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Originally Posted by davem
. In short how much of the primary world has to be brought in to a secondary world if the reader it to accept that secondary world.
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This short takes us back to the readers as having the final say on what successfully constitutes an achieved secondary world.
Based on the legions of Tolkien fans, the answer seems to be that Tolkien's readers accept the secondary world he has created. And not only do they accept that secondary world, they go to some effort to attempt to enter it themselves, to imaginatively recreating it, whether it is the costume dinners at Tolkien events or simply painting their homes in a Middle-earth style or designing sub-divisions to ressemble Middle-earth, or searching for replicas of the weapons.
There are many readers who don't take to Tolkien's Middle-earth and possibly they are the ones who object to his depiction of war, although they'd have to read far into LotR to become disenchanted with his battles. From my experience, these readers don't cotton much to the genre of fantasy itself.
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Originally Posted by davem
I do know that Tolkien had experienced war at first hand, & thus if he refuses to acknowledge what really happened that is his freely made choice.
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But he did acknowledge it, just not where you want it. That's what his
Homecoming of Brythnoth is about, as you have ably stated.
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Originally Posted by davem
(or historical novels, which is the point here)
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Ah but perhaps the difficulty lies with this definition of LotR's genre. While clearly there is a strong impetus to presenting it as if it were history, it lies uneasily in this category. LotR is not a novel within the tradition of realistic novel. Many characters do not have the kind of development seen in, say, E. M. Forrester's novels or Viriginia Woolf's novels (whose work for that matter isn't historical novel either). They fall within the style and type of Dickens' Mr. Gradgrind. Their style of speech changes; Legolas and Gimli lose their distinctively different speech patterns later in LotR and come both to speak in heroic measure. In fact, the style of language in LotR changes, an inconsistency often brought out by those who want LotR to be within this novelistic tradition. And as
Morthoron has so humorously pointed out--forum hardware's not letting me rep you, Morth-- Tokien's trees aren't biologically accurate either. Nor are his flying taxis, the eagles, nor his talking foxes. The significance and presence granted to verse in LotR also differentiates it from historical novels. In fact, some might even argue that LoR is not a novel at all. It is . . . fantasy. I sort of think that's what
Morthoron's getting at too.
Yet, as I say, legions of fans accept his secondary world as if it were real. Why, I could even quote our illustrious
Legate to that, from another thread.
gotta run. ta ta.