‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[bilbo_baggins]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

But don't the Letters themselves dissect the text to some extent by spelling out the author's own intentions and interpretations, thereby risking the reader losing the enchantment gained from the text?

True, Saucepan Man, but the exegesis of the Letters, though they themselves dissect (or exegite) the text of Tolkien, do not completely lay bare everything, and this is where davem and Mark12_30 have their bit. As far as I could tell, they wish not to delve too deeply into the meaning behind the exegesis.

As always, I could be wrong about their beliefs or opinions on the matter, but that is what I think they mean from reading their posts.

And, what I said above applies not only to them, but to me. As I do not want to read the exegesis of a manual too heavily, I do not crossreference said manual either, as it would have the same effect.

If I can quote myself again, for the person on the one side, with a text, it is theirs to do with as they will, as they obtained it in some manner (legal of course). And for the second person, they can do with it as they will, as they have obtained it also. But for either the one person or the second person to try to impress their beliefs on how to exegite the text of the manual, is wrong. Plain and simply wrong.

That's all.

[The Saucepan Man]

But for either the one person or the second person to try to impress their beliefs on how to exegite the text of the manual, is wrong.

But isn't that what Tolkien is doing when he seeks to impress his interpretations of his text on those with whom he is corresponding, bilbo?

He talks about Frodo and Gandalf and Faramir as if they lived down the street. He knows what they would and wouldn't do, what they would and wouldn't say. And he demands the same faith from his correspondents, and rails if they fail to give it

I understand what you are saying, Helen, and, believe me, I am finding the insights which I am gaining from reading his Letters fascinating. But, in telling us how we should view this character or that event, isn't Tolkien restricting our "readerly freedom" to make up our own minds? I suppose not, since we are free to accept or reject his interpretations. But, all the same, do we not risk losing out from "delving too deeply", as bilbo puts it? Does not our very awareness of the author's own (firmly expressed) views on his text risk obscuring our personal vision of the perilous realm, as inspired from our own interpretation of the text?

(This line of thought runs contrary to the reasoning adopted in an earlier post which I made on this topic, but I am pursuing it nevertheless as I think that it is perhaps an issue worth exploring.)

[bilbo_baggins]

Does not our very awareness of the author's own (firmly expressed) views on his text risk obscuring our personal vision of the perilous realm, as inspired from our own interpretation of the text

Wow. You got me convinced in some places, SpM. But one thing remains.

Do we really want to go with the author's set point of view? It may not fit what I had in mind, true. So if that happens to be true, should we not think o'er the fact that if we read the Letters too well, we will be impressed with the ideas and views of ME that the author had? There may be some who wish not to have such ideas about that wonderful place that Tolkien made.

But even if they don't read the Letters, or have exactly the viewpoint about ME that Tolkien had, does this inherently discredit the author's worth or merit for creating the book and story? No, of course not. "Tolkien" is now a word in mouth for most. Even if we have slightly different viewpoints, the author does not lose anything, as the Book and World he created are just that, his creations. Nothing we could ever do, would discredit him from his fashionings.

[mark12_30]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

But, in telling us how we should view this character or that event, isn't Tolkien restricting our "readerly freedom" to make up our own minds?

The example that springs to mind is the reader who asked why Gandalf messed up at the gates of Moria, and offered several explainations. Tolkien's response: He said that he forgot. Why didn't you believe him?

Why, indeed. Do I trust the narrator? If not, then why am I reading the book?

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

But, all the same, do we not risk losing out from "delving too deeply", as bilbo puts it? Does not our very awareness of the author's own (firmly expressed) views on his text risk obscuring our personal vision of the perilous realm, as inspired from our own interpretation of the text?

I suppose that could happen. It didn't happen to me. When I read the Letters, it separated the Perilous Realm from Tolkien. He became a narrator, like many other narrators out there, who saw into the perilous realm, or was shown it, and given the gift of reporting what he saw. The letters show his looking, his pursuit, as surely as is described in Smith. Why would that obscure my vision? Temporarily, it may; but in the long run, it inspires me to pick up my walking stick, head into the woods, and see what I may for myself.

I suupose when one man prophesies, a response might be, don't get to know that man, because knowing his weakness might make you doubt the prophesy. But another response might be, "Prophet! Apprentice me, and teach me to see!"

I choose the latter.

[bilbo_baggins]

I suppose when one man prophesies, a response might be, don't get to know that man, because knowing his weakness might make you doubt the prophesy. But another response might be, "Prophet! Apprentice me, and teach me to see!"

Amazing, Mark12_30.

So, the Letters could be viewed as more of a relay from the Perilous Realm to us, through Tolkien. Hmmm, interesting. Could you not also say, though, that there are those (I'm not one of them) who believe that they themselves can view the Perilous Realm? That they themselves could be Prophets in their own right?

Just something to ponder....

