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In summary, the freedom of the reader is boundless, but, on an external level, it may on occasion be circumscribed by the circumstances in which he or she is interacting with others.
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Hmmmm. . .this raises an interesting question,
Saucepan Man. If the "freedom of the reader is boundless" then does this mean that there is no such thing as a wrong or incorrect interpretation? I'm not talking about the questions of 'fact' (whether those facts are resolvable -- when did Gollum find the Ring? -- or not -- did balrogs have wings?); I'm talking about questions of meaning.
For example: what about the people out there who interpret LotR as a fascist novel? Or, what about people -- who do exist, sadly -- who interpret the novel as
supporting white supremacy? What if I want to interpret the novel as an allegory about the rise of Communism (Sauron) in the early 20th century and the reprisal against that by bourgeouis, middle-class humanism (hobbits) and the remnants of a European aristrocratic society (Gondor)?
The only recourse that you seem to be leaving open to combat these interpretations
Saucepan Man is that they may be "circumscribed by the circumstances in which he or she is interacting with others." I'm not entirely clear on where you are going with this, but it would seem to suggest that if we are to combat the above examples (and we should -- they
are wrong) we can do so only by attacking the interpretative positions that generate them (fascism, racism, simple-mindedness). Is there no way we can go to the text, to point to Tolkien's writings and use those as actual proof that such interpretations are incorrect, insofar as they contradict what is found on the page?
And so, does this not mean that we must maintain some sense of the texts (and the authorial reflections upon the text) as authoritative?
And just for those who might have missed it, I am now taking a position to the contrary of what I've been taking all along -- this is not, however, a flip-flop: I just feel that the answer to approaching any text -- but raised to a problematic level of almost cosmit proportions in Tolkien -- is a constant process of movement and negotiation between the freedom of the reader (which must be maintained if we are to make the text our own and not be slaves to, "What does Tolkien says it meant?") and the authority of the text/author (which must be acknowledged if we are to prevent the slide into the absolute relativism "It can mean whatever you want").