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Originally Posted by davem
Can't help thinking of Simone d'Ardenne's reminiscence, where she said to Tolkien: `You broke the veil, didn't you, and passed through?' and she adds that he `readily admitted' having done so."
It seems she was referring to language, but Tolkien may have understood her question differently. 'Breaking the veil' seems like an apt title for the painting I linked to. Tolkien, one could say, 'broke the veil' & showed us what lies beyond - or at least gave us a glimpse of it.
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If you think about it, "breaking" the veil is an odd collocation of words, a kind of mixing of metaphors. "Breaking through the veil" is better, perhaps? But even there you expect more of a solid barrier than a yielding one. Frodo didn't "break through" Shelob's webs, but had to cut his way through. "Parting", or if violence or impatience is needed, "tearing" or "rending" the veil?
The picture, to me, is more of a parting of the veil/clouds: the viewer is, in that sense, passive (though in another sense gloriously participative). If any rending is going on, it is someone else who is doing it.
Actually, you'd already said it that way, Davem:
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Suddenly the mist parts, just for a moment, & you see that, & then its gone again. Of course, you'd be terrified, yet it would be like seeing a glimpse of another reality. The world would suddenly seem much bigger & much stranger than you had ever thought. And however terrifying the experience had been I suspect your desire to know more would have been stronger.
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