[mark12_30]

An afterthought:

I have come to love the histories-- Trotter, Tinfang Warble, and all-- precisely because they show me *Tolkien's road to Faerie*-- the road that he himself trod over the course of his lifetime. It's the man's own enchantment-- the enchantment that he himself is UNDER-- that I value the most, because that enchantment was what fueled his sub-creation and enchanted so many others. In reading his letters, I see clearly why he is enchanted, and I understand that the enchantment is open to me as well.

And Bilbo, are there other prophets-- in this case, mythmakers? Of course.

It was in retrospective that Tolkien amassed all his storey elements into the grand vision of the Legendarium. For that reason alone I think it valuable to put aside or hold in abeyance if you will his rather insistent claims in later years about what the text means. I am far more interested in what might have brought those Black Riders riding, riding, riding in the first place. My bet is on an entire panoply of possibilities.

But Bethberry, that is his whole theory of sub-creating, myth-making, being a recorder, searching for eucatastrophe. To understand the fruits, check the leaves, trunk, roots and the soil. Look at his life. Look at what he insisted was important for *him*, what he was grounded in.

To put it another way, a man is what he eats, body, soul, and spirit.

[The Saucepan Man]

Why, indeed. Do I trust the narrator? If not, then why am I reading the book?

A good question, Helen, and one, I think, that goes to the very heart of this thread. Since we draw such immense enjoyment (yes and enchantment too) from Tolkien's works, shouldn't we also accept his own subsequent musings on, and interpretations of, what he wrote? The answer, I think, is no, not without question. But we are free to accept them and agree with him if the ideas which he expresses in his Letters "feel right" to us. I am inclined to agree with Bêthberry when she says:

So, we are left with the fact that Tolkien was like any reader, looking around for threads of ideas and then picking up strands to be developed.

We do not have to accept the interpretations of another reader if they do not sit well with us. And, as Bb says, Tolkien, in discussing his stories in his Letters, is not much different from any other reader.

For example, Tolkien made it clear in his Letters that no one (Bombadil excepted) could have destroyed the Ring voluntarily. I fully accept that since any other analysis would belittle Frodo's efforts and render his "failure" real, rather than something which he just perceives in himself. So that idea accords with my understanding of the story. But, having accepted that, I cannot accept Tolkien's speculation (also in his Letters) that, had Gollum's moment of possible redemption on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol not been lost, his growing love for Frodo might have led him to throw himself into the fires of Orodruin with the Ring. That analysis seems to me to be incompatible with the idea that no one could willingly have destroyed the Ring, since Gollum would have been destroying it by "sacrificing" himself. My interpretation tells me that the Ring would not have allowed that to happen.

Nevertheless, I do think that because we all here have an appreciation of Tolkien's ideas, as expressed in his published works, we will be more inclined to accept the ideas which he expressed in his Letters when commenting on those works. And I suspect that this is why, whenever questions are raised here about Middle-earth which cannot be answered from the published texts, the majority of us (myself included) will go running to his Letters and "unpublished" texts to find the "answer" in one quote or another, and also why we are prepared to accept such "answers" as definitive. There is, I think, nothing wrong in that, as long as we do not do so unquestioningly.

As for the risk of destroying the enchantment, I do, on reflection, think my concerns are largely ungrounded. Going back to the point which I made earlier in this thread, almost everyone will have read the stories themselves before they are exposed to any detailed analysis of them (whether by Tolkien himself or others). So their intial enchantment, "unsullied" by analysis, will remain within their experience. For example, my description of that moonlit landscape was my attempt to describe in words my memory of the enchantment which I felt on first reading LotR. That enchantment has since faded (and alas, davem, I am now a very long way away from those wooded hills ), but it remains part of my experience and it allows me to appreciate the "magical" (dare I say ensorcelling) effect of Tolkien's tales. And who knows? If I allow myself, I might even be able to get back to that long winding road one day (cue Beatles song ).

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I must say that I am rather overawed by the eloquence and (yes, let me say it) beauty of the recent posts’ descriptions of the enchantment that we all feel in the encounter with Middle-Earth. While I share this sense of enchantment at a deeply visceral level, I have been feeling, at the same time, a slight nagging doubt nibbling at the edge of my mind as I read through this discussion (surprise surprise).

My doubts stem from a problem about this very idea of enchantment that I don’t think we’ve really confronted yet (although SpM did, I think, allude to it in his reference to the “perilous” realm of Faerie). The problem stems from the ‘source’ of the enchantment – what is it, precisely, that is enchanting us as we read LotR (if, indeed, the enchantment happens, which it does not for many). There have been so far in this discussion at least three possibilities floated in response to this:

1) The enchantment is the result of the text’s “access” to some “other realm” of experience (be it called Faerie or God or Jungian archetypes or whatever). In this case, it would seem that the reader is enchanted through the text by that other realm.

2) The enchantment is the result of the immense craft and skill of Tolkien as an artist. He has told such an enchanting story that we cannot help but get caught up in it.

3) We are enchanting ourselves, insofar as we choose to immerse ourselves within that world and “make” (accepting and co-creating) it our own.

