Google| Subject | Re: Reading LotR and the newsgroups (was Re: Don't aspire to succeed - that right belongs to America |
| From | John Swanson |
| Date | 08/14/2004 13:40 (08/14/2004 13:40) |
| Message-ID | <Xns95458B207E8E5392orpww00@195.67.237.51> |
| Client | |
| Newsgroups | alt.fan.tolkien |
| Follows | Christopher Kreuzer |
| Followups | Christopher Kreuzer (37m) > John Swanson |
"Christopher Kreuzer" <spamgard@blueyonder.co.uk>wrote in news:dnkTc.2$df3.385221@news-text.cableinet.net:
Christopher KreuzerAbsolutely, the re-readings and the fact that I change, that I read, study and experience other things is the most important. But there are several aspects of the newsgroups that tend to banalise Tolkien. The obvious one is that the balance tilts from a private experience to a public. Until I was thirteen, Tolkien's work (TW) was a private fascination, after that I shared it with a couple of friends for a few years, and then it grew less important again. The public discussion as such turns the focus from things that were important in the first encounters with TW, what I could sense between the lines, personal visualisations (images that even could be strengthened by misreadings!) - a text can make a strong impression on a fresh mind that isn't already exposed to thousands of books, and there is a personal, un-communicable but important, side of that.
John Swanson <nospam@nospam.com>wrote:Christopher KreuzerJohn Swanson
And I re-read LOTR now and then, but with less enthusiasm. Reading these newsgroups has also been a thorough remedy against the faint reminiscences of literary magic in Tolkien's work....
How so? I realise that not everyone likes LotR to the same degree, but how do these newsgroups reveal your memories (in your opinion) to be false? Surely your re-readings would do that, not the newsgroups?
The public situation makes other discussions possible, and now and then someone strikes upon something I find worthwhile to read. Often, however, the starting point is a realistic reading of Middle Earth as a place that have existed. I have written on the subject before in rabt, hope you don't mind that I use a tinyurl shortcut. It's the last paragraph:
http://tinyurl.com/5eor2
The realistic reading has a twin brother, namely the idea that while there are contradictions in TW, there is an ideal truth about ME in the mind of the author - and if we can reconstruct this out of his notes and the timeline of the writing process, then we will know more. Not about TW, nota bene, but about ME. These two ideas has as a consequences that the discussion often turns into a dry, nitpicking argument, or, as a helpless response to that, ironical jokes where the realistic reading is exaggerated into comedy. Look, I'm not really complaining, because I realize that this too is a way of dealing with Tolkien and meeting other people through TW. If we only talked about what's really important in a book, people would mostly be silent, and to many this obviously is a satisfying approach. But it does contribute to the banalisation of TW.
A third thing, but also important, is that when I was young, the people I knew cared about TW were nice persons. One of the reasons that I enjoy aft/rabt is of course that there are lots of people just like that here. But there are also Tolkien fans with whom I seem to have almost nothing in common, people that I cannot like, understand or even feel respect for. While this in itself is an interesting and enriching experience, it makes me question what it actually is, this common ground we obviously share in Tolkien?
Maybe what I wrote above made it clearer?Christopher KreuzerJohn Swanson
So I guess my presence in aft/rabt is a combination of curing myself of a long-lasting fascination with Tolkien, of trying to understand this fascination (with the help of others)
That makes a lot of sense. The 'trying to understand the fascination' bit, not the 'curing' bit. This is probably the wrong place to get 'cured' of Tolkien! Unless you really feel that these newsgroups helps get it out of your system? But I still don't quite get what you mean.
I also find new things, especially with the help of rabt/aft, but then it cannot compare to reading other good books for the first time...Christopher KreuzerJohn Swanson
now that it is gone, and of simply feeling at home here because we share a common ground.
That's very true.
<snip>John SwansonChristopher Kreuzer
Well, at least I enjoy my occasional, compulsory re-readings... but that's rather because in every page I can (elusively) remember some thrill or sensation I experienced during my first reading, or my fourth, or my eleventh. Or the first couple of times I read it in English. So I read the books in some random order and reflect on memories...
My experience rather is of finding _new_ things with each re-reading that I hadn't noticed before. Maybe I haven't read it enough times yet...
Seriously, I would hope that the magic of reading certain passages would never fade or grow stale, but I have noticed my preference for certain passages changing over the years. What I think other people have said is that as their lives change with time, so their experience of re-reading LotR is informed by this and hence is a different experience from the readings of their youth.I feel quite content with the situation, but I wouldn't use the word "grow out". Rather has LOTR been pushed out by other things - OTOH, since I browse these newsgroups once in a while I probably spend more time on Tolkien now than I've done for years.
I wonder how many people feel like you, and 'grow out' of LotR? (If I may use such a phrase to describe your experiences of re-reading). Probably not too many like that around here...
John
08/14/2004
