Split Personality?

[Sauron the White]

littlemanpoet .......... I remember my early high school English courses where we were asked to read some classic story and surprisingly enjoyed it. At least we thought we did. Because, much to our collective surprise, we often found out that the story we thought we read was not really what it was about. There were all these deep and dark secret themes, messages, double and triple meanings, allegories, metaphors and other stuff that the teacher soon held court expounding upon. We read a story and liked it for what we thought it was only to be told "you stupid idiots --- its not that at all". By the time most of us got to be seniors our attitude was "screw it - just tell me what you think it was so I can throw it all up back on the test."

So once again, the ugly and smug head of superiority and purity raises its head in these discussions. Once again the Enlightened Gaurdians of the true themes and spirt of JRTT look down their aristocratic noses upon the great unwashed and pronounce them as sad and pathetic creatures beneath contempt for their ignorance and intellectual poverty.

It has been my understanding that each person brings to the table what is in themselves and uses that to experience what they encounter in life. When I read a book, and you or others read a book, we do not always walk away with the same opinion. At least not if we are thinking people who have not been programmed, educated or outright brainwashed to the ways of proper and acceptable thinking.