[Bêthberry]

Risks the wrath of 'Bethberry uncloaked' )

And so it's a dressing-down you wish to deliver, davem?

I have time now for but a very quick reply. I don't wish by any means to deny that an author and her personal experience forges the stories, davem, but rather to consider the entire process of language creation in larger framework, not as originating solely in the mind of one person but as the unique confluence of many events, social, cultural, political, as well as biographical. Perhaps I can make that more clear if I consider your hypothetical fanfic about Trotter, within the context of some of the responses here. (Forgive me for leaving someout. I write in haste.)

Helen says yes within a very proscribed regime of explanation and elaboration which would precede the story itself.

Child addresses, in an absolutely fabulous post about the history of critical reception, the perceived importance of Eru in Tolkien's writing. It would seem that the current preference in interpretation is dependant upon certain pivotal events in the publishing history.

Both of these situations point to the centrality of the interpretive community in understanding any text and in making any particular approach or interpretation "authoritative". This in fact is what is meant by the"death of the author." Not that we cruelly and , to my mind, erroneously ignore various aspects of the writing, primary or secondary materials, but that events in the wider cultural experience help determine what the stories mean to the community which values them.

Given that the Letters and The Silm were so closely 'controlled' by Christopher , given that there are diaries unpublished and other letters, it is a safe assumption (I think) to say that we don't have a 'complete' foundation upon which to build our interpretations. Who knows if other works exist which will, as with the publication of those three eventful books of which Child has spoken, propel the community of readers into a new paradigm which takes over centre stage from Eru.

The process of reading, of making-meaning, is like this. There is no finality to it, for aside from events such as the publication of new works by the author, there will always be cultural events which will shape how the interpretive community views the works themselves. I'm will to bet that an article can be written which would put the newly seen importance of Eru on not only those publications but also 9/11 and the Millenium itself.

We can work this back, also, davem, so that we see not only the mind of a single author mythologising his war experience, but the confluence of specific cultural events which in hindsight help explain why and how JRR Tolkien was so placed to create Middle earth.

Some members of BD want to proscribe a clearly delineated operation whereby they understand their work as continuing in some definition the intentions of Tolkien. This is one interpretive community.

Other members here are more suspect of that endeavour and in fact mightrepresent an-other interpretive community. I think it is safe to say that davem, myself, Mr. SaucepanMan and Mr. Hedgethistle, among others (and I don't wish to ignore others, I am merely writing in haste from memory) could belong to this group, if group it is... There will be as many interpretive communities as there are one or two gathered together in Tolkien's name.

I would say more here on Tolkien's idea in "Of Fairy-Stories" of how things get into the soup not because of some cultural reason or event in an author's life but because the inclusion represent "literary significance" (Tolkien's term). That significance depends upon, using Tolkien's idea (yes, yes, here I will now rise to champion the author), the satisfaction of certain desires. To me, in the long run, it is this aesthetic criterion which will "win out in the end". It the story or the interpretation (I'm extrapolating here of course beyond fantasy) satisfies this desire or consolation in the community, it will be accepted and pass on through the annals of history. If not, it will be forgotten, perhaps to be uncovered in some future archeology by a different interpretive community.

must dash. apologies for not writing better or more inclusively.