Tolkien, Faery, and Myth

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Reading something implies comprehending it.

Yes, of course. You're correct. The word "incomprehensible" was the wrong word or the right word in the wrong place. I comprehended the essay, but do not agree with it. My incomprehension is not of the words he wrote, but of the mindset that gave birth to them.

I suspected as much, but I did not want to say so. I was hoping that you would instead, and you did.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts at greater length. I hope to respond in kind later on.

[Pearly Di]

Tolkien seemed, IMO, to be profoundly not satisfied with the "state" or "condition" of England's "mythology". He seemed, IMO, to think one of two things: that there WAS a mythology that had been bastardized or destroyed; or that there was NOT a mythology that was a cohesive whole. Or both. In either case, he wanted to fix that.

He says somewhere in The Collected Letters, I think, that trying to write a mythology for England was rather an absurd aim ... so he was able to laugh at himself a little bit for that.

His view is not my view. I think Tolkien had a romantic longing for a place and time that never existed and so he created that place and time and he did so brilliantly. Beautifully. It is the prehistory of England as it could have been, or maybe should have been. The Northwest of the Old World.

Something like that, I think ...

Tolkien didn't much like the modern world. He chose to spend his career in the past, either the real past or one he created.

Definitely. His work is suffused with nostalgia.

Maybe we needn't bring Disney into this, but I will say that Disney had as much right to make Disney versions of some stories as anyone else did and if the stories are commercialized or trivialized or spoiled, that's the way the cookie crumbles. I thought PJ did that to LOTR, you see.

So that's the way the cookie crumbles.

I can read and love LOTR over and over. But the minute I try to fix it into "the real world" it crumbles in my hands. It's a story, a novel, a romance, and taken as a whole it is beautiful and important.

Why is LotR important? Seriously: why?

It's my favourite book of all time, I don't have to say why I love it so much. It's a masterpiece of imaginative literature: it's very beautiful and moving. And, yes, pure. But why is it important?

I guess the people on this forum can come up with some intriguing answers to that!

I have tried to get into The History of Middle-earth but have failed. It just doesn't grab me -- my head starts to explode ... I would far rather read the finished products, LotR and The Silmarillion.

But I love the essay 'On Fairy Stories' and have read it quite a few times.

I'm not sure I always understand what Tolkien is going on about in that essay -- it's just that he writes it so beautifully.

I love what he says about 'eucatastrophe'-- 'the sudden joyous turn'.

[Teremia]

Perhaps LOTR is important because enough people have loved it and taken it quite deeply into their souls -- and then perhaps lived their lives very slightly differently -- such that perhaps the world has been a little bit changed for the better.

I know that my life (a most piddling example! but it's the life I'm closest to!) has been different because of LOTR -- in certain concrete ways as well as the hazier interior ones.

[vison]

Oh, the book is important to me. ( I don't know how "important" it is to the World, but I suspect it's pretty important. I mean, here we are and all. )

There are books, stories and a few poems that are so important to me that I get all googly-eyed trying to explain why that is so. LOTR is certainly one, but is it the most important? Near the top. Some days number One. Some days farther down the list. Sometimes it's the story. Sometimes it's the writing. Sometimes it's both. Sometimes it's nostalgia - not for the Morning of the World, but for the Morning of My Life. "Little House in the Big Woods" is one of my Life List books. So is Tarzan of the Apes.

When I said above that I regard The Novel as humanity's supreme artistic achievement, I was serious. Not all novels, of course. Some are awful drivel, and some of those drivelly ones are ones that other people think are divine.

To some of us here Tolkien's creation is awfully important in ways that it is not important to me, though. Voronwë seems to regard it not only differently than I do, but in a way that makes me quite profoundly uncomfortable. But there you are.

[Primula Baggins]

It's important to me for many reasons, but one is that it shows the disastrousness of despair (I might call it sinfulness, but that's a loaded word for many).

