Fantasy

[LadyBrooke]

Just some quick thoughts about various posts and quotes from Letters. This is not a short post though, just to warn you.

Originally Posted by davem

But do you expect an unrealistic view of it?.

Actually when I start to read a book I try to expect nothing, for I too often find that having prior expectations keeps me from enjoying the book itself. To answer the question of realistic or unrealistic view of war, from Tolkien I did (by the time I reached the battles) expect the battles to be around the same as those in Greek epics or French Medieval Romances. Also, it’s not that like Tolkien wrote anything along the lines of people being killed by firey demons and then coming back to life or an entire species that can’t really be killed. Nothing at all that unrealistic in his books.

Originally Posted by davem

My suggested answer would be 'Not for every reader'. Some readers will assume those things & 'see' them as they read the story, but other readers won't. Some will deny the existence of those things in M-e,.

Of course not every reader will believe that these things existed in M-E, but even if Tolkien states that something happened there are people who will refuse to believe it. This is the danger of publishing a work. Once it is published it is open to interpretation by the reader - this is at once one of the greatest and worst things about publishing something. The amount of stories I’ve heard about authors being told that their work means or says something that they didn’t intend for it to.

So I took to 'escapism': or really transforming experience into another form and symbol with Morgoth and Orcs and the Eldalie (representing beauty and grace of life and artefact) and so on; and it has stood me in good stead in many hard years since and still I draw on the conceptions then hammered out.

- J.R.R. to Christopher, June 1944
Escapism - the seeking of distraction from reality by engaging in entertainment or fantasy: this is the definition from my dictionary. So he was using his writing to escape the reality of war and become emerged in a fantasy world where everybody is noble and righteous.

The news today about 'Atomic bombs' is so horrifying one is stunned. The utter folly of these lunatic physicists to consent to do such work for war-purposes: calmly plotting the destruction of the world Such explosives in men's hands, while their moral and intellectual status is declining, is about as useful as giving out firearms to all inmates of a gaol and then saying that you hope 'this will ensure peace.'

- J.R.R. August 1945
So horrifying one is stunned; utter folly of these lunatic physicists; while their moral and intellectual status is declining: all quotes that say to me that even in his worst nightmares Tolkien could not imagine what modern man is capable of. So obviously the characters in his books can not do anything approaching the utter horror of our current warfare meaning that trying to use his books to educate people about the horrors of modern day warfare is about as useful as using an original car to educate somebody about how to take care of a Porsche.

We were supposed to have reached a state of civilization in which it might still be necessary to execute a criminal, but not to gloat, or to hang his wife and child by him while the orc-crowd hooted.

- J.R.R. Janurary 1945
Meaning that ‘true’ and ‘noble’ beings such as the forces of good in Tolkien’s books will not gloat or punish a criminal’s family for being related to him. This is despicable to Tolkien (and personally to me as well.)

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

His, and only his choice is, whether he reveres some authority, or is aware of his responsibility; as he holds, at least particularly, a responsibility for the others who are going to read his books. My opinion is of course that he should have in mind mainly the people who are going to read what he wrote.

But, and this is one of my soapboxes, today many people want to view historical people and authors from a viewpoint that is not even contemperary to the author, but is a modern viewpoint. Perhaps this is just me - who in recent weeks has been exposed to far too many editorials blasting such people as Abraham Lincoln - but I surely don’t expect Tolkien to have kept 21st century readers in mind while writing a book in the aftermath of two World Wars. Nobody coming out of either World War would have needed to have been reminded that war is a bad thing. They knew it, they lived it, and quite frankly they were sick of it. For some of them LotR probably served as the same thing it did for Tolkien according to one of the above quotes - escapism.

Originally Posted by Rumil

Tolkien's battles are usually (not, I'll agree, always) written from the Historian's lofty standpoint, featuring more of the wide overview and deeds of commanders than the mud and blood experience of the Poor Bloody Infantry. If we go 'in-book' we find that our authors (the hobbits) are mostly not involved in the fighting in the great battles. Bilbo gets knocked out, Merry probably has his eyes tight shut during the charge of the Rohirrim, then the Witch King showdown takes him out of the battle. Pippin gets squashed into unconsiousness under a troll. The Battle of Bywater is probably written by Frodo who was not involved in the fighting apart from getting the hobbits to spare the surrendering ruffians.

Therefore the battle sections are mostly what was told second-hand to the hobbits by Gandalf, Aragorn etc. I think they would not feel the need to burden the cheery halflings with the true brutality. Who's to say they'd be wrong?

Plus - and this is what happens in the real world - LotR is technically something like a translation from a copy of a copy of the original. When something has passed through that many hands details get lost, purged, mistranslated, etc. People have a tendency to change things they don’t like.

Originally Posted by Pitchwife

Perhaps one of the reasons that warfare is described more grimly in the Silmarillion is that Silm was written in a much more distanced, 'annalistic' style than LotR. Maybe Tolkien just couldn't bear to describe his own experience of war any closer, without that filter of talking about things that happened ages ago.

This is what I think too. Along with the fact that Tolkien didn’t actually publish the grim parts himself, it does make you wonder. My great-uncle can’t talk about his own part in Vietnam without coaching it in terms of various books and movies. It was simply too tramautic for him - much as WWI must have been for Tolkien, losing the good friends he did.

