‘Canonicity’: the Book or the Reader?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

I'm not sure why it would be necessary for there to be consensus to have a community. . . in fact, that sounds rather like a dull community to me (or a cult!). We all live in communities that share the same basic values but with radically different opinions, beliefs and interpretations of those values. In my local community, we hold theft to be wrong: some of us for religious reasons, some for legalistic, some for civil, etc etc etc. We don't agree, but we are a community.

Like it or not, we are all members of a community in this thread too (now there is magic at work for you! ). We all share the same sense of enchantment at Tolkien's work, but we experience it in different ways. We can either all lay back and say "Wow, what an enchanting work! This is how it enchants me, how does it echant you? Oooooh interesting") or we can simply acknowledge our existence as an enchanted community and attempt to move beyond that to a greater understanding of the text that we share, of our own community, etc etc etc.

I fear davem, that for whatever reason, you seem unwilling or unable to move beyond this initial sense of wonder and engagement. This may very well be a better or more true response to the text. But, well, being a 'clever' person I don't find it very productive.