[ SECRET POST #3993 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3993 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 57 secrets from Secret Submission Post #572.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't see how anything I have said has implied that I think LOTR doesn't have thematic complexity. I'm also not trying to evoke (if I may use that word again) any type of low art vs high art bullshit because I don't believe in that. I agree wholeheatedly that we can't know an author's true intentions and also agree that they don't necessarily matter to interpretation. However I think the interpretation of the act of writing and publishing a fictional novel is more psychology than English lit.


My original comment was in response to the original secret, in which the poster was confused by the fact they like LOTR despite its supposed conservatism. My comment about LOTR's primary functions as a book were aimed at pointing out that it is not unusual to gain aesthetic and intellectual enjoyment and substance from a text that contains differing politics from your own because typically that isn't the point.

I feel like you might have picked up on my use of the word 'entertaining' and assumed I was dismissing LOTR as 'less-than'. I definitely don't think that. I made a distinction about art in general only because artists create for many different reasons, not all of them to entertain. I just think that one of Tolkien's intents was to entertain, and due to his skill as a storyteller he succeeded, meaning that LOTR as a book is entertaining to literally millions who must statistically hold a huge range of political (and other) beliefs. Considering that resounding validation, I think the secret poster is criminally overlooking and misundertanding LOTR by trying to reduce it to its fundamental 'politics', as if that necessarily effects its aesthetic and intellectual affect.

For an easy parallel I point to Lovecraft: he was notoriously racist and when you know that you can see the themes of xenophobia and fear of social disintegration through contact with the Other in his work. But his work is still enjoyed and strikes chords with many because of its imaginative power, i.e. its strength as a piece of fictional entertainment overpowers its political core.