Hope and Hopelessness

[Carannillion]

A very constructive and interesting discussion indeed, and Estelyn, I greatly appreciate your "feedback-post".

Tolkien's way of viewing the world is quite often reflected in his books. One parallell - as long as we are on the subject - is of course his service during WWI, but another, which fascinates me quite deeply, is "the Scouring of the Shire" compared to the factories being built and ruining the fair countryside where Tolkien grew up. I feel like I share a bit of that experience. As a child, I watched my favourite playground - a tiny pond in the small patch of forest behind our house - turn from "playground paradise" to concrete. I even asked my mom if she could tell those people to stop doing that to the forest. The sadness I felt back then is something I have found to be similar to certain moods in LotR and Sil. Of course, my interpretation of the books is certainly different from other people's, and definetely coloured by me, but that's again one of the many things which makes Tolkien's writings so magnificent: we are all able to recognize ourselves in them from time to time, because they are written by a man who has experienced a lot. A man who knows how to bring his experiences out to other people in a special way.

Not a small digression there, but I just had to tell somebody - you people, that is... [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] This could probably fit into another thread I remember seeing here some time ago, but I am unable to remember the name of it.