Has it all been said?

[davem]

I agree on points, but - again barring something extraordinary coming to the surface (and I did enjoy Carter's biography), additional biographies, especially lately are only putting a different spin to already known information.

John Garth's biography Tolkien & the Great War is a major work, & sheds important new light on Tolkien's creation, & on the man himself & his early motivations. This sample entry from the forthcoming Tolkien Encyclopedia has more information on Tolkien &WWI than Carpenter's Biography.

[Azaelia of Willowbottom]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Oh, and Azaelia--it isn't only literature and essays than can ruin kids' reading. Nowadays teachers force kids to keep journals, even if the kids don't wish to put their private feelings on the page for a teacher to read. There's always something out of whack when learning is structured.

Yes...I do hold certain unpleasant memories about journals of school days gone by...A couple of my teachers actually counted any lines I'd left blank at the end of whatever meaningless rambling I'd written, and took points off for not filling them. Little did they know that I already kept a journal hidden away at home, and also wrote short fiction for fun (none of which will ever see the light of day).

The things they do to get kids to write are just as bad as the things they do to get kids to read.

Originally Posted by davem

I'm not sure its possible to define 'western culture' precisely enough to be able to say its waning. Certainly its changing, but its as likely as not to be changing in a 'western' way into another phase of 'western' culture. Change is inevitable in any case, & to be welcomed if only because the alternative is stagnation. Besides, if 'Western Culture' does disappear it will be because it wasn't going anywhere, & couldn't adapt.

Very true... I think it's certainly changing faster than it was 10 years ago, at least in the USA. Changing into what, I'm not quite sure. Who knows what the history books are going to make of the early 2000's...?

On the subject of Tolkien becoming dated that LMP brought up, I also doubt LOTR will ever be dated--Its continued popularity even over half a century after it was written is definite evidence of that. I certainly get different things out of the book each time I read it, depending on what's going on in my immediate surroundings, my own life...and what's going on on a world level. It's always interesting to see what stands out to me on a new read, and how it differs from what I especially noticed the time before.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by davem

I still think its significant that at the same time as we see this rise in the popularity of fantasy as a genre we see the rise in interest in 'practical' occultism, with its focus on the 'Hidden Masters' in the Himalayas (via Madame Blavatsky & the Theosophists) & Ancient Egypt (The Golden Dawn/Aleister Crowley). We saw the same thing in the Renaissance, with the romances (so effectively attacked by Cervantes) of Ariosto, Boiardo, Spenser, et al, appearing at the same time as the rise of Hermeticism & Alchemy. As Lalwende mentioned the sixties also saw a resurgence in interest in both fantasy literature (principally Tolkien) & in both Western (Tarot, Crowley, Witchcraft) & Eastern (who remembers the Beatle's & the Maharishi?) 'occultism'. And currently we have both a fascination with fantastical fiction & movies alongside the rise of 'New Age' movements - Wicca, Druidism, meditation.

In short, this connection between interest in fantastical fiction seems to go hand in hand with an interest in the 'occult'. I suppose it could be argued that they arise from the same place in the human psyche, the former attempting to create secondary worlds, the latter attempting to change the primary world into something more 'magical'. Both seem to be inspired by a reaction to an overly materialistic weltanschaaung. Back to Nietzsche, with his Dionysian/Apollonian dichotomy, perhaps...

That's Jack Nietzsche, right, the former sound engineer for the Rolling Stones?

I don't discount yours or Lal's observation at all as a correlation. However, such religious outpourings are not the sole perogative of post-18C materialism and rationalism. You might find some interest in Ronald Arbuthnott Knox's history of religious enthusiasm, called, not surprisingly, Enthusiasm.

He was a contemporary of Tolkien, a Catholic chaplain at Oxford, converted to Catholicism under the influence of he formerly recognised in your signature, Chesterton, dabbled in satire (his BBC radio hoax on revolution in London might have influenced H.G. Wells), and, even more interestingly, wrote not fantasy but detective fiction.

Knox's Essays in Satire, especially "Studies in the Literature of Sherlock Holmes", is said to be a satire on current trends in literary scholarship. Perhaps another reason to recommend him to you, although I've not read that one.

I'm not ascribing to his point of view, just noting that there is quite a history of occultish outcropings in western culture. I wonder if literature or art forms can be associated with all or many of them.