Bill Ferny,
I held my sides and laughed when I read your post. I certainly sypathize with your predicament because I have had similar conversations with my dear husband! Yes, it is very hard to be on the outside looking in and understand what's going on. This gives me an idea for a thread.......
Hobbitlass,
I think you have put into words what many of us feel. I think we also need to remember what Tolkien himself said about his work. He never said it was a "real place" but, time and time again, he stated that he was not inventing things in his head. He was merely revealing something that was already there.
There's a famous quote about this which is one of my very favorites in the Letters. A "well known" person visited JRRT and was struck by the "curious way in which many old picures seeme to him to have been designed to illustrate The Lord of the Rings long before its time." Tolkien assured him that could not have been so, since he had little acquaintance with such pictorial art. This is what Tolkien said happened next:
Quote:
When it became obvious that, unless I was a liar, I had never seen the pictures before..., he fell silent. I became aware that he was staring fixedly at me. Suddenly he said: 'Of course you don't suppose, do you, that you wrote all that book yourself?'
Poor Gandalf! I was too well acquainted with G. to expose myself rashly, or to ask what he meant. I think I said: 'No, I don't suppose so any longer.' I have never been able to suppose so. An alarming conclusion for an old philologist to draw concerning his private amusements. But not one that should puff up any one who considers the imperfections of 'chosen instruments', and indeed what sometimes seems their lamentable unfitness for the purpose. (Autumn 1971)
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So, on at least some level, by the end of his life, JRRT felt that the "truth" of his writings came to him from outside his own head, and that it came to him for a real reason and purpose.
One of Tolkien's letter writers mentioned "a sanity and sanctity in the L.R. which is a power in itself." To me, these two words, 'sanity' and 'sanctity', sum up what I most love in Tolkien's writings. There is a sense of order in the here and now, a life which has reason and meaning, even in the little things, like cooking meals or making friends. And then, too, there is that feeling of 'sanctity', of something beyond myself and my little concerns, something that transcends the earthly, which I keep banging up against in these books.
This 'sanity and sanctity' make his world personally compelling.
Bill Ferny,, since you say your wife loves Lewis, perhaps you could explain it to her this way. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis speaks of the moments of wonder in this world which are a genuine reflection of some strange beauty that lies beyond, those greater things that we can't feel or touch, but which are actually more real than the so-called "real" things of life.
To me, Tolkien is like this. At the very best and highest, his words reflect a beauty which I can only half glimpse where I am today. But when I read his books, I know those truths lay out there, and I am grateful that he has given me a small glimpse of them. Perhaps someday I'll see more.
[ October 26, 2002: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]