The Hobbit is what?

[davem]

The Hobbit is a non mythic story set in a mythic world. Its as if anyone of us were suddenly to stray into the world of myth, & have a series of adventures - we would not be creating another myth, but rather interacting with them. So, its a fairy story, which is not a poor man's myth, but a thing in itself. In that sense it could be argued that LotR is not a myth, it is also a fairy story. The early part of the Legendarium, the Ainulindale, Valaquenta, the creation of Arda, the early battles with Melkor, are the myths, the tales of the first age are Legends, & the events of the Hobbit & LotR are fairy stories.

Having said that, I think all Imladris's points apply to fairy stories as much as to myths, & Helen's point is valid - the Hobbit opened up a whole new, 'real' world to me, & that feeling of 'reality' comes from somewhere, not originating in art, but communicated through art - the art is the medium of comunication, because if its true that

Successful myths rise to probe the ultimate mystereis of existence, simultaneously arousing the reaader's wonder and awakening in him a desire that these insights might be true."

then that implies that there are such things as the 'ultimate mysteries of existence' which can be 'probed', & the 'sense that these things might be true' must come from somewhere. We're back to 'desire' - what is it that we 'desire'? And why is it only myths, legends & fairy stories that both whet & feed that specific desire?

Whether its a myth a legend or a fairy story is in the end irrelevant, the important question, for me, is why & how, it affects us in the way it does - the effect is more important than the label.

Let me throw something in here.

In the catalogue for the 1992 Tolkien Centenary exhibition at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, there's a page of Tolkien's calligraphic doodles, written on the back of a torn sheet of minutes from an English Faculty Board Meeting of 27th Oct 1939. Mostly nonsense, but a couple of sentences read:

Gandalf caused a curious stir in Alfaromdor by having his whiskers curled.
Can you imagine anything more inept.

Genuine Tolkien - there's a reproduction of the page in the catalogue.

Now just reading that I could almost begin to imagine a fairy story, certainly more along the lines of the Hobbit than LotR (in fact another 'doodle' on the page reads 'In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit, curious & egregious little person as any of his friends would have told you').

So, I was almost back in the fairy story world of the Hobbit, just by reading that one sentence. Its like that world exists & there are 'doorways' into it in even the most unlikely places - even on a page of 'doodles'.

Originally Posted by Imladris

What Lewis is saying is that you don't need to read the story to have it affect you. The synopsis is enough. Now, does the Hobbit do that?

I'd say yes - because the 'synopsis' Tolkien doodled there affected me, even tough it will never be possible to read the whole story.