And yet the book is not sentimental, or pious, or consciously "uplifting." It's a clear-eyed portrayal of the value, to the world and to the individual, of doing what is right, even if the one who does it loses everything by doing so.

In other words, it's hopelessly old-fashioned; but so am I, and reading Tolkien as an adolescent was certainly instrumental in that.

[vison]

It's important to me for many reasons, but one is that it shows the disastrousness of despair (I might call it sinfulness, but that's a loaded word for many).

And yet the book is not sentimental, or pious, or consciously "uplifting." It's a clear-eyed portrayal of the value, to the world and to the individual, of doing what is right, even if the one who does it loses everything by doing so.

In other words, it's hopelessly old-fashioned; but so am I, and reading Tolkien as an adolescent was certainly instrumental in that.

That's a good post, Prim.

And it is a true one.

But you know what is most important about LOTR to me, today? The way it makes me FEEL.

[Pearly Di]

In other words, it's hopelessly old-fashioned; but so am I

And I.

It's my favourite book, but I couldn't claim that it changed my life or anything like that. It's just a book I really, really love. It's part of me, part of my imagination, and has been a great source of inspiration ... perhaps that was life-changing, in a way ...

The films changed my life.

Because I discovered the online community through them.

[vison]

In other words, it's hopelessly old-fashioned; but so am I

And I.

It's my favourite book, but I couldn't claim that it changed my life or anything like that. It's just a book I really, really love. It's part of me, part of my imagination, and has been a great source of inspiration ... perhaps that was life-changing, in a way ...

The films changed my life.

Because I discovered the online community through them.

Now, THAT I can relate to. I feel exactly the same.

[vison]

*sigh*

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I removed my post, vison, since it seemed to upset you so much. A shame, because I really liked that post.

[Teremia]

Without knowing any of the particulars, just wanted to say I'm always sad when posts disappear into thin air or get "dot dot dotted." Although it does lend an air of mystery to the thread in question, vanishment of posts disorients the reader.

The films changed my life by introducing me to TORC and this Hall, as others have said, and quite amazing things have resulted from those relationships, as others have also said.

The book had already changed my life by deepening the dreamer in me. I have always depended on having another world to retire to when this world gets depressing or loud, and Tolkien very much catered to that longing.

[WampusCat]

I wish I had had a chance to read it, Voronwë.

I wonder how much of this is just the different ways our brains or personalities are wired. When I first read what Tolkien wrote about the Perilous Realm, while still a teenager, I knew -- just knew -- exactly what he meant. I can't quite explain why, but it was already part of the way I saw the world. It was why LOTR struck me so deeply in the first place.

Middle-earth and its inhabitants felt more real to me than the solid, everyday world I could see and touch. It wasn't just that I liked the story or characters or writing. It reminded me of a place I almost remembered.

Yes, that's not the sort of statement that would appeal to the more logical and rational-minded among us. But neither is it ridiculous. It's the same sort of "recognition" that draws me to spiritual practices across a variety of faiths. It's much like the experience of falling in love and feeling that somehow you've always known your lover, before you ever met him.

Myths have their own strength and reality to someone like me. The way they illuminate the meaning of life and the soul are powerful and no less true for not being solid.

There aren't a whole lot of people who are wired like me, though. It's taken me a few decades to figure that out. And to figure out that other ways of perceiving the world are OK too.

[Pearly Di]

I would have liked to have read Voronwë's post too. Bummer.

I wonder how much of this is just the different ways our brains or personalities are wired. When I first read what Tolkien wrote about the Perilous Realm, while still a teenager, I knew -- just knew -- exactly what he meant. I can't quite explain why, but it was already part of the way I saw the world. It was why LOTR struck me so deeply in the first place.

I'm still not sure what Tolkien means by the Perilous Realm, but actually, that doesn't matter at all. I don't have to understand.

I do know that I share his worldview. I find his worldview both profound and beautiful.

It reminded me of a place I almost remembered.

Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Padme]

Without knowing any of the particulars, just wanted to say I'm always sad when posts disappear into thin air or get "dot dot dotted." Although it does lend an air of mystery to the thread in question, vanishment of posts disorients the reader.

