide a historical context for the languages he was inventing. And we have his agreement with Lewis that there was not enough fiction of the sort they liked to read, hence they would have to write it.

and

I believe it's in "On Faery Stories" that Tolkien discusses the phrase "the green sun". At first glance, this appears to be nonsensical. But no, Tolkien says; the phrase is a perfectly good one - so long as its user provides a thoroughly consistent context within which the phrase is to be believed. In other words, it's not strictly the realism of a work of fiction that matters; it's the believability; the internal consistency.

If your answer is indeed "yes" as I suppose, how do you account for these things?

So as far as Tolkien is concerned: I won't rule out his opinion just because he happens to be dead, because thats undemocratic. He may not be right, but he has a right not to be ignored, & the same goes for Rob Gilson & GB Smith. Universal Sufferage, guys!

Well, I'll accept a rational argument from anyone, living or dead. But I won't just concede the point to a dead person any more than I will to a living one.

Lyta Underhill wrote:

Every time I return to it, I see beauties and truths reflected through his words, and I know there are more to be seen if I look properly. Some others on this thread have expressed the desire NOT to know everything, so I think they know what I am trying, stumblingly so, to get across in my ramblings.

I agree with you with regard to beauty. That is, each time I re-read LotR or "The Silmarillion" or The Hobbit I discover ways in which it is aesthetically pleasing that I had failed to notice before. But I don't think I agree about the truths; or perhaps I just misunderstand you. It's not that I think there are "Truths" in Davem's sense in LotR which I am for whatever reason not interested in; I think that there are no "Truths" of that sort - moreover, I think that "Truths" of that sort do not exist.

The Saucepan Man wrote:

To follow your argument to its extreme, we could not appreciate Tolkien’s works unless we recognised Eru as our own God and accepted the creation story as laid out in the Silmarillion as fact. At the very least, we would (as Child points out) have to subscribe to Tolkien’s own religious beliefs in order to enjoy his stories. Yet, there are very few who read and enjoy his works (even among Christians) who subscribe to his particular set of beliefs.

This is a very good point. I repeat an earlier, unanswered query to Davem (and to anyone that shares his opinion): if the fundamental reason that a reader likes Tolkien is that the reader, consciously or not, recognizes the "Truth" of Tolkien's work, how is that the same reader can also like other authors with quite different views? If I like Tolkien because I subconsciously recognize the glimpse of Truth that he gives me, why are my other favorite authors Asimov, Clarke, and Adams?

HerenIstarion wrote:

And though Aiwendil admitted being an atheist, but that does not lead to that he fears to believe if argued into it by means of reason

Well, I don't think I actually used the word "atheist" - only because that can imply an equally unreasoned "certainty" that there is no god. As you suggest, I will certainly believe something to be likely if presented with a convincing rational argument to that effect.

Fordim Hedgethistle wrote:

The discussion of Truth/truths is fascinating and I think central to what Tolkien was working through in his subcreation. To belabour a point I first may a while ago on this thread, I think that it is entirely appropriate to see the confrontation between the Nazgûl and the Fellowship as a confrontation between those who wish to defend the right of the Free Peoples to maintain their own sense of truth(s) against the false imposition of a totalitarian Truth by the forces of Mordor.

I'm afraid I must disagree. Within Arda, there is very clearly a single truth about God, for example. Sauron isn't bad because he wished to impose his own beliefs on everyone; he's bad because the things he claimed were wrong (though I think what makes him really evil is that the things he did were wrong). It's not that Melkorism ought not to be forced on those that don't want it. It's that Melkorism is simply false.

Of course, all of that is intra-Legendarium.

Davem wrote:

I'm not talking about a moral philosophy that you have to go along with, so there will never be a situation where everyone is required to believe the same things, & see the world in the same way.

Then what are you talking about? I don't mean to be rude. I just mean that in my usage, "truth", "Tao", and "joy" are three very different terms with very different meanings. If I understand "joy" as it is in my usage, then when you say:

We can say, reducing all the references, & theories, about Tolkien's motivations, all the stuff about moral regeneration, all of it, to a simple statement of what he wanted to do in his work. He wanted to bring as much Joy to as many of us as possible.

