Why do you think LOTR appeals to so many people? - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

Merri · 08-18-2002, 10:55 AM

I'm rereading the LOTR series right now, and I was just reading Peter Beagle's foreward to the books when I found my answer . . . or at least, an answer I agree with. Here's what he says:

"For in the end it is Middle-earth and its dwellers that we love, not Tolkien's considerable gifts in showing it to us. I said once that the world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers- thieves planting flags, murderers crarrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonization of dreams" - Peter S. Beagle

I think that sums it up pretty well, don't you?

08-18-2002, 10:55 AM	#17
Merri Wight Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: The Shire Posts: 221	I'm rereading the LOTR series right now, and I was just reading Peter Beagle's foreward to the books when I found my answer . . . or at least, an answer I agree with. Here's what he says: "For in the end it is Middle-earth and its dwellers that we love, not Tolkien's considerable gifts in showing it to us. I said once that the world he charts was there long before him, and I still believe it. He is a great enough magician to tap our most common nightmares, daydreams and twilight fancies, but he never invented them either: he found them a place to live, a green alternative to each day's madness here in a poisoned world. We are raised to honor all the wrong explorers and discoverers- thieves planting flags, murderers crarrying crosses. Let us at last praise the colonization of dreams" - Peter S. Beagle I think that sums it up pretty well, don't you? __________________ Knowledge is just opinion that you trust enough to act upon. -Children of the Mind, by Orson Scott Card.