Tolkien's System and Secret Grammar. Prediction #1. - The Barrow-Downs Discussion Forum

mindil · 07-21-2020, 12:34 PM

The essential flaw in all this tangled symbolism and numerology is that the type of people who write with lots of secret symbols invariably write undramatic, unexciting narratives. And vice versa.

I can't imagine Monks writing a gripping story - satire, perhaps, but not a full-flown humanistic drama like LoTR.

And in reverse, I can't imagine JRRT ever writing the kind of posts that Monks writes. All T's detailed linguistics and genealogies and time-tables had a much more immediate, real, urgent flavor than Monks' verbal equations.

So, in short, JRRT couldn't insert Monks-style symbolism even if he wanted to. And if he had, the resulting book wouldn't have have this sort of fan-following.

07-21-2020, 12:34 PM	#6
mindil Animated Skeleton Join Date: Mar 2017 Posts: 47	The essential flaw in all this tangled symbolism and numerology is that the type of people who write with lots of secret symbols invariably write undramatic, unexciting narratives. And vice versa. I can't imagine Monks writing a gripping story - satire, perhaps, but not a full-flown humanistic drama like LoTR. And in reverse, I can't imagine JRRT ever writing the kind of posts that Monks writes. All T's detailed linguistics and genealogies and time-tables had a much more immediate, real, urgent flavor than Monks' verbal equations. So, in short, JRRT couldn't insert Monks-style symbolism even if he wanted to. And if he had, the resulting book wouldn't have have this sort of fan-following.