Seeing is Believing

[Kransha]

It is part of, at least in my opinion, human nature, to create images based on the things that are described to us, things that we do not see, but are told of, or read about. Many things, predominantly in our own past, must be imagined to some degree, which is why movies are made and books written from a standpoint describing a past era. A lot of people find modernity in literature or cinema to be intensely drab, weak, and needless, unless the plot and characters really work. Society, nowadays, is part of a more cinematic culture, where we have the pictures drawn for us, but those pictures are still pictures, mostly pictures of people portraying actual people (actual = fiction and/or nonfiction; simply real). Documentaries, film archives, a journals are first-hand accounts (though journals still require pictures to be drawn by the reader), but few a great tool for escapism, if you want to call it escapism, as subversive as that may be, is the imagining, and inner painting of pictures.

Which brings me to Tolkien – and my point.

Ever since The Hobbit was first written, people, including the Professor himself, have been drawing, sketching, painting, and, in short, imagining Tolkien. Just because his non-posthumously published works are very descriptive, leaving little room for expansion in some sections, they will always be open to imaginative interpretation. That imaginative interpretation sparked an epic cinematic trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, a pair of intriguing, if mildly disconcerting animated films by Ralph Bakshi and Rankin-Bass, a surprisingly large MUSH Online Role-Playing Game called “Elendor”, a more tangible RPG produced by Iron Crown Enterprises, countless websites, a plethora of fanfiction, pictures, paintings, photos, murals, posters, crafts, action figures, toys, board game, computer games, and a rather funnily-illustrated calendar drawn by Greg and Tim Hildebrant.

But, is anything, any single, solitary one of these things, up to and including the author himself right?

I consider myself a bit of a ‘literati’ in terms of a recent thread, well-versed in the books of our species, both the greater and the worse. I am obviously not of the right mind about everything, for there are some works which are praised as divine which I despise (I won’t say which, I don’t need more enemies). I’ve seen a lot, I’ve read a lot. I am not yet an old man, nor am I a young one, nor am I middle-aged (I’m beginning to wonder what I am, really), but I’ve seen stuff, to put it simply, and I’ve heard stuff from others, and imbibed a lotta stuff indeed, and, as you all know, I’ve religiously read Tolkien for some time. I have images floating about in my head, images of grand towers and castles and battles and orcs. I’ve based those images on what I know of Tolkien, and of the world. As an important note: my vision of Tolkien has been shaped by my vision of life, by my perception of reality. If Tolkien was translated somehow into that crude non-inflected tongue that I spoke before I was a month old, and the books drilled into me, I would view the world differently, from a Tolkien perception. This sounds like an interesting premise, but a ridiculous one, nonetheless. Viewing the world through the eyes of someone whose reality, and system of creating images, was formed by images of Middle-Earth, would make the real world a bit of a bore, as well as frightening, mundane, and many other things.

I love Tolkien, but I may still be putting too much thought into this. Either way, thinking about this is addictive, because of the many branches that stem from the trunk of that simple, single idea, that of depiction, of representation, and of a optical view, through the ‘mind’s eye’ of Tolkien’s fantastic world. I hope I’m not confusing you here, because I know I’m confusing myself.

It sounds, as you read through this drabble I’ve written, as if I’m simply philosophizing, rather stupidly, to myself. If this thought has occurred to you, than you’re very perceptive, and also right. I am philosophizing aloud, which is useless to you, the reader, but give me a little room to expand the question, with background information. If you ponder the above, you may have a better time answering the below.

What do you see, really? What did you see in Tolkien? What do you see now? I understand that there have been threads in the past debating what images should be used to represent Tolkien. The Professor has upwards of 50 sketches published for us to see, and those should be “definitive,” should they not? If an author draws pictures of his own books, those pictures are canon, right? Those images are canon, right? They are not to be toyed with, not to be denied, not to be challenged, right?

Wrong.

Well, maybe.

Even the author cannot depict the reader’s thoughts, or what the reader sees. When I was the reader, nestled into a beige-velour armchair with blinking table lamp at my side, I began to read, and I wasn’t in a beige-velour armchair with blinking table lamp at my side anymore. It is my guess that you were removed from your seat, or bed, or couch, or wherever on Earth you were to, and I bet that even those who don’t like Tolkien probably found themselves somewhere else, perhaps not a great place if they got such a negative impression. As I said, our perception of fantasy is reality expanded, but it must begin somewhere. Countless enterprises have capitalized on the ‘reality’ that is their version of Tolkien. John Howe, the artist whose work was used as a design basis for the films, was affected by his views of Mediaeval Europe, and the movie reflected that. Tim and Greg Hildebrant purloined some creative techniques from Disney when designing Rivendell, and I don’t think I want to know what Ralph Bakshi was thinking, even though I did rather fancy the Bakshi version of the Goblin Song in Gundabad (you know, the one with all the “ho ho”-ing?). Tolkien wrote about dragons, but dragons aren’t his creations. So, we think of the dragons from the stories of St. George, Apsu and Tiamat, and those tales of Knights and fearsome beasts. From what we’ve gleaned from Tolkien, the Witch-King of Angmar doesn’t have a visible head, just a crown hovering in mid-air above mantled shoulders, but an overtly stereotypical image of deathly things (i.e. the Grim Reaper, Death, other soul-sucking fiends) has given the Witch-King different depictions in almost every picture, even if those differences are very very subtle. What did you see? Did you see what I saw: the Invisible Man in a Greco-Roman suit of black armor with a spiky crown hanging precariously on a nonexistent head? Or did you see what John Howe saw, what Tim and Greg Hildebrant saw, what Ralph Bakshi saw?

Just to make the thread interesting, and avoid asking a repetitive question, let me pose more questions. More than just what you saw, where did you see from? I know I’m a third-person person, but I know some people who see stories from the point of view of a protagonist, or even an antagonist. Tolkien encourages us, in The Fellowship, to look at the Fellowship from a fox’s point of view, and, in The Return of the King, slips into Pippin several time, and Sam to, as well as a number of others. Did you taste, smell, feel Middle-Earth? Was it cold, warm, temperate, amphibious? Was there someone there you knew? Perhaps you, like me, saw some reflections of the real world in the characters, or in the places (even after the movie, and with Tolkien’s guidelines, I have not been able to shake the image of Minas Tirith as Austria’s Neuschwanstein Castle). What was there?

What, for you, was Middle-Earth?

And, did you think that what was there for you was right?

And, if it wasn't, what is