The Tolkien Template - Carrying on the torch of mythology and folklore - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

littlemanpoet · 11-15-2002, 05:17 AM

Keneldil: At least you have the courtesy of appropriate disdain for McKiernan. Yet while accusing some of us of snobbery and hypocracy, you adhere to yourself discourtesy and uncharitableness; perhaps you do not understand - I don't know. Having never read any Robert Jordan, I cannot speak intelligently on that. However, Tolkien's work awakened a deep thirst and quenched it; but once the book had been read, the reader casts about for more of the same mead and seeks that unique, bittersweet taste, and does not find it; except by turning back to Tolkien again and again. The thirst is a delight in itself, but only so long as it can be quenched again. Each time a rereading of Tolkien is accomplished, the thirst awakens all over again, and the reader tries different heady meads and wines and finds them lacking, in one way or another. If, Keneldil, your pallate is less discriminating than that of some of us, so much the better for you. Please do not let that less discriminating pallate lead you to cast aspersions on those of us who, having tasted such delight, cannot stomach imitations that, missing key ingredients, turns our readerly stomachs. Thank you.

11-15-2002, 05:17 AM	#11
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	Keneldil: At least you have the courtesy of appropriate disdain for McKiernan. Yet while accusing some of us of snobbery and hypocracy, you adhere to yourself discourtesy and uncharitableness; perhaps you do not understand - I don't know. Having never read any Robert Jordan, I cannot speak intelligently on that. However, Tolkien's work awakened a deep thirst and quenched it; but once the book had been read, the reader casts about for more of the same mead and seeks that unique, bittersweet taste, and does not find it; except by turning back to Tolkien again and again. The thirst is a delight in itself, but only so long as it can be quenched again. Each time a rereading of Tolkien is accomplished, the thirst awakens all over again, and the reader tries different heady meads and wines and finds them lacking, in one way or another. If, Keneldil, your pallate is less discriminating than that of some of us, so much the better for you. Please do not let that less discriminating pallate lead you to cast aspersions on those of us who, having tasted such delight, cannot stomach imitations that, missing key ingredients, turns our readerly stomachs. Thank you.