Not inventing, but recording what was already there.
Thread: Who thinks this is not all fiction?
Not inventing, but recording what was already there.
Wow, Tolkien really said that? I feel a little better now. I am glad you think i am not crazy. I often find myself questioning my sanity like Tolkien. Well, thanks for the welcome and if you are interested in talking my e-mail address is: elf_girl_loriene@yahoo.com. Bye
Loriene88
I see your point. I think that people can see one thing and think to things about it. I agree with ProgHead777, the comment was nicely put. If you wanna talk write me at elf_girl_loriene@yahoo.com. Bye
Loriene88
You will probably see me answer most of my comment answers. So, beware!
Loriene88
Thanks for the welcome. I used to the same thing, look for elves. When I first started to read the books i became completely obsessed with the Middle-Earth, refusing to come out of my own little world, exept of course when i had to go to school. In fact that is where i came up with my two nicknames. Loriene and Gowen. I eventually used those names in the books i wrote. I am recently working on two books. One is sort of an alternate ending to ROTK and the other is me just adding two characters to Tolkien's books. They'll never be as good as Tolkien's and I will probably never finish them or try to have them published. N/E way, before i bore you all to tears. Namarie.
Loriene88
(in case anyone hadn't noticed, Loriene and Loriene88 are one person. I had to come up with a new user name when i registered nder my new e-mail address.)
PS: If anyone is ever interested in a friend, write me. My e-mail address is written her enough times for people to know what it is....yeah i know, i talk too much
people say i am crazy. Do you think so, too?
Yep, so was Tolkien though.
There are lots of ways to describe good and evil, god, pain, joy, love, hate, humanity, etc. I think Tolkien, with his particular expression of these things, has tapped into the way we see things, and he uses his characters and their situations as a way for us to put a handle on our own experience with the human condition which are EXACTLY our individual realities...but it's personal. I, for example, see the Ring as a symbol of addiction and lust, need and greed...and the characters' stories (those who are ensnared by it) as its victims. I read about the Valar and I think of God, I see the sacrifices and resurgences of characters like Gandalf, Frodo, and Aragorn, and I see a messianic "Jesus" connection...because that is MY experience going into the story and that is how I have wrapped my brain around the concepts in it...but I cannot presume that this is what Tolkien wanted me to take from the story, or that this is how another person will see it.
(From a psychological and developmental perspective, this is a sound basis for learning ANYTHING. We start with little, but as we are exposed to new things, we compare them and contrast them against what went before. We categorize and file into similar places things that seem alike to us.)
I won't presume that you are crazy to think that these stories are accounts of things that really happened...your reality is yours and yours alone. Even if I don't believe the story is a literal historical document, the characters and places in Middle Earth...the whole spirit of the story...have become very real to me, too. Reading LOTR has moved me and made me forever different both as a person and as a reader.
I would refer you to Tolkien's words himself, in the Forward to the Second Edition of LOTR, where he gives commentary about his own writing (and works like it).
Paraphrased and condensed, Tolkien makes several points:
1. LOTR was a self-challenge for Tolkien, he wanted to write a very long story that would hold the readers interest as well as move them. He wanted to see if he could pull it off.
2. The story did NOT contain hidden meanings or symbolism, it was not written as a political, philosophical, moral, religious, or social statement.
3. He addressed people's tendency to insert such ideas by discussing the difference between applicability and allegory. Applicability, he said, was a reader's tendency finding something in a work that he could relate to his own experience. Allegory, on the other hand, was the postAuthorID's deliberate use of literary trickery like symbolism and metaphor in order to push his own ideas down the reader's throat.
Perhaps somewhere in this discussion is a place for the difference between ABSOLUTE TRUTH and RELATIVE REALITY...or the difference between truth and perception. For example I can say with all certainty that as long as I am on this Earth, I will be subject to the law of gravity. If I lose control of something or my body and that thing is not held by something else, that thing will fall to the earth. This is the same experience every person on this planet will have, so it's safe to say that even a skeptic would consider this a TRUTH. On the other hand, we all experience a different REALITY in response to truths. I will have different pain from you as a result of falling due to gravity and that will depend on how I landed, how far I fell, how well I tolerate pain, etc. I will experience different loss as a result of what I dropped and ruined when gravity took it, depending on what it was and how much it is worth to me, and how badly it was damaged. My experience with the TRUTH of gravity is altogether REAL but only for me and your reality may be quite different and equally REAL for you.
So...when you wonder if Tolkien's works are based in historical fact, I say...whatever makes your socks roll up and down! Still, I'm not joining any United Church of Tolkien, nor will I be looking for Legolas in the woods behind my house.
Still, the words Professor Tolkien used to paint his pictures in our minds sure make it look real.
And we can dream, can't we?
As my friend the Plastic Squirrel has said on numerous times, "It isn't real. It is just a story, so get over it." or words to that effect.
Fly my pretties!
Regarding my thoughts on this, check this address out:
http://www.planet-tolkien.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Forum&file=viewthread&postThreadID=219
I hope I won't get into trouble doing this...
Ok, it can be found in Board Index>The Silmarillion>Morgoth Satan and The Holy Bible
...wondered why the link didn't work? Hmm....
I've been thinking about this question ever since I read The Silmarillion. I personally believe Tolkien unintentionally accessed the Akashic records, and this wonderous history just came flowing through him, for somehow his personal frequency tapped into the frequency of another world. If you do any research at all, you will find this is not nearly the first time things like that have happened. And if you know anything at all about Tolkien and his works, you would know that he found that his inspiration came mostly at night or in the wee hours of the mornings, and he would just go into a trance-like state and write for hours.
Obviously after he wrote the first drafts he could revise them and change things he found might be more interesting to readers, but, in my very personal and humble opinion, I just feel that there's so much more to this history than we know. It's just too detailed, too in depth, the languages, just everything, even from the very beginning of creation itself.
I know he added pieces of his own history into it and such, but don't let that fool you make you not believe. Everything happens for a reason, it was probably destined for him to write this, and like I said, after he wrote the drafts and such, he revised them and added things to it.
Anyways, it's nice to know others have wondered and asked the same things.