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Guinevere · 10-28-2002, 08:14 AM

I have read all of these posts with much pleasure and appreciation! Most of you have already expressed just what I feel and think myself, so I can only add that I am certainly one who shares in this "psychosis", if you choose to call this secondary reality such.

At least I can share this enthusiasm with my 16 year old son; my husband, sadly, never reads any fiction, let alone fantasy. (But he bears patiently with all this talk about middle-earth that never stops since more than a year...) However,I am happy to have discovered the Barrowdowns where I meet so many kindred spirits!

I feel that reading LotR gives me just these things that Tolkien himself called the main functions of fairy-stories:
"Fantasy, recovery, escape and consolation"
(In Tolkiens essay "On Fairy-Stories" there is so much truth and wisdom to be found!)

But I don`t deem this an unhealthy escapism from reality- the experience of this secondary world that seems so real and yet timeless enriches my real life and has brought me not only joy but insight.

10-28-2002, 08:14 AM	#14
Guinevere Banshee of Camelot Join Date: May 2002 Location: Switzerland Posts: 5,830	I have read all of these posts with much pleasure and appreciation! Most of you have already expressed just what I feel and think myself, so I can only add that I am certainly one who shares in this "psychosis", if you choose to call this secondary reality such. At least I can share this enthusiasm with my 16 year old son; my husband, sadly, never reads any fiction, let alone fantasy. (But he bears patiently with all this talk about middle-earth that never stops since more than a year...) However,I am happy to have discovered the Barrowdowns where I meet so many kindred spirits! I feel that reading LotR gives me just these things that Tolkien himself called the main functions of fairy-stories: "Fantasy, recovery, escape and consolation" (In Tolkiens essay "On Fairy-Stories" there is so much truth and wisdom to be found!) But I don`t deem this an unhealthy escapism from reality- the experience of this secondary world that seems so real and yet timeless enriches my real life and has brought me not only joy but insight. __________________ Yes! "wish-fulfilment dreams" we spin to cheat our timid hearts, and ugly Fact defeat!