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Originally Posted by Thenamir
.... To the question of the meaning of LOTR, I respond with the question, 'Meaning to whom?'
... 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. ...
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Originally Posted by Thenamir
.... that certain types of readers gravitate towards works like LOTR -- people like myself (though certainly not confined thereto), who have not yet had all sense of awe and wonder quite beaten out of them by the world and it's drudgeries and injustices. Who can feed their imaginations on words of beautiful possibility and suspend that rationality which monotones on about how incredible and impractical such concepts might be. Like C.S. Lewis's Puddleglum, I will live like a Narnian, even if there is no Narnia. I will maintain Gondorian ideals of honor, of justice tempered with mercy, and of doing what's right, even if the world should laugh in derision. I will ever strive to conform to the objective Standard. And one day I know I will find my Narnia, my Gondor, beyond the walls of the world....
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Perhaps LOTR draws such readers; perhaps, sometimes, it transforms the reader into such a one. Either way, beyond the walls of the world, it may be that the meaning is seen in the truth-- that Truth which we glimpse at each eucatastrophe; and the Author of that Truth may be one "to whom" -- or rather by whom-- the meaning is finally declared in full.
08-02-2005, 09:56 PM
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