Why Tolkien?

[Mithadan]

I feel a long post coming on...

It is always interesting and amusing to watch how discussions twist and turn and how a subject morphs into another. Aelfwine's original topic querying why we need or seek out a Tolkien community has changed into something else that is equally worthy of discussion.

To begin with Aelfwine's original topic, while Tolkien might not have imagined such a thing as an internet (and might not approve, at least in some respects), what we do on these boards would have been familiar to him. Our discussions are akin to Socratic method debate and the study groups that were common to schools of his time, with the added joy that the topic is not required learning -- as Aelfwine noted. While I cannot vouch for his approval of the medium, I suspect JRRT would approve of the method (though he might prefer we discuss northern mythology or Beowulf rather than LoTR). I'll return to Aelfwine's topic soon.

The other direction this thread has taken is a variant of "why do you like Middle Earth" with, perhaps, an emphasis upon common or universal reasons for such appreciation. While this has been discussed many times before, this debate has taken some interesting twists. Inzildun says LoTR appeals to him/her as a "traditonalist", as an anglophile and touches his appreciation of Tolkien's linguistic skills. Mithalwen likes the breadth, depth and comfort of his writing. Aelfwine points to believability and consistency. Davem goes textbook on us and parrots Tolkien himself and his discussion of escapism in On Fairy-Stories. There, Tolkien complains of "The rawness and ugliness of modern European life" and suggests many want to fly from "hunger, thirst, poverty, pain, sorrow, injustice, death." Yet Tolkien does not claim that Faerie lacks these things, but rather that they are present in a different form, like "the ogre who possesses a castle hideous as a nightmare." He concedes that fantasies are not all "beautiful or even wholesome, not at any rate the fantasies of fallen Man. And he has stained the elves... with his own stain."

"Faerie is a perilous land" partly because of this Mannish stain. Yet, in the complete absence of the modern shortcomings of Man, "stories that are actually concerned primarily with 'Fairies' [elves]... are ... as a rule not very interesting." Good fantasy provides escape and the consolation of the happy ending, which Tolkien terms "eucatastrophe" without excluding the possibility of sorrow and failure ('dycatastrophe"). The litany of modern evils are not absent in Middle Earth, they are present, made appropriate for the time and setting, and attributed appropriately whether to Man, Orc, Dwarf, Elf or otherwise. We do not read Tolkien for these evils, but rather for the escape, recovery and consolation Tolkien refers to in On Fairy-Stories. However, without these evils, Middle Earth would not be interesting.

Returning to Aelfwine's original question, On Fairy-Stories has something to say about that as well. Tolkien dedicates an entire section of that essay to children. Tolkien seems to agree that age is relevant to one's interest in fantasy, though he suggests that the target audience is or should be adults, not children. This being said, Tolkien notes that children have no particular liking or understanding of fairy-stories more so than adults would. Indeed he emphasizes that fantasy should not be "cut off from full adult art." But he concedes that children are "young and growing, and normally have keen appetites so that fairy-stories as a rule go down well enough" but "only some children, and some adults, have any special taste for them." For fantasies to be "worth reading at all it is worthy to be written for and read by adults. They will, of course, put more in and get more out than children can."

LoTR was written for adults but appeals to younger readers as well. Kids can't get as much out of it as adults, which leads to re-reading at least for those who have a "special taste" for it. This is why we obsess and this is why we seek out a community. Particularly where Tolkien is otherwise a private vice as Aelfwine comments.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Starting with why we need a Tolkien community...
When I first read LotR, I needed someone to talk about Middle-earth to, someone to discuss Sam's loyalty, or the oddities of Tom Bombadil. No one else I knew had read these books, so I needed people that had common interests as me. People with similar interests flock together essentially.

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

So to give a short answer after a long one, Tolkien has breadth and depth and the more you look the more you find.

I've found that I have liked Tolkien the more I read. I loved the Lord of the Rings, but I loved the Silmarillion more so. The Children of Hurin was even better.

I love LotR because it is so descriptive. It feels real, like the characters could've really existed, they are relatible. I feel as if I am in Middle-earth when I read. Such as, when reading Lothlorien, I can actually see it, I'm there. Not many other authors, to me can make me picture things so vividly. I am aware that there are other authors, and I like to read other books, such as those by Agatha Christie, but I always wander back to Tolkien after a while.

Tolkien is enjoyable to all ages, I can read FotR to my eight year old brother, and he thinks Frodo and Sam amusing. He likes it. Some people although, are not interested at all. My father for instance, is in the mind set that reading Tolkien is a waste of time, he just doesn't get into it, but I do. Why? Some people don't like depth, I suppose. I guess that Tolkien has a ring that other authors don't have. There is always more depth, always another agreeable and relatible character.

Tolkien as an author writes poems and songs. He writes funny characters, and solemn characters, and just normal characters just trying to get through life, isn't that what Frodo is? But the most important, to me is that Middle-earth is believable. Something that other fantasy isn't. Also, Tolkien is a lovely thing to discuss to get your mind off of a normal day, and a stressful life.

[Kent2010]

To make an honest statement, I did not first read LOTR to escape from reality. I first read it, because I loved the movies. It may be escapism that led to many people (before the movies) reading LOTR, but that was not my situation and I think to answer why we first read LOTR, escapism does not apply to everyone.

The other reason, is simply because I like reading, I like books and a variety of books. There has been a plentiful of biographies popping out everywhere, some are really interesting, others ehh not so much. Works of non-fiction like Soul by Soul which describe the brutal details of the slave trade, and those involved, some comedy from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, plus some fantasy - like LOTR and Harry Potter. It is not a matter of escape, it's the basic matter that I like to read. Seeing the connections between literature and history, and what do books tell us about social and intellectual history is something I can not get enough of...

The good thing about writing fantasy is you can push the boundaries, and in some ways have the potential to get people to think about real social issues. Afterall talking about Elves prejudices against Dwarves, vice versa, and their bloody, violent past is easier than discussing the relatively "new" past or current acts of genocide. Making it Elves slaying Orcs slaing in the 1,000s diffuses the brutal reality that we, as humans, are all capable of unspeakable acts of bloodshed and violence. But it is difficult to confront the fact that 40 years ago many student protesters, in the U.S and on several campuses were shot, because that "grief is still too near." Even if it is Men committing brutality, it still si not as difficult, because we are reading "fantasy Men."

However, the drawback to this is it makes fantasy difficult to believe or make a connection. The Centaurs are forced to live on this plot of land? So what? Here Non-fiction has a leg up, because it is hard to question the reality, and even though reality can get skewed by myth, it is easier for us to believe these types of books. The problem is the topic might be too painful for people to want to confront.

Like what many have said, LOTR is believable. It is believable for a lot of reasons, which I will not repeat, but I will add another reason I find it believable:

To me, the Middle Earth mythos feels complete; it is comprehensive and consistent (and I know, just as anyone who has perused HoME, that there are inconsistencies and frayed threads).
-Aelfwine

The inconsistancies and the incomplete stories we want to read more about, makes the story all the more believable. I think it is a mistake to think history is a bunch 'unquestionable facts.' There are countless events, wars, battles, movements and etc...that are unquestionable, but how it really was to live through an event can only be known by those who live through it. Or the details of what really took place, can only be told by those who witnessed it. And even with real primary sources, and 'eyewitness' accounts, it is very difficult for anyone (in the present) to definitively say "this is what happened, how it happened, and why.' Because, as humans, when we write something down we make conscious decisions to leave certain details out, maybe fudge the reality a bit, or it most likely is a matter of simply misremembering. As many "facts" about history we have, there are more unanswered questions, more contradictions, and more unknowns and there is a curiosity in trying to find out more.

That is part of the believability of LOTR. I want to read more, I want to find out more, but like history there is only so much. And the unanswered questions...does the Balrog have wings? Who knows? Let's ask Gandalf. However, the true power of LOTR is as Mithalwen pointed out the depth, because as you read more, you find out more. And as members of a forum, you can consider opinions and ideas that never crossed your mind. To sum up this entire post in one sentence (maybe it would have been more convenient for me to just say...): It is an unbreakable constructing cycle: reading, finding out more, but that presents even more questions and wanting to find out even more that makes you want to go back and read again.

[Aiwendil]

'Why do we discuss Tolkien?'

I wonder whether, and to what extent, this question is different from: 'Why do we enjoy Tolkien?' For me, at least, any work (of fiction, cinema, music, etc.) that I enjoy is one that I have a strong impulse to analyze, to ponder. And one of the very best ways to analyze something is to discuss it with others. So to me it seems quite natural that a group of people who enjoy Tolkien's work, and therefore wish to analyze it, should come together in a forum to discuss it.

Of course, this probably isn't the whole story. First of all, a lot more topics are covered in Tolkien discussions than simply literary analysis. And second, there are many other popular authors who nevertheless don't have so many discussion groups dedicated to their work.

Perhaps one thing that distinguishes Tolkien from others in this regard is simply that there is more to discuss when it comes to Tolkien's work. I don't mean, of course, that he wrote more than other authors - on the contrary, a good many were far more prolific than he. But, while the works of other authors can be (and are) analyzed at length from a purely literary perspective, Tolkien's works offer, in addition, other avenues of approach. One can discuss the history of Middle-earth, discuss things that lie outside or on the borders of the actual narrative texts. This is a far more sensible exercise when it comes to Tolkien that it would be for many other writers. It would be neither very interesting nor fruitful to discuss, for example, the ancestry of Nick Carraway or the history of West Egg and East Egg in The Great Gatsby. In a work like Gatsby, those things are simply beside the point; of course, there's a great deal of interesting things that can be said about the book on a literary level, but the facts and history about the fictional world in which the narrative takes place have no interest in themselves.

In Tolkien, on the other hand, the sub-created world, with its history and geography, languages and peoples, is as much an integral part of the work as are the features of the narrative itself. This may be related to Tolkien's own practice of treating Middle-earth as 'real', feigning to be translator and chronicler rather than author. For, of course, the interest of a chronicler is in the thing he or she chronicles, not in the chronicle itself. One reads a history book, generally, out of interest in the historical characters and events, not out of interest in the historian or the particular words the historian has used. Similarly, Tolkien gives the impression of having been interested in the personalities and histories of Middle-earth in themselves, and this inevitably comes through to the reader.

It is perhaps to be noted that, where other works do generate fan communities of comparable magnitude, they often exhibit a similar emphasis on the fictional world and its history. One that comes readily to mind is the Star Wars saga, which in a way comes across as a historical chronicle, a documentary on a galactic civil war, more than as a self-conscious piece of cinema.

Of course, none of that would matter if we didn't enjoy Tolkien's work on a literary level as well. So for a full answer to Aelfwine's question, one still must also answer the ancillary question: 'Why do we enjoy Tolkien?'