The films changed my life by introducing me to TORC and this Hall, as others have said, and quite amazing things have resulted from those relationships, as others have also said.

The book had already changed my life by deepening the dreamer in me. I have always depended on having another world to retire to when this world gets depressing or loud, and Tolkien very much catered to that longing.

I have to agree, I miss posts when they disappear, but do understand.

As for the books and movies, well lets just say they helped me in my path of change, especially on spiritual levels. Though I am a bit like Tolkien in my belief that I too long for a simplier world, because the world now does get too loud and invasive for me.

[vison]

I removed my post, vison, since it seemed to upset you so much. A shame, because I really liked that post.

You what? For the luvva pete. Sometimes . . . .

Now, how can I respond to it?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

You did already.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Here is pretty much the post that I deleted. I'm sorry that I did so, but it bothers me a lot when someone reacts to something that I feel is an important post by basically saying that it made them sad that I posted it. To me that is much worse than having someone post even a strong disagreement to the substance of what I posted.

Why is LotR important? Seriously: why?

My favorite commentator on Tolkien work, Verlyn Flieger, poses a similar question, more broadly about Tolkien's work, in the Preface to her seminal work Splintered Light. She provided an answer in the first edition of the book in 1983, and then when she greatly revised the book for the second edition in 2002 she expanded on that answer.

The Preface to the first edition of Splintered Light defended the importance of Tolkien's fantasy as a vehicle for philosophical and metaphysical speculation. It was correct in this, but too limited, I now believe, in suggesting that its subject matter was more relevant to such speculation than to the concerns of ordinary modern life. The intervening years have shown increasingly that Tolkien's work is highly relevant, that it speaks to and for the anxieties that marked his century (now past) and speaks even more profoundly to the new one he never lived to see. Moreover, it expresses those anxieties more tellingly precisely for being couched as fantasy fiction and has lasted longer than many more realistic works that have come and gone since The Lord of the Rings was first published. The first Preface asked "Why should anyone read Tolkien?" My answer at that time was, "For refreshment and entertainment." I know more about Tolkien and his work now than I did then, and I would amend my original answer to read: "For refreshment and entertainment and, even more important, for a deeper understanding of the ambiguities of good and evil and of ethical and moral dilemmas of a world constantly embroiled in wars with itself."

There is no way that I could provide a better answer than that, nor would I even want to.

As long as I have Splintered Light open to the Preface, let me add this quote, since we have been talking about "On Fairy-stories":

Tolkien's great essay "On Fairy-stories" is the best and deepest consideration I have encountered of the nature, origin and value of myth and fantasy, as well as the most cogent commentary on his own work. here, among the many nuggets of pure gold, is the clearest statement of his working theory of fantasy. "For creative fantasy," he writes, is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun; on a recognition of fact, but not a slavery to it."

Just so. Things in the world are as they are. It is the function of fantasy and its greatest strength to make that hard recognition and enable the audience to make it as well. That audience may come for escape to another world (or think that they do), but they must return to their own with the recognition, hard and uncompromising, that things are so in this world. This is the ultimate importance of The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion to Tolkien's own, to this or to any century.

Just so. There is the answer to your question, Di, in a nutshell.

[vison]

Thanks for reposting it.

It didn't make me "sad" that you posted it. I did the little *sigh* and thing because it makes me "sad" that I realize once again that you and I are simply never going to "agree" on this issue. Not really "sad", but that little emoticon is about as close as an emoticon is going to get.

Why? Because we are coming at the thing from different places. LOTR and his other works mean fundamentally different things to you than they do to me. Than they are EVER going to mean to me.

The quotes you provided are interesting, but the sentiments and ideas expressed in them do not apply to me in any way. It isn't that I "disagree" with them, it isn't that I don't understand them, it isn't that I don't comprehend them, it is that: I don't think about Tolkien's writing that way.