I agree. But when I say "joy" I just mean pleasure, enjoyment. Clearly you mean something more. And I fear that either you must spell out precisely what this "more" is or we are at an impasse.

I don't know if this is enough, & whether there will still be demands for Joy to be reduced to a set of facts & figures which we can all debate.

Well . . . as you can see . . .

I'm sorry (I honestly am, because I enjoy this debate and don't want it to end), but no number of synonyms or analogies is going to suffice. I should point out that I understand that you think it means something more than just "the set of true propositions about the world"; I think I even understand how you think it means more. I just don't agree that it can mean more.

Bethberry wrote:

I find it strange that there is this tendency to equate the position of multiple interpretations with a Humpty Dumpty role or total chaos. The reader is in fact under the same kind of injunction which Tolkien made of the writer in "On Fairy Stories", that his understanding must be consistent. It must be consistent with the reader's own experience (and where this can be shown to be inconsistent, new understanding arises) and it must be consistent with the text. In Tolkien's case, that text is, as I said before, implicit rather than explict. As Child astutely observed, Tolkien was not Lewis.

Yes! This is something like what I was trying to say quite a while ago with my talk about what a "reasonable person" would mean, but Bethberry puts it in much better words.

I don't think I have this experience you claim for all of us. What I feel when I finish reading Tolkien is little different than feelings of departures from other extremely well imagined worlds of fiction. It is narrative cessation--a post-reading desire comedown--not a sense that this world somehow fails.

This is more or less my experience as well. I am naturally always just a bit unhappy that the book is over, but no more so than when I read any good book (or when I listen to a good symphony, or watch a good movie, etc.).

Lyta Underhill wrote:

Middle Earth is a created reality, a second reality or sub-creation. It is not materially existent in this world; however, the very fact that it is read by more than one person makes it a shared psychological or mental reality.

This is certainly true. But there is a great deal of difference between ascribing to something a psychological reality and ascribing to it a transcendent Truth.

As a matter of fact, most of the aspects of "Truth" that Davem, Helen, and others put on a transcendent, metaphysical level I put on a psychological one. It is for this reason that I don't think "echantment" is meanigless, for example, and for this reason that I think the notion of Faerie has some value.

This does not negate the logical true/false values, as those are defined based on the “initial conditions” of an experiment, and a definite material end point which can either meet a criterion or fail to meet it according to the test applied. (I thought I’d add that bit before Aiwendil jumps all over me for sounding like a constructivist again…I’m pretty convinced I am not, but I think I often sound like one. Perhaps it is my sloppy expression of concepts that I am always refining without fully forming to begin with…sorry if I sound flaky, but it is my nature!)

Constructivist! Constructivist!

Well, no. And sorry about last time, by the way. At any rate, I agree with you that no truth ought to be elevated to the level of "Truth" and no falsehoold to the level of "False" - though I suspect we come to this conclusion for different reasons.

Child of the Seventh Age wrote:

I do agree that at the heart of Sauron's evil lay his desire to compel others to accept his own personal view of things. Subjegation and domination, the extinction of the individual personality, were simply a way to implement that "Truth". Even his lust for Power presumed that there was an end goal or product that must be achieved at any cost.

Really? I don't think Sauron would have been satisfied if all the free peoples simply declared that they agree with him on all issues. The impression I get from the MT text on Melkor's motivation vs. Sauron's is that Sauron's fundamental desire was to impose his own sort of Order (there! I can capitalize words too) on everyone.

Mark12_30 wrote:

I am more and more puzzled by the aversion to the word "truth". In his essay "On Faery Stories" Tolkien is not the least bit shy about using this word, any more than we should be shy about using the word "joy" (as davem has recommended.) Refer to the epilog of "On Faery Stories."

I don't have the least problem with using "Truth" to refer to the set of all true propositions. I think that "On Faery Stories" can be understood perfectly well with this definition (whether or not it was Tolkien's). Note that "Truth" in my understanding could very well include propositions like "there is a God" or "that cataract is sublime" (though of course it does not have to).

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Mark 12:30 wrote:

I also stated that in my opinion those who claim to "have" or to have "mastered" the Truth haven't been pursuing it long enough to realize how big it is. So how do you extrapolate from that that I aim to impose my view-- Sauron-like, "own personal vision of truth (through his ego)?"

