Authorial Intent:

[butterfly]

I've said that I love the story of The Lord of the Rings but don't like the books. Tolkien's style in the book just doesn't suit me at all. Oh, but the world and the characters that he created are glorious. And he can write and write quite well. There are so many lines from the book that I do adore. And I love The Hobbit (have I mentioned that before? I'm not sure that I have. It's quite an engaging tale.).

If the roads are clear enough and the library is open, tomorrow I'm going to see if it has The Silmarillion. I haven't yet tried to read that and I might like its style better.

Tolkien's an interesting guy - he disliked allegory, but both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are steeped in who Tolkien was and comparisions are nearly impossible for me to ignore. And just because he didn't want allegory in his stories doesn't mean that it can't easily be found in them.

Because there's always more to a story than what the author puts in it. Every single reader brings their own perspective to the piece - making the work richer and more vibrant by the act of interpretation.

When we reread a story, it's because something in that story calls to us. There's so much in The Lord of the Rings that's worth thinking about. So many ideas and ideals and idealogies at work in the story. I'm bringing up The Princess Bride again because that's the story that made me into the reader that I am - that story is all about choosing your own story inside the text.

What's The Lord of the Rings about? That's something that's unique to each reader.

To me, it's about friendship and love triumphing over corruption and fear. It's about compassion and courage. It's about unlikely heroes and unlikely friends. It's about nature and power - the fight between what is natural and what is artificial. It's about sacrifice and war and the consequences of growing up. It's about doing the job that needs to be done, regardless of the personal cost. It's about understanding who you are and that anyone is capable of being more than what they seem. It's about knowing what's right and standing behind that, come what may.

It's a million and one ideas, all fascinating. All worth delving into and exploring. And the characters. Words cannot express how much I adore the main hobbits.

I definitely understand why the books sold so well and have become what they are today. The story and the characters, yes, but also the sheer reality of the world that Tolkien created. It's a breath-taking accomplishment.

It's a world well worth many a visit.

Comments

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

Silmarillion....mwer. I loved the Hobbit as a kid and I've reread the LOTR books many times but the prose style really isn't my thing....I also have to admit skipping a lot when I first read them (mainly because I couldn't bear not to know what happened to Frodo and Sam).

To me, it's about friendship and love triumphing over corruption and fear.

Oh yes. Especially with Frodo and Sam, and even Gollum.

It's about doing the job that needs to be done, regardless of the personal cost.

That reminded me of a line I read recently in Sunshine, one character speaking to another who'd lost nearly everything: "What we can do, we must do."

moi

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Exactly, yes.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

"What we can do, we must do."

I hear that message from my Rabbi every Yom Kippur - though it's generally phrased as "we are supposed to strive to become better people because we can."

I love that sentiment.

[dlgood.livejournal.com]

Tolkien's an interesting guy - he disliked allegory, but both The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings are steeped in who Tolkien was and comparisions are nearly impossible for me to ignore.

Tolkien brought something of a Jungian conception to his studies and writings of mythology. In writing The Silmarillion he once spoke of "drawing from the primordial soup".

When Tolkien translated Gawain or Beowulf, or wrote sequels to archaic Anglo-Saxon poetry, do not doubt that he was heavily steeped in the lore of the cultures upon whom he was taking from.

What I think he intends, is a dislike of direct allegory. The story should be written and read first and foremost, as the story in and of itself. On secondary levels, Tolkien's Catholicism is no doubt a tool for analyzing his stories. As is his war experience and grounding in myth and cultural history.

But none of that allegorical analysis works, unless Sauron is not first and foremost Stalin or Milton's Lucifer - but Sauron.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

True - a story should always be approached on its own first, to see if it can stand alone. It's a poor story that only works on allegory or metaphor. You need spine to it.

[sunqist.livejournal.com]

Everything I've heard about The Silmarillion indicates that it's a long difficult slog through a primeval forest of dense prose. Like Somerset Maugham, only less accesible.

'm just sayin' is all.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

I don't mind dense, as long as it isn't... you know, I've never quite been able to pinpoint what exactly it is about the prose in LotR that hits me the wrong way. It isn't that it's formal, or the lack of a more normal structuring, or even the poems.

It... LotR, when I'm reading it, it skips past my heart. When I watch the films, or read someone else's account of the books, or just read short snippets ("whether or no", "light for those who can see", etc.), it does get to my heart, but when it's just me and the book, it's like the way he's writing just angles off the edges of me, missing me by just enough to bother me.

[thepouncer.livejournal.com]

I am in total agreement with you about not liking Tolkien's prose, but loving the movies. I always say he wrote it like a medieval chronicle, and there's a reason Froissart sits unread on my bookshelf. The point of view provides so little context into the emotional lives of the characters that I can't gain a connection to them. I cried at the end of RotK, when I read about the elves leaving the world. That was the only point where I was touched by the writing. All else was event after event, and I like reflection.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Right, he at once has too much happening all at once, and yet, at the same time, he doesn't have enough happen as it does.