What breaks the enchantment?

[davem]

Originally Posted by LMP

I was reading The Council of Elrond, specifically Gandalf's description of Orthanc. By the time I got done with the paragraph, it occurred to me that Tolkien usually reserved such detailed descriptions to the narrator's voice. Having Gandalf go into such extreme detail, spoken, even in Council, seemed mistaken to me. Gandalf didn't talk like that anywhere else, and shouldn't have here.

But Gandalf, as an Ainur, would, it seems to me, in this situation,adopt the role of 'impartial' narrator, passing on information to other council members. He can also seem as if he is 'bragging' in the Council, reporting his 'clever' responses to Saruman. I think he is being quite impartial. We have to keep in mind his true nature, & I think if we do his speech is in character. He may be in Middle earth, but he is not of it. As Tolkien put it he is effectively an 'incarnate angel'.

This is all a matter of opinion, of course, & one responds subjectively to events in the book, but what breaks the enchantment for one reader doesn't break it for another, so I can only say again, that I don't think we can ever state that Tolkien 'failed' at any point, & where the enchantment is broken for each individual reader it is that reader's individual 'baggage' that is responsible. So, we learn more about ourselves from this exercise than we do about the story or its writer..