And Child threatened:

Ahem! That's the second time, you've hinted at a certain kinship I may have with the Nazgûl. As I read your posts, I feel a strong compulsion to go down to the Shire and dig up an RPG where I can fly around and instill terror in folk's heart!

To save myself from misunderstanding (not to mention Child’s wrath!) allow me to clarify my point somewhat (although I was very careful there to say that I don’t think anyone here is a Nazgûl – balrogs, maybe, but never Nazgûl! (hmmm. . .but would they be winged balrogs, or unwinged. . . )

It just seems to me that the instant we begin to locate the text’s meaning or value anywhere near its association with or embodying forth of Truth (no matter how we use that term, and Child, I agree with you this is very dangerous territory – perilous even) then we run the risk of putting ourselves into the role of the Nazgûl insofar as we render ourselves willingly passive before the text. No matter how much we might say that we can apprehend that Truth as our own and make it belong to ourselves as individuals, we still are saying that the ‘point’ of reading is to lay ourselves down on the tracks of the reading experience and let the Truth roar over us like a freight train.

This is why I want to locate the ‘truth’ of the text within the process that it begins between the readers of it. This way, the truths that we develop within the truth-full relation or manner of speaking that we construct in response to the text is one in which we can maintain an active and willed freedom. The Nazgûl are the Nazgûl because they have lost the ability to ask any question other than “What does Sauron want of us?” They are utterly passive before the Truth that they have accepted (or been forced to accept, or whatever). The Fellowship remains free because they locate the truth of their quest explicitly NOT in relation to what Eru wants (there is no divine injunction to destroy the Ring) but because of the relationships that they have with and toward each other, and the other peoples of Middle-Earth. They are free in their Quest because they are free to turn aside from it at any time, but do not. The choices they make are, and must always be, over and over and over again, active re-affirmations of their commitment to the truths that impel them on their journey and bind them together. The instant we forget this and announce that the meaning of the journey is bound in any way to some singular and static Truth at the end. . .well, we cease to engage in the active pursuit of reaffirmation between and amongst our community, and subjugate ourselves to what we imagine that Truth to be.

[mark12_30]

...we render ourselves willingly passive before the text. No matter how much we might say that we can apprehend that Truth as our own and make it belong to ourselves as individuals, we still are saying that the ‘point’ of reading is to lay ourselves down on the tracks of the reading experience and let the Truth roar over us like a freight train.

Does this really sound like Tolkien's definition of eucatastrophe to you, Fordim?

If I expected to be "freight-trained" by his story, or if I had been, I wouldn't have gone back to it over and over again. And I don't see Tolkien's description of "Joy, wonder, and far-off glimpse of evangelium" as a freight train. Nor do I see eucatastrophe as the reader being passive before the text; rather, the reader has an open, receptive heart as he reads the text with his mind engaged.

I do not think that Tolkien was thinking of being "freight-trained" by the Truth. I certainly don't interpret it that way. If phrases like "sudden and miraculous grace" bring images of a freight train to mind then then I suspect it will take a long, difficult time for this discussion to come to any sort of conclusion.

[HerenIstarion]

Truth/Joy:

Atrabeth Finrod ah Andreth

Actually the Elves believed that the 'lightening of the heart' or the 'stirring of joy' (to which they often refer), which may accompany the hearing of a proposition or an argument, is not an indication of its falsity but of the recognition by the fea that it is on the path of truth.)

SpM Majority/Minority re:

many cases (although not all), I do not doubt that the murderer is acting in accordance with his or her personal values. Happily such individuals are in the minority since murder (as a general proposition) is regarded by the overwhelming majority of people as detrimental to society and therefore "wrong". Equally happily, I find myself in the majority on that one.

Do you imply that truth lies in numbers, than? If yes, pray tell me then, why exactly standards of the majority (even though it be overwhelming) should be preferred and overrule the standards of the minority? I believe that, whatever arguments may be presented, in the end you will end up with merely 'because good is good' maxim.

