KingCarlton--OK, let's take this slowly and gently.
I was surprised when this thread engendered disagreement. Like you, I enjoy talking about and debating Tolkien. As your own post stated, "What point is it to have a forum if everyone agrees at everything.?" There are literally thousands of such topics amenable to debate. These range from questions of characterization and the search for sources to interpretation of myriad threads and ideas. The list is endless.
However, in this thread, Rosa Underhill raises a very different question. She asks:
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...did fantasy books (Tolkien or otherwise) ever help you make it through a time of crisis?
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She essentially invites us to share thoughts and insights about our own lives and personal response to the books. This is very different from questions of fact, characterization, or interpretation.
And this is where our communication breaks down. I have no trouble accepting that, in your own reading of the books and your own life, you have found no reason to turn to Tolkien or any other work of literature for consolation or "have not felt any sense of elation or empathy from reading either poems or works of any other writers including Tolkien." This is legitimate. The problem comes when you state that all others should adopt this exact same criterion in their personal response. It just doesn't work.
I have never walked in the shoes of any other poster on this site. I don't know the details of their lives, or for that matter of yours. Because of this limitation in my insight, any judgment I might make from outside on such personal matters is just not possible. It's bound to be flawed.
As far as gender differences go, you have a point that our society allows women to express their emotions much more easily than men. However, there were at least a few posters in the thread who were definitely male (lots of times, I can't tell.) Both Littlemanpoet and Wormtongue used words in their posts like "recovery and consolation" and one even stated "I identified with something for the first time and was able to adopt a personality akin to the positive and noble charcteristics of the wondrous beings in the books." Such sentiments are not too far from what I was saying so I don't think it's just a matter of gender differences.
We could get into debates on other related issues that you referred to at least briefly: why Tolkien wrote these works, exactly what he expected readers to take from them, the value of myth in pointing the way to underlying reality, the legitimacy of playfully adopting a point of view or moniker which stands outside concrete reality. Tolkien's Letters are some of the best sources for at least some of these topics. I do think we'd have different perspectives and feelings about many of these. So let's just agree to disagree and go on from there. sharon, the 7th age hobbit
[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]
[ April 26, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]