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Originally Posted by davem
With Tolkien I get more of a sense that he's telling me something I once knew, but have forgotten - he's reminding me of the 'Truth', not simply making up a story to entertain me. ..... that that story should be the right kind of story. He wanted it to affect, & in some real sense to change his readers - perhaps 'morally', but certainly in terms of their 'perception' of their history & of the land they lived in.
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"High, purged of the gross." (How can I possibly disagree?)
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Originally Posted by davem
I think its this that makes Tolkien's work different. How many modern authors want to change their readers in that way - how many believe they have anything to teach?
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That I wouldn't want to guess at; but how many still are teaching-- deeply-- after a twelfth reading?
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Originally Posted by davem
I think this would apply especially to writers of fantasy. I can only think of Ursula Le Guin who takes this approach ...
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She's the one who popped into my mind, too. Odd. But (and I'm referring to her Earthsea stories here) they had an impact on me, but it was not the same, not as deep or as lasting. Her main impact on me was that she could write an incredible sentence. One that haunts me over two decades later: "He raged at his weakness, for he knew his strength." Brilliant. But I don't put her on a par with Tolkien; and I don't embrace her myths as my own. I didn't feel that Earthsea was a place I'd been before, nor was it a place I felt at home in. She certainly dealt with character; but the resonance wasn't on a mythical scale, not for me personally.
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Originally Posted by davem
I think we respond to Tolkien in the way we do because on some level we feel we're learning (or re-learning) something important.
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I would heartily agree.