Dumbing down the Books

[lindil]

but we all love it when we have a chance to argue an opponent to the ground and pin him there, don’t we? Or is that just me?

indeed Mr. Underhill, that is exactly what the point of my [hastily withdrawn] post was about. I felt that Eurytus, you had dodged and evaded most of the salient points raised in objection to your opinions.

That for me was the touchy part Bethberry, not the belief that the LotR is 'Iconic' at least in the sense that Orthodox Christians regard Icons of sacred images and events as being the visual representation of the Bible and Sacred Tradition. Quite often JRRT's writings would qualify, to my mind as iconic, in the sense that they often piont to or represent Truth, which of course was JRRT's express intent.

Personally, as I said in my hastily withdrawn post, the more I read the post-LotR writings [primarily found in HoM-E 10-12 and Unfinished Tales, and a few more in the Silm] the more I feel that it was in the 50's and 60's that JRRT reached the height of his craft, and that the LotR [and the earlier Silm] was a long and elaborate warm up, that came to be regarded as his magnum opus only by default, because he did not finish the greater Silmarillion, and it was later issued in truncated [unfinshed revisions notwithstanding, there was at least a whole other volume of incorporatable writings] form.

-btw, the primary reason I withdrew the post, embarrassingly enough, was because I replied only after having read page 1 of the thread, not realizing there were 2 more [and far denser at that] pages.

It did however spare me a remark or two [ I have lost the doc, so I cannot confess more fully [img]smilies/tongue.gif[/img] ] that I probably would have moderated after a re-read or two.

-L

[ November 13, 2003: Message edited by: lindil ]