Re: Boromir88's internal/external thing. I must agree with BB and H.I.
The line between JRRT's co-creation and our co-experience is better when it is dissolved or very, very thin.
Indeed, I would go so far as to say learning something like Tai-Chi will allow one to enter the realm where co-creation *is* the very air one breaths - so that all those well read texts gain a completely new lease on life. Any skill where one carefully and consciously learns to experience life with the body energised, the heart open and the mind clear all at once, will open this door, JRRT's magic [literally] is that he could by and large do it for us, 'without going out of our chair'. But such a gift over time must be earned or it becomes a mere shadow of itself.
With any Lit., but the Legendarium in particular, it is all about WHO is doing the reading, how deeply in one's true self are you whilst reading? Of course the tales draw one in farther than one's everyday state - thus the initial attraction, but to use that wisely, too let it guide our lives to a certain degree - to pull us higher than we might think to climb ourselves - therein lies the value of the stories [imo].
As for the layers of M-E glimpsed one behind the other in TH, LOtR, Silm, UT etc. sooner or later one will reach the end of the story, and we must choose one of 3 things:
*go back to page one of TH
*go back to life and see how we can approach it in a more real/magical/virtuous, etc fashion
*log into the Downs
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~j.g. bennett :: deeper man ~~~~~~~~~~~~
possibly the best guide to what I was trying to talk about.