What breaks the enchantment?

[Celuien]

I'm almost afraid to come into this discussion. There's so much to catch up on, and in just a few hours!

For me, the enchantment of Middle Earth has always been that it seemed as if it could have been real. When I read, I try to turn off my "reality checker" with respect to the way things are in everyday life. If foxes comment on seeing hobbits, it's because that is the normal order of things in the book's world. It is Tolkien's story, and he therefore sets the conditions under which things operate while I'm visiting, so I feel that I need to try my best to become immersed in that world to appreciate it.

That said, I almost put The Hobbit aside when I read it for the first time. The depiction of the Elves and the general tone of the story jarred too much with the characters from the rest of books to remain believable. But as I've read more, even the "Tra-la-lally" chorus has grown on me, as long as I view it in the context of Bilbo's memoirs. I can easily imagine the different tone of The Hobbit being part of a narration to hobbit children seated around Mad Baggins' fireplace in Bag End. Then, the enchantment returns since I can find a way to fit all of the pieces into the larger picture. I guess what I'm trying to say is that as long as I can accept Middle Earth on its own terms, there are no limits on the enchantment of the story for me.

Maybe my approach to reading is part of the baggage that I bring as well. Although when I feel some commonality with the story I tend to enjoy it more, I've never tried to make what I read fit into my experience. I've instead viewed books as a window into another time and place, or a way to look at the world through someone else's perspective.

[Boromir88]

I think Celuien, brings up a good point. Is that we become so "enchanted" by the books is because it just seems so believable. I mean there's nothing like wizards, and elves, or balrogs, and a dark lord, and we know that it will most likely never happen. However, the story is just so convincing. So, what makes it convincing?

I think that Tolkien does a good job of setting limits to the "magical/fantasy" realm. And that's what makes his stories seem to be so real. There are never these all powerful beings, and everyone has a set limit. Gandalf has a set power, he can't chuck a mountain at someone and kill people. The Eagles have their own characteristics where they can't just take Frodo from the Shire and give him a ride to Mount Doom. (Seems to be the consensus of some people). The Dead Army are shades, but unlike Jackson portrayed them, they can't harm anyone. They cause fear in people, but they are unable to physically harm any person/thing on Middle-earth. So every force that we know to be not true, has it's own set of limits, and that makes LOTR just seem real.

Another part is just the description, we get these wonderful narrative paragraphs that puts images into our head as to what things would look like, and just imagine ourselves being there. As far as "Breaking the spell" I'll get to that some other time, I must be heading off. Great thread lmp.

[mark12_30]

There's fireworks. Then there's fighting wolf-riders with flaming pine-cones: "Fifteen birds in five fir-trees.". Then there's fighting ringwraiths on weathertop with flashes of white lightning. Then there's fighting balrogs. THen there's marshalling a war. And then there's visiting with Old Tom after all is said and done.

Which is the enchantment?

[eowyntje]

I think what breaks the spell for me is the word perfection, or anything similair in the books. I don't believe that anything or anyone can be purely good and as soon as something is described as such or comes close to perfection, I lose the magic and think "that can't be".
I've never liked the elves because to me they were always too perfect, more perfect then humans, and I never liked the thought of a better race existing. So for me the elves from Lotr often broke the spell. The less perfect elves in the Hobbit did not have that effect on me, neither did Galadriel, who was described as frightfull at first. But characters like Elrond are too unbelieveable to me.

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

For example, the fate of Eowyn. Now, don't get me wrong, I adore Faramir and think that he's a wonderful fellow to marry -- but the idea that Eowyn's best (and indeed only) fate is to forsake the martial heroism that has been her watchword throughout the story and to lay it all down so that she can become rather a cliched figure of healing and fertility... Well, let's just say that I tend to skim over that part a bit.

Though I understand perfectly that others might not agree with me, that broke the spell for me too. I could connect so well with Eowyn when the story started, I recognised myself in her and saw her as a person which could be very real. When she married Faramir and gave all that up I didn't understand her, I though it was the wrong dissision. If they were real, I'm sure Eowyn would eventually get bored and long for some action again.

[davem]

Originally Posted by eowyntje

I've never liked the elves because to me they were always too perfect, more perfect then humans, and I never liked the thought of a better race existing. So for me the elves from Lotr often broke the spell. The less perfect elves in the Hobbit did not have that effect on me, neither did Galadriel, who was described as frightfull at first. But characters like Elrond are too unbelieveable to me.

These reactions are obviously genuine, so I'm not saying you shouldn't feel that way, but it seems to me that it may be because you disapprove of what the characters do that breaks the spell, rather than what the characters do being unbelievable as such. This was the point I was making earlier, that rather than the author failing to cast the spell effectively it is we who break the spell.

Let's take the example of reading a novel set in WW2. What would your response be to someone who said the 'spell' was broken for them when it came to the Auschwitz episode, because 'the Nazis were just too nasty there' ?

Putting on one side the fact that the Elves of Middle earth are far from perfect beings, let's for the sake of argument imagine that they were absolutely perfect. All Tolkien would have to do is present them as perfect in a convincing way, a way that was believable within the world they inhabit. Once he has done that he has done what he set out to do. If the spell is broken for you wen you read about them because you have a problem with the idea of perfect beings per se, then that is not Tolkien's fault - your inability to to put up with perfect beings is part of the baggage you bring to your reading of the story. Tolkien would only be responsible if he failed to convince you that they were perfect.

In fact, from what you say, Tolkien made the Elves perfectly convincing but you just didn't like them.

When she married Faramir and gave all that up I didn't understand her, I though it was the wrong dissision.

Neither of those reactions means Eowyn is not a convincingly drawn character, just that you didn't understand & or approve of what she did.

[HerenIstarion]

Originally Posted by littlemanpoet

What, in Tolkien's writings, breaks the spell for you?

Nothing

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Does it come down to a willingness to be enchanted? Heart's desire as a reading strategy?

Yes

Originally Posted by davem

This was the point I was making earlier, that rather than the author failing to cast the spell effectively it is we who break the spell

Provided that writer is of Tolkien's caliber, yes.

[Bêthberry]

What we are being presented with here, eowyntje, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

1. The supreme Author is never wrong in his art.
2. Reading is an act of complete submission to the will of the art.
3. therefore, any breaking of the enchantment is the fault of the reader.

How do we know who a Supreme Author is? Any author who manages to attract one reader for whom the enchantment is not broken.

Even if readers begin with the complete, utter, honest and sincere attempt to submit to be raptured, if anything happens to break that rapture, by definition it is always the fault of the reader. Readers are obviously fallen creatures and the Supreme Author is omnipotent.

Perhaps there is some kind of predestination involved?

Even Fordim's explanation that when the text begins to announce itself as text rather than as "subcreated reality", so that readers pay more attention to the writing than to the spell/enchantment, will be said to represent the failure of the reader to remain enchanted. (This is in fact a good explanation of what happens when I read the Cross-Roads chapter and probably also what happens with the Eowyn character.)

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

There are parts of the story in which I find the writing itself to be somewhat stilted (the Professor can get carried away with his high-style at time, particularly in RotK: all those "and lo!" and hyperbolic similes) and these moments tend to shake my immersion in the world, simply because I shift away from the story itself to the manner of its writing.

The Reader in this case obviously lacks the desire to submit to everything as story by bringing in baggage such as aesthetic style.

And for those readers who choose to bring precaution with them on this night of seduction, well, we all know that certain forms of control have been declared WRONG as interfering with the Supreme Author's Will to choose who and when ideas are propagated.