‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[davem]

Bethberry Quote:

'I would simply like to say that I agree with Sauce that we can never finally ascertain what Tolkien meant. And, that, for me, to make any effort to determine that apart from a text like LOTR is to engage in an activity which predetermines the text. We can discuss the text in terms of our own experience.'

Well, to that extent we can never finally ascertain what anyone ever means about anything.

We can take the letters, essays, the morality & worldview that comes through in the books, etc. We can take some statements at face value & accept that they express Tolkien's own values. Of course, we're then still having to assume things, but we won't be inventing our 'own' Tolkien from scratch. I don't see that involving 'predetermining the text' - if I understand you're meaning. I don't see this 'discussing the text in terms of our own experience' thing either - we can be changed by the text & emerge a different person. The text may change our 'meaning', rather than us imposing a meaning on it.

So actually, its not true to say :

Quote:I read this as saying you give credence to Tolkien's statements because they accord with something you have felt or experienced prior to reading Tolkien: you grant his words authority because they agree with your experience. Thus, the 'test' (if I may use that word) of the validity or authenticity of Tolkien's words is your own experience.

Reading LotR changed me. I'd never paid any attention to the natural world before reading it, I never had much interest in 'spirituality' - up to discovering LotR at 16 my reading matter of choice had been comicbooks. I was changed by Tolkien's works, they gave me my first 'glimpse' into something beyond materialism. But everytime I go back to them I find more in them, I find confirmation for my experiences. Everything I read in Tolkien's writings - fiction & non fiction. I don't feel myself to be so 'important' in this context - Tolkien has taught me something - & from everything I've read of his, he's taught me exactly what he intended to teach me. I don't believe I've imposed my own meaning on his stories, & that my own meaninbg has just happened to coincide with what he intended by pure fluke.

If I misinterpret something you or another poster here writes you, rightly, take me to task - I'm not free to decide that what you post only means whatever I take it to mean - & I don't distinguish between 'fact' & 'fiction' when it comes to meaning. I think Tolkien's meaning is pretty obvious to everyone who reads his works - until they start 'analysing' it, & trying to work out what it means. I suspect only really 'clever' people struggle over what it all means, & what Truth is, & Joy.

Quote:Perhaps this encompasses both your sense of mystical experience and Aiwendil's aesthetic satisfaction?

Er, no - it doesn't really, does it? Mystical experience is 'spiritual' & aesthetic satisfaction is 'sensory' (unless you believe they have their origin in the same 'state' - 'Truth' perhaps? 'Truth is beauty & beauty, Truth'etc. But I don't think Aiwendil would accept the reality of Mystical experience, unless he was allowed to translate it as meaning the same thing as 'aesthetic satisfaction', & so could say 'There, its all simply 'aesthetic sastisfaction'. I have to seperate the two & keep them seperate, otherwise the 'common ground' is false, & we're simply agreeing for the sake of not arguing, & I don't see where that gets us. Mystical experience is experience 'of' something. At least Tolkien believed that to be the case, & I think its a central question as to whether thats a 'fact' that we're dealing with, as Tolkien believed, or an interpretation. The two are simply of a different order to each other. Don't we need to know whether we are interpreting a 'fact' or interpreting an interpretation. Aren't Facts 'canon' ? If so, then Truth & Joy are canonical, aren't they?