With each of these three possibilities, however, I think there is a slightly different danger to the enchantment.

1) If we regard the source of the enchantment as something external to the text – another ‘real’ realm of Faerie or God or archetypes or whatever – then we are saying that as we become enchanted by the text we are doing so only because or insofar as we accept the reality of that other world. To be enchanted by the novel (to take pleasure in reading it, to accept it) is not just to accept the reality of the other world that it accesses, but to acknowledge it. This is a problem, I think, insofar as there are plenty of people who are enchanted by the text (myself among them) who are committed materialists and thus reject utterly the ‘reality’ of an-other realm (be it Faerie or God or archetypes or whatever). Is my enchantment in the text “wrong”? Am I some big dupe who is not really “getting it”? Am I not “really” enchanted by it, unlike those lucky and more refined spirits who do believe in the “reality” or “truth” of that other realm?

2) If we regard the source of the enchantment as something internal to the text – as something that has been created by Tolkien’s ability to put words on a page in an enchanting, or aesthetically pleasing manner – then we are saying that as we become enchanted by the text we are being enchanted by an illusion: that is, by something that is not “real” at all, but simply by the beauty of the art work before us. The problem with this approach, is, I think, self-evident, as it empties the work of the kind of reality that would make the subcreated secondary world applicable to the primary world we live in (to borrow davem’s “A Shop on the Edge of the Hills of Fairyland” it would be to say that the painting is only a painting and that we find it a pleasing picture of a place that doesn’t and cannot exist).

3) If we regard the source of the enchantment as something individual – as the result of our willed immersion in the text – then we end up in an endless round of navel-gazing as we affirm our own personal views (“this is what I think the text is about”) as false universals (“this is what the text is about”).

I have already seen in the discussion that none of us really want to adopt any one of these three extreme measures all on its own. In fact, I’m sure that you will all want to argue that the source of the enchantment is some kind of amalgam or relation of all three. But this presents us with a whole new set of problems, I think, insofar as the three “types” of enchantment we’ve looked at so far are not really compatible:

1) The reality of the enchantment cannot simultaneously be both external (from an-other realm) and individual (from us). Either the external reality exists (and thus ‘lives’ in us) or it does not – you have to choose one or the other (as we all do, every moment of our lives: and, of course, there’s no right or wrong answer to this question).

2) The reality of the enchantment cannot simultaneously be both internal (from the text) and external (from an-other realm), or internal (from the text) and individual (from us), since if the enchantment is the result of Tolkien’s craft, then it is not related to reality at all.

The core problem with whole idea of enchantment seems to me to be that it leads somewhat too easily (necessarily?) toward a rather dictatorial approach to the text: the only way to answer the question “what is enchanting about the text” is to say “what is enchanting about it to me” and then to pretend that we can somehow make the leap from our own individual responses to some sort of universal application to all people (“I am enchanted by the text’s access to Faerie, so that’s what enchants everyone else”; “I am enchanted by the beautiful story, so that’s what enchants everyone else”; “I enchant myself by accepting the text, so that’s what everyone else must do to be enchanted as well”).

[Bêthberry]

Well, I am going to stick my foot in the swiftly running discussion here and hope I won't be swept away!

I too would say with SpM to Helen that I understand this love of the writer for his characters. However, as I was rereading Carpenter yesterday, I found this passage (going to use it to reply to bilbo's thread later this morning).

'Stories tend to get out of hand.' Tolkien wrote to his publisher a few weeks later, and 'this has taken an unpremeditated turn.' He was referring to the appearance, unplanned by him, of a sinister 'Black Rider' who is clearly searching for the hobbits. It was indeed the first of several unpremeditated turns that the story was to take. Unconsciously, and unsually without forethought, Tolkien was bending his tale away from the jolly style of The Hobbit towards something darker and grander, and closer in concept to The Silmarillion.... What indeed? [to a question about what the book would be called]. And, much more important, Tolkien still did not have a clear idea what it was all about.

An absolutely fascinating passage, this. It suggests two things to me. First, the Tolkien's habits of composition were intuitive and unconscious to a good degree. Secondly, the passage also suggests that 'the meaning' was something read back into the story once Tolkien had reached a particular stage in the early writing. According to Carpent, it was at this point, shortly after receiving news of the death of E.V.Gordon, that Tolkien "began to organise his thoughts on the central matter of the Ring."

So, we are left with the fact that Tolkien was like any reader, looking around for threads of ideas and then picking up strands to be developed. (Of course, he wasn't just like any reader in that his creative sense of fairey was so great and grand and fine.) It was in retrospective that Tolkien amassed all his storey elements into the grand vision of the Legendarium. For that reason alone I think it valuable to put aside or hold in abeyance if you will his rather insistent claims in later years about what the text means. I am far more interested in what might have brought those Black Riders riding, riding, riding in the first place. My bet is on an entire panoply of possibilities.

Here's to holding tight to my life perserver!