[davem]

Well, I’m stuck. It seems that whatever term I use to refer to some underlying ‘state’ of ‘reality I’ll be asked to reduce it to a set of facts & figures. If I use ‘Truth’, however much I repeat that I’m not talking about some set of rules & regulations, I just get asked what rules & regulations I mean, & told that rules & regulations are BAD. If I use the term Joy, it is immediately dismissed as meaningless, or conflated with pleasure. If I use the term God or Heaven I get accused of trying to convert people. I’d use the word Magic, but I suspect it would be interpreted to mean ‘conjuring’ & I’d be asked to explain the ‘trick’. ‘Light’ seems to be acceptable – yet this light must have a source.

Sorry, but I can’t reduce what I’m referring to to something which fits within a narrow definition, & can be argued about from a psychological perspective, or a deconstructionist one. If all anyone gets from reading Tolkien’s works is something that can be reduced to that level, then I will go all the way out on this limb & say they’re missing the ‘truth’ of the story.

When Eckhart tells us that to see a flower as it has its being in God would be a greater thing than the whole world – you either accept that or you don’t. I believe Eckhart, & all the other mystics, of all the different spiritual traditions saw something more than the rest of us. I also believe that when I read Tolkien’s stories I get a glimpse of what they’re talking about, & that at the moments of eucatastrophe I glimpse that state even more strongly, & that it points me to something more – but, sorry, no hard evidence, no statistical proof. I haven’t been wired up in a lab & the information fed into a computer available to download.

It seems to me that some posters here are coming at things from the perspective that any statement about Tolkien’s works or intentions is only valid if it corresponds with some theory about the world which they hold to reflect reality.

So, I can’t prove Truth, Joy, Love, (Spiritual) Light, Magic, enchantment, eucatastrophe, God or Heaven exist. Sorry.

But what has all this to do with Tolkien? He wrote about Truth (but we have to dismiss that, because there’s no such thing, & even if there were it would be BAD). He wrote about Joy, & said it was the purpose of Fairy stories to expose us to it, but that has nothing to do with anything. He wrote about Love, but that’s just a subjective emotional state, & all we can do is argue about the particular chemicals which cause it. He wrote about Magic, but that’s all primitive trickery. He wrote about God but lets not go there, or we could end up encouraging another Inquisition. We can’t allow these things in (or anyone, including the author, who tries to bring them in), unless they’re accompanied by a THEORY, officially stamped ‘APPROVED’. I can’t reduce to ‘facts & figures’ something which was written with the express intention of helping us break free from such things, so I can’t really argue this subject anymore. I can’t argue from the perspective of the facts & figures of this world, because that, for me, is what Tolkien was trying to liberate us from, in his own small way.

I said, a long while back in this thread, that a Tonne of Facts isn’t worth a gramme of Enchantment (or Truth, or Joy, or ‘God’ or ‘Light’ or whatever other term you want to choose). I still think that’s true, & I simply don’t find psychology or literary theory ‘enchanting’, I don’t find either of them in Tolkien’s works, & don’t think they’re at all relevant or helpful or informative, when it comes to understanding what his works mean to us, or why we respond to them as we do.

' A fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the Walls of the World, poignant as grief'....In such stories when the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, & heart's desire, that for a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, & lets a gleam come through.'

Sorry, that's all I've got. I agree with it, I think its 'True'. I think its Joyous.

[HerenIstarion]

Sing now, ye people of the Tower of Anor,
for the Realm of Sauron is ended for ever,
and the Dark Tower is thrown down.

Sing and rejoice, ye people of the Tower of Guard,
for your watch hath not been in vain,
and the Black Gate is broken,
and your King hath passed through,
and he is victorious.

Sing and be glad, all ye children of the West,
for your King shall come again,
and he shall dwell among you
all the days of your life.

And the Tree that was withered shall be renewed,
and he shall plant it in the high places,
and the City shall be blessed.

Sing all ye people!

[Child of the 7th Age]

Davem

This will be hurried as I am due at work, but I think you are selling yourself short.

In the first place, would it be such a terrible thing if we politely agreed that there were some points we could agree on, and others that we could not? This thread has reached a total of eight pages. With all those reflections and differing opinions, it's scarcely surprising that it would be difficult to reach a consensus.

