Author, Reader, or Text? (aka Canonicity Slapdown 2005)

[Thenamir]

Allow me to give the monkey wrench yet another perverted twist. In my long-winded exposition on the definition of meaning, I neglected to note one more pertinent flaw in the form of Fordim's poll. To the question of the meaning of LOTR, I respond with the question, 'Meaning to whom?'

Obviously we have been going back and forth on how LOTR affects individual readers, to which the obvious answer (stated in many forms) is that it depends on the experience of the reader, hopefully guided by the leadings of the author. But alatar's statement

I assume that we get back to the 'reader majority' where the 'meanings' are averaged and outliers (opinions that are way, WAY outside the curve) are thrown out.

brings another frame of reference to the debate, and that is the meaning to readership in general, or society in general.

The literati (those who make their living either by writing books that are painful to read or by persuading the masses that such pain is for their own good) consider Tolkien an inferior author and his readers to be those not sophisticated enough to comprehend Hemingway. To them, reading is not something to be enjoyed but endured, and since so many people enjoy LOTR it must be worthless. On the other extreme of that spectrum, perhaps, there are those so enraptured by LOTR that they delude themselves into thinking that the story is not fiction, but history -- perhaps even recent history -- and they go off on some trip (with the likely aid of L.S.D.) to find Middle-Earth somewhere in the real world. I think it wise to place both extremes into the great wastebin with those who have never read LOTR and have no intention of doing so. Add to them those whose distorted worldviews force a single message on *every* work they encounter.

That leaves us in the Great Middle, and even amongst ourselves we are mired in endless debate on

elves and orcs and sailing ships,
of stewing herbs and kings,
of why Mount Doom is boiling hot
and whether 'Rogs have wings.

Suffice to say that the meaning of LOTR is where the readers want to find it -- some in the embodiment of personal experience, some in detailed analysis of words (and nuances of words "in between the lines"), and some in just curling up with a good read on a rainy weekend afternoon. It's meaning to society and ultimately to history is not something we will decide here.

I guess my point is that we are getting away from comparing apples to apples. I believe that neither in the realm of "personal experience" nor of "reader consensus" will we ever be able to come up with a finite definition of LOTR which could be described as "THE" Meaning. The never-ending desire in all of us for certainty, to be able to say "this, and not that," is something that is rarely satisfied on this side of eternity. But we will continue in endless circles in this polite discussion until someone better defines the terms, and perhaps even then. Fordim?