So, basically what is my entire point that I’ve been trying to express in every post I’ve made on this thread?

War is traumatic.

I know of many veterans who have turned their trauma into activism - good for them, that they can stand up for what they believe in.

I also know many veterans who for them it is too traumatic. They repress their memories of the bad things that happened. They refuse to speak about it. If they do it is only to close family members. They use escapism - whether that escapism takes the form of alcohol, drugs, the arts, extreme sports, whatever.

And I believe that Tolkien belongs firmly in the second group. His form of escapism is writing, he purged all of the bad memories from his public thoughts (in this case TH and LotR), and only spoke of the reality in his private thoughts (in this case the writings of his that were only published after his death).

It has nothing to do with misleading the public, and everything to do with his own personal reaction to a tramatic event in his own life. I don’t know if any of you have ever truly been traumatized. I do know that in the aftermath of 9/11, I developed an anxiety disorder that has lasting affects. Sometimes it’s not a matter of if somebody should have done something, but a matter of they could have done it.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by LadyBrooke

But, and this is one of my soapboxes, today many people want to view historical people and authors from a viewpoint that is not even contemperary to the author, but is a modern viewpoint. Perhaps this is just me - who in recent weeks has been exposed to far too many editorials blasting such people as Abraham Lincoln - but I surely don’t expect Tolkien to have kept 21st century readers in mind while writing a book in the aftermath of two World Wars. Nobody coming out of either World War would have needed to have been reminded that war is a bad thing. They knew it, they lived it, and quite frankly they were sick of it. For some of them LotR probably served as the same thing it did for Tolkien according to one of the above quotes - escapism.

Yes, all too true! That's exactly what I think as well. Though, with writing what I said above, I had in mind just the author himself - his point of view, the audience he estimates, or which he can estimate to read him. Of course he cannot know what the clima in the society will be like some hundred years later. That's a part of why I said no book is foolproof. But, my point was directed exactly to the author's choices, given his position according to his knowledge. But otherwise, I definitely agree with what you said.

[LadyBrooke]

And indeed when writing that I didn't have you in particular in mind. I was actually reading another thread at the same time I was going through this thread and writing my response and poeple on that thread seemed to be expecting Tolkien to have guessed what his readership would be like now, when I believe that he expected his books to have a quite limited readership.

Besides like I said it's a soapbox of mine - just like Celeborn. You really don't want to get me started on him.

[Bêthberry]

*whispers* Celebrian *coughs*

LadyBrooke, thanks for quoting that letter from Tolkien about transforming his experience/ seeking a distraction. This was something I had suggested some posts back, that Tolkien's fascination with war epics was related to his own wartime experience in WWI and was not necessarily a deliberate lie.

[LadyBrooke]

Coughhalforcscough

Thank you Bêthberry, but the credit for the quotes must go to Ibrin who was the one who looked them up in the first place and not me. I simply recopied them from her post and added my thoughts to them. For some reason though her name didn't show up even though I quoted them from her post.

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Something that has struck me about The Lord of the Rings and, indeed, most of the Legendarium, has been the fact that, as you say, davem, violence is not depicted in grotesque or detailed terms. There are glimpses here and there, but nothing to the extent of the heroic deeds and so on. What strikes me as the possible reason is that Tolkien simply did not want to do this. When reading his essay On Fairy Stories as well as the forward to The Lord of the Rings (I vaguely remember something from the letters, but it's been so long since I read them-) that Tolkien was writing what he wanted.

That, in itself, is a dream, I have to say. So often I have been told by tutors on my Creative Writing course that you have to include a, b and c in a healthy balance whether you like it or not. There is merit in this, granted. Issues should be dealt with, things addressed and considered. It does not make them easy or pleasant to write about.

With The Hobbit being chiefly a children's book, Tolkien can be very much forgiven for the lack of violence. Indeed, with The Lord of the Rings being a sequel it almost, but not quite, could be expected that violence and graphic horror would not have the same presence. However, because The Lord of the Rings is directed at and appeals to an older audience, Tolkien had the liberty to do so. But he does not. Or, perhaps, will not.

With The Silmarillion, Children of Hurin and so on, we have much broader strokes of the stories; details are left out because the vastness of the tail, you might say, thrusts it aside. Had the detail been the same in The Silmarillion as it was in The Lord of the Rings, could it be contained within the bounds of a paperback? Probably not; it would probably collapse in on itself and create a black hole.

Tolkien seems to relish and toughly enjoy telling us about the heroic deeds as well as the tragic tales. There we find some of his best writing. We enjoy it. We relish it. We are here discussing it. After all, what was Tolkien's duty other than to tell the story? Indeed, even that was not a duty, as such, but a need within him.

Besides all this, to my mind, Middle Earth was, for so long, a place beset with evil and horror. The seemingly endless war with Melkor and the battles with Sauron must have plagued their minds. Therefore, any act of heroism, I should think, would be savored and remembered. It would not surprise me if the same was true of heroic tales of our own world were born from the same mindset. Places racked with war seeking any way to think of better things. Who knows?