Secondly, if we look at the thread as a whole, I think that there is more middle ground here than you are seeing right now. This began as a discussion of the right of the reader to grapple with the text on his own and to come up with interpretations that Tolkien had not personally discussed. It was a celebration of the individual and his or her right to bring his own personal background and experience into the literary mix. In essence, we were doing exactly what Tolkien recommends in his preface: not being locked into an allegorical meaning etched in stone, but having the freedom of applicability, looking at the story through the prism of our unique backgrounds and experiences and applying those ideas. We had individual quibbles about the place of the Letters in this process, or how to respond when confronted with interpretations that seemed contrary to what Tolkien himself said (a lá Stormfront) but for the most part we could at least define a middle ground.

Now we come to the difficult part. The thread drastically switched gears. Instead of celebrating the individual, we began searching instead for those common things that readers see in LotR and Tolkien's writings. In a sense it was like grafting a rose onto a pear tree. This had not been Fordim's initial question or intent.

Still, for the most part, we could agree that there was an element of enchantment or faerie that Tolkien drew upon, and that the majority of readers could sense that in their reading. The problem came when we tried to pin that down and put a name on it.

My personal objection to "Truth" (with a capital T) is not that it doesn't exist in the world as a whole. And I would certainly agree that Tolkien was attempting to reflect truth in LotR, and that it stands at the core of much of what he wrote. Even Aiwendil said he could accept that statement if truth was defined in its broadest sense. My objection to using "Truth" was a practical one. The minute you begin to define that term closely, you leave some people in the room and some people outside of it. This is particular true if you define truth in such a manner to touch upon the existence of God. One person's particular definition of Truth may not be the same as another's.

Tolkien was exceedingly careful not to define things in an explicit manner in LotR. He did not do what Lewis did. He uses the pregnant passive in LotR to give us vague hints of a greater force at work, but he does not spell out any of this in detail, at least not in this particular piece of writing. He tells us in the Letters that he did this intentionally. I also think it was intentional that he did not refer to "Truth" openly in the story itself.

Why did he do this? Helen has already pointed out that he did use the term "Truth" in Mythopoiea and On Faerie Stories. Perhaps because in this particular tale he didn't want to lock himself into the same problem we are having here? The minute you start defining Truth in a precise way, people's defensive walls go up as they begin to consider what side of the fence they are on, whether they fit into that particular defintion of truth or not. Tolkien did want to point out the shortcomings in our dreary old world, and to suggest that there could and should be more to life than that. The last thing he wanted to do was to get people's hackles up, so that they would build a wall and lose sight of what the author was saying.

And I am afraid that's what may be happening here. I sense an underlying exasperation in some of these posts that goes beyond a mere intellectual exchange. So my objection to 'Truth' as a term is merely a practical one. Helen may be right that I am throwing out the baby with the bathwater. But I see people becoming defensive about their particular definition of Truth and how that fits into their personal life and beliefs. I don't think that's what we're aiming for. It would be preferable to find terminology that doesn't raise this problem.

Whether we like it or not, Truth does imply a set standard. That is why I feel more comfortable with the terms "Joy" or "Light" which don't seem to carry quite the same meaning.

Fordim does have a point. If you look at "Truth" from a totally different vantage, you could argue that LotR is about rejecting anyone who comes telling you the "Truth", who claims to know the certainties of life better than you do, who in effect supplants Eru's music with his own ideas and schemes.

And I would say that Sauron does do this. Aiwendil , it's interesting that you mentioned Myths Transformed, because my own view of Sauron and Truth stem directly from that. Unlike Morgoth who was merely a nihilist (or at least had become one by the end of the First Age), Sauron did have a clear vision of "order and planning and organization". It has become the great Truth in his life, supplanting the music and plan that Eru put forward. Saruman had a similar vision. That vision of "order as Truth" is also one that we see in a certain modern political ideologies.

Can we not at least agree on a broad statement like this? That most readers see a core of 'enchantment' or 'faerie' which Tolkien depicts or draws upon in his writing. That this may go by different names -- truth, Truth, Joy, or Light-- and that we each differ somewhat in how we define or regard this concept, since we bring our own experiences and backgrounds into the process of definition. But can we not also agree that this core reflects the crucial values and themes that Tolkien delineates in his story: concepts of goodness, self sacrifice, love, and hope?

Would that ledge be broad enough to hold most of the readers here, but defined enough to have a least some meaning? If something like that still doesn't work, we may have to politely agree to disagree, which has certainly happened many times before.

Sorry if this is incoherent. I am racing off to work.

Sharon