"Experts" do think that way. Scholars think that way. I don't. I have basically never found that anything written by such scholars of Tolkien as the person you quoted above have increased my pleasure in reading LOTR. Nor does learning more about the man himself increase my enjoyment. Rather, the contrary.

LOTR is important to me. It is one of my favourite books. It evokes deep feelings in me.

Why is that? How can that be, when I reject or ignore so much that is so important to so many others? People who presumably know so much more about such matters than I do? You would think I would learn better, wouldn't you?

I cling to this silly notion that my view of the thing is just as valid - we are speaking of a work of Art here. Not the formula for table salt. NaCl is always going to be NaCl, but a work of Art is made up of what the reader/viewer/listener puts into it as much as what the artist put into it. And how can we know for sure what the artist put into it beyond the obvious? But I know what I put into it.

The story is "commonplace", the story of a Quest. The characters are "commonplace" in that such characters are found in every great story. It is a universal story, they are universal characters, the events are the stuff of most adventure/romances. Does that make it "mythic"? Um, not to me. But the reasons for that would make this post even longer than it's going to be.

What sets it apart from other such stories, for ME, is the way it is written. The actual WORDS. The way they are used. Tolkien most masterfully, most expertly, most beautifully used the English language, and his skill and dedication created one of the loveliest tales I've ever read.

To me - and I'm saying "to ME" - it does not resonate as a Myth resonates. It has none of the echoing characteristics that I recognize in mythology, beyond the simple parallels common to such tales. What it does is give me a passport to a different world. NOT the world of Faery, as I know Faery, but to Middle Earth, Tolkien's creation. Visiting Middle Earth evokes so many feelings of awe and wonder and fear and love and desire and admiration; that spine-tingling nameless recognition of perfection when a passage moves one to tears of joy.

In my mind what Tolkien did was absolutely staggering. His creation is nearly perfect. As a matter of fact, I can't really think of an imperfection. The tale as he told it is a seamless whole, and reading it never palls for me. As an artistic achievement, I think it has few equals. There is simply no other tale like it, not that I've come across. The imitations are pathetic. Not of interest to me at all. I don't even "like fantasy".

He called it a History. That's a pleasing conceit. It's quite suitable. Here was this place, and here's what happened. Only, he made it all up. Every single thing. An whole universe. Did he make it up out of the whole cloth? Of course not. Did he draw on his knowledge of myth? Of course he did. He also drew on his own life and his aspirations and his emotions and his opinions and ideals.

The book transcends him.

[Elentári]

vison, that was awesome!

I just wish I could articulate my thoughts as well as you, never mind write a novel...

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It didn't make me "sad" that you posted it. I did the little *sigh* and thing because it makes me "sad" that I realize once again that you and I are simply never going to "agree" on this issue. Not really "sad", but that little emoticon is about as close as an emoticon is going to get.

Why? Because we are coming at the thing from different places. LOTR and his other works mean fundamentally different things to you than they do to me. Than they are EVER going to mean to me.

But why is that something to be "sad" about (or anything reasonably approximating "sad")? We have long known that we come at this from different places and are not likely to agree on this issue. What is wrong with that? Isn't there room in the world for different perspectives?

The quotes you provided are interesting, but the sentiments and ideas expressed in them do not apply to me in any way. It isn't that I "disagree" with them, it isn't that I don't understand them, it isn't that I don't comprehend them, it is that: I don't think about Tolkien's writing that way.

"Experts" do think that way. Scholars think that way. I don't. I have basically never found that anything written by such scholars of Tolkien as the person you quoted above have increased my pleasure in reading LOTR. Nor does learning more about the man himself increase my enjoyment. Rather, the contrary.

That is certainly your prerogative. But that doesn't mean that the thoughts of someone like Verlyn Flieger -- or for that matter, of myself -- do not have value. Automatically rejecting ideas because "scholars think that way" is just as wrong as automatically accepting ideas for that reason. Please don't begrudge those of us who find value in looking at the meaning of Tolkien's work as applied to the world in which we live the right to do so.