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Old 07-20-2006, 02:40 PM   #4
Lalwendė
A Mere Boggart
 
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Lalwendė is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.Lalwendė is battling Black Riders on Weathertop.
In the sense that Pullman calls LotR 'spun sugar' he means that it has no depth, but if we mean thatl a 'spun sugar' book is simply not didactic then that's a different question.

I reckon we'd all agree that Pullman is wrong and LotR does indeed have a lot of substance. I happen to think LotR is not didactic at all, so I might be entitled to call it 'spun sugar'; but this leads on to questioning whether a book must be didactic in order to be 'worthy' and to have depth.

Pullman I think is being deliberately provocative, as he knows that literature does not have to be didactic in order to have substance. The whole history of folklore and mythology is filled with what seem to be simple stories that conceal a great deal of meaning, as is the Bible. Poetry can also seem to be simple 'froth' and entertainment but is actually filled with meaning - Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience might seem to be simple poems at first reading but that couldn't be further from the truth.

Tolkien simply lays out a story upon a page and then leaves the reader to get on with the reading, and they may or may not find the deeper substance. I know many readers who do not, but they enjoy the books all the same and can talk about all the detail; they simply prefer not to analyse, just to enjoy. I think that this is a big factor in why Tolkien is so popular; his work appeals to a huge range of types of reader.

If he had written an allegory, his audience would have been very different. The Chronicles of Narnia have a big audience, but I'm sure I'm not alone in finding that Lewis lets me down as a reader of fantasy by telling me what to think. Just knowing that the books have this 'message' puts me off. I find it takes me out of the secondary world created and dumps me back in the real world. Likewise I found that HDM was spoiled by including God and Angels. Maybe its personal preference, but I find Tolkien's work much more subtle; a 'message' can be found for all kinds of people there. I suppose rather than being 'spun sugar', the writing style found in Tolkien's work is the subtly flavoured three course meal as opposed to the Big Mac and Fries style you often get from the book with an overt 'message'.
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