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LOTR to escape?

Plato to MacDonald to Chesterton, Tolkien and the Boys in the Pub.
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LOTR to escape?

Postby Áthas » July 8th, 2005, 8:46 pm

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Re: LOTR to escape?

Postby Adam Linton » July 8th, 2005, 9:15 pm

Athas,

The best recommendation I have for this is Tolkien's own answer against the charge of "escapism" in his own essay, "On Fairy-Stories," which can be found in The Tolkien Reader. It is an outstanding piece of writing, which I am sure you would much value.

If you get the chance to read it, let me know what you think.

Best wishes.

Adam Linton
we have not loosely through silence permitted things to pass away as in a dream
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Re: LOTR to escape?

Postby Leslie » July 8th, 2005, 11:07 pm

"What are you laughing at?"
"At myself. My little puny self," said Phillipa.
--Rumer Godden, In This House of Brede
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Re: LOTR to escape?

Postby jo » July 10th, 2005, 9:34 am

I dunno.. that was mythical evil wasn't it? I know that I often read the books as a form of escapism, evil and all.
"I saw it begin,” said the Lord Digory. “I did not think I would live to see it die"

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Re: LOTR to escape?

Postby Adam Linton » July 10th, 2005, 8:33 pm

Athas,

I've another recommendation for you on this (in addition to T.'s essay, "On Fairy Stories").

The comments you report fron the class sound to me as though the speakers have an investment in a simplified (if not one dimensional) view of TLotR.

Nevertheless, the recent and highly respected work, Tolkien and the Great War: The Threshold of Middle-earth, by John Garth, published by Hougton Mifflin in the US and HarperCollins in the UK, does address the sort of issue at hand here.

Regards,

Adam Linton
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Re: LOTR to escape?

Postby A#minor » July 10th, 2005, 10:23 pm

"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
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Lewis on escapism

Postby A#minor » July 24th, 2005, 2:39 pm

Here's a bit of Lewis on escapism:

"Far from dulling or emptying the actual, it [imagination] gives it a new dimension.
A child doesn't despise real woods just because he's been reading about enchanted woods. What he's read makes all real woods a little enchanted.
And a boy who has any imagination enjoys eating cold meat, which he'd otherwise find dull, by pretending that it's buffalo-meat, which he's just killed with his own bow and arrow. As a result, the real meat tastes more savoury. In fact you might say that only then is it the real meat.
This isn't a retreat from reality.
It's a rediscovery of it."

Good old Lewis comes through every time.
"My brain and this world don't fit each other, and there's an end of it!" - G.K. Chesterton
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