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Originally Posted by littlemanpoet
The author weaves a spell by means of the subcreation of a feigned reality, a secondary reality. If the author does well, the reader is cast (voluntarily) under the author's spell for the duration of the reading (and perhaps longer). This is the enchantment. Its effect is to experience that subcreation as real, even though it is feigned. At no point need the reader be truly deluded that the feigned reality is primarily real, but for the sake of the story, that secondary reality may be entered into as if passing into a room in one's house.
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I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this, but I am curious about how you will answer. If the subcreation is or should be read "as if real", how are we readers to take the various passages which refer to LotR's nature as story? The example which most recently comes to my mind is Sam's and Frodo's conversation in the chapter "The Stairs of Cirith Ungol."
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'But those aren't always the best tales to hear, thought they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?'
'I wonder,' said Frodo. 'But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.'
. . . .
'Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?
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Is this Tolkien's way of incorporating in his story his thoughts from "On Fairy Stories"? Is this his way of suggesting that LotR must be read as a real history come out of the past legends? For myself, this does not destroy any of the great magic of Tolkien's writing but it does bring to the fore thoughts about the differences between story and real life.
Any thoughts?