Tolkien the Metafictionist

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by jallanite

Yet you seem not to respect my opinion in this matter. Fair enough. I don’t necessarily respect every opinion of every poster in this or any other forum.

While we don't have to agree with everyone here, we do tend on this forum to respect everyone, regardless of whether we agree with their opinions or not. Needless personal attacks, ad homimen attacks on the person rather than on the ideas, are not part of Downs culture and really diminish the quality of the discussion.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

While we don't have to agree with everyone here, we do tend on this forum to respect everyone, regardless of whether we agree with their opinions or not. Needless personal attacks, ad homimen attacks on the person rather than on the ideas, are not part of Downs culture and really diminish the quality of the discussion.

I quite agree. I try to concentrate on the ideas a post presents. I sometimes fail, as do we all. Still, I do not respect every opinion posted, at least when posted, but this is nothing to do with my respect (or lack of respect) for the person. But I try to treat them with respect.

[littlemanpoet]

Despite the risk, I will attempt some clarification.

By real I do not mean literally factual.

By real I do mean being about reality. More helpfully, I consider LotR to be "real", that is "about reality", in that it deals with perseverance, sacrifice, duty, love, hate, good, evil, life and death. Et cetera. Is there an aspect of it that is "real" in terms of place and time? Tolkien says that it partakes of our own history. The story is about us. In other words, it's real. It may not have literally happened, but it's real. It's about reality.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Tolkien says that it partakes of our own history.

That doesn’t sound to me like something Tolkien would say. Where did you find this?

The story is about us.

And who is “us”? Feänor, Beren, Lúthien, Húrin, Túrin, Tuor, Eärendil, Elwing, Elrond, Aldarion, Erendis, Gollum, Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Galadriel, Boromir, Faramir, Éowyn, and many other characters, mostly very different from one another?

In other words, it's real. It may not have literally happened, but it's real. It's about reality.

Tolkien writes about a world in which Elves existed, and Dwarves, and Hobbits, and Orcs, none of whom are real according to most people. They never existed according to most and I have read nothing that suggests that Tolkien thought or felt that they ever existed. Númenor or Atlantis also never existed, according to most.

See the definitions of real given by Miriam-Webster at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/real or those in other dictionaries. In other words, Tolkien’s writings on Middle-earth were not real according to the standard definitions of real.

Tolkien himself in his letters often called his main work, The Lord of the Rings, a romance. He even writes in letter 329: “My work is not a ‘novel’, but an ‘heroic romance’ a much older and quite different variety of literature.”

I admit there is much realism in The Lord of the Rings, as there is in many other romances, such as the Odyssey, the Aeneid, Le Morte d’Arthur, Norse romances of Sigurð, Beowulf, and many others. The Lord of the Rings seems to me to be more realistic than the Mahabharata or the Ramayana or the Finnish Kalevala. But I’ve never heard anyone try to make The Lord of the Rings into a realistic story before now. One of its charms is the elements which are fantastic and non-realistic which you do not mention at all, as is the case with every successful work which is called a romance. You grossly distort The Lord of the Rings by, in effect, leaving out the Ring.

See the definitions of romance given by Miriam-Webster at http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/romance . Only the modern definition of a ‘love story’ of course does not fit. The Lord of the Rings is about reality, as you claim, but also about much that is intended to be very unreal, about faërie.

[Morthoron]

Some folks just don't get it. Oh, they'll say they get it, and cite any number of other literary pieces, complete with appropriate quotations from the author to bolster their sere and rigid view, and yet they have a fundamental disconnect in regards to what other people are saying.

For a magician to work an astounding illusion, it requires a suspension of disbelief, and in certain circumstances a wish to believe that the illusion is real. The audience knows that what they are seeing is an illusion, and perhaps some even know how the bit of magic was produced; however, for the eye and brain to be fooled, even among jaded cynics, makes the illusion all the more powerful, and the magician all the more celebrated.

Tolkien was a magician. He was not a conventional author, as the snobbish critics of post-modern literature would have you believe, and yet he compiled and created a world so compelling, a synthesis so complete, that the eye and mind, and more importantly, the heart, is utterly enchanted, and we are whisked away to realms we wish we could live in.

That is the magic. That is what is real.

We now return you to the stale interrogation by the grand inquisitor, who wishes to purge the folk assembled here of using their imaginations, because he lacks that ability himself.

[littlemanpoet]

Oh well. I tried.

I believe it was in The Letters, or Tree.

Enough.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

Oh well. I tried.

I believe it was in The Letters, or Tree.

Enough.

I stated why I interpreted your long explanation like I did. I interpreted it normally. You have not attempted to justify your special interpretation using real in a unique way, normally unused by others. And I don’t find the statement “partakes of our own history”in Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien or in Tree and Leaf. Tolkien never, in my opinion, expressed himself so vaguely and unintelligibly that I recall.

Possibly the statement or something close to it is in Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien or in Tree and Leaf. Or it may be somewhere else. But it is up to you to locate it if you want me to take it seriously.

As far as I understand now, you believe that Tolkien’s writing in The Lord of the Rings possesses sufficient verisimilitude to make it feel real to you. At least that is more-or-less true for me usually while reading it. But at the same time I know that there are no Elves, Dwarves, or Orcs, in the real world and that Tolkien was intentionally writing fiction, even fantasy fiction. And I personally commend him for the excellence of his verisimilitude. But I find in his essay “On Fairy-Stories” the strong opinion that, in most cases, fairy-stories were not supposed to be real.

But Tolkien is not consistent in his essay. He finds a eucatastrophe (happy ending) apparently essential or almost essential, to fairy-stories. Yet he also considers the Arthurian legend, I assume as told in Le Morte d’Arthur, a true fairy story, despite its tragic conclusion. He believes that Christian and other religions matters don’t belong in fairy stories, yet identifies Jesus’ resurrection as the perfect true fairy story.

I hoped you might have some light to shed on such matters, but apparently not.