The analysis of Leaf by Niggle and other stories as either allegories or similar is very erudite, and the thread linked to by Estelyn is fascinating and full of interesting detail about Tolkien's life.
However, I would just draw back slightly from the inevitable game of "who does x represent?" and "Tolkien had a bad leg, so this is all about that" etc.
These kinds of analysis carry the danger - not the certainty, but the possibility - of becoming a reductive exercise, a deconstruction of something that is inherently more than the sum of its parts into a kind of code. It is symptomatic perhaps of our tendency to equate understanding with order. The end result is that the story or art need never have been created at all, or that it was/is simply introspective therapy.
If we take every scene, perhaps every word, as a symbol - a code - that can and should be cracked and rationalised, that all ambiguity can be washed away by inference, that we can fill in the gaps by assuming "this obvious reference to x was subconscious" or similar, what we are doing is emasculating the art of what it is that makes it art.
The exercise of decoding symbols, interpreting the authors intent as well as execution, and acknowledging the personality and presence of the author's life as a de facto essence of the work, is not wrong, or inappropriate, and indeed can enhance our experience. However, it seems to me, though perhaps the intent is whimsical, that the trend in these discussions is a reduction to the point of mathematical equation.
There is an ambiguity here - demystifying as both a necessary and inevitable interaction with art, and yet also as the conceptualising (or abstracting) of something which depends so much upon intuitive truths and the imagination. To some extent there is also always the possibility of a 'personality cult', something that Tolkien was aware of in his comments about allegory, where one analyses the author as though he was the art - a sort of performance art "happening", so to speak.
Please note I only speak of dangers and trends - let me try and illustrate with something we can probably share. I would guess that when most people first read LotR, or other works by Tolkien, this simultaneous labelling and decoding was not taking place. The books and stories were experienced 'first-hand', a kind of direct and probably magical communion. We probably all remember the transforming and powerful effect of those first readings. I am only reminding that it is this, as much as (if not more so than) the inevitable demystification, that should be seen as precious, since that experience is no less valid or meaningful.
Now, as I have already told Doug, I consider Leaf by Niggle one of Tolkien's best stories. If I ever want to illustrate to people that he was a gifted writer, I would direct them here rather than to the vast summits of The Silmarillion. It is meaningful for all the reasons of personal significance that have been discussed, and for the success of the allegorical device, but it is also more (or perhaps less) than that - in itself, it is a fairy tale told with gentle humour and feeling. It is art.
Peace [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]
Kalessin
[ January 19, 2003: Message edited by: Kalessin ]
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