Author, Reader, or Text? (aka Canonicity Slapdown 2005)

[davem]

Originally Posted by Alatar

The books are a form of communication, and that presumes that some other will hear the message. All forms of communication have an error rate - the message from inside the head (thought) is transmitted via voice or writing and always something is lost in the translation.

We are still left with the question of what 'message' the author is attempting (well or badly) to communicate. Is it his own 'message' or does it arise elsewhere - is he attempting to communicate an experience he has had, so as to make that experience available to others? Or at least to let others know that such an experience is available for those that want it.

This question was never resolved in the Canonicity debate, because, I suppose, it is about the nature of 'Art'. Is there an objective 'Reality' which Art makes accessible to us, opening a 'window' on another 'world'.

Sorry, but in this kind of discussion I think we will always be reduced to putting terms in quotes, because of the problems of translation Alatar refers to. This is not simply a matter of the translation of an author's ideas into words & of the translation of those words into other languages & media, but of the deeper, more primary, 'translation' of transcendant Reality into mundane methods of communication. This is something Tolkien explored, particularly in his time travel stories, but also in his use of dreams in works like LotR. It is a question of how (& possibly why) 'spirit' breaks into the physical, & what form that 'breaking in' takes, as well as the effect it has on those who find themselves on the recieving end of it.

Of course, LotR, like any art may be just that - art as opposed to Art, simple entertainment. I think we should be open to the possibility that it is more than merely entertainment, because if we rule out that possibility out of hand we will never have the opportunity of experiencing the Transcendent, & merely explain it away. If something changes us then we have to accept its objective reality - the argument then becomes one about the source of that 'reality'. Was Tolkien's work 'merely' his own invention? Would we have been able to have that experence without his works? And finally, what, exactly, is the experience we are having?

Does Tolkien's work provide an experience of 'Joy, beyond the walls of the world'? If it does then there must be something ('Something') beyond the walls of the 'world' (which is to say - if it is to say nothing else - that there is something beyond the 'walls' of our own little 'world', our own experiences or 'baggage') for us to have an experience of.

So, I think that (inevitably) when we ask questions about where the 'meaning' of Tolkien's work (or any other art/Art) is to be found we have to clarify first exactly what we mean by 'meaning' (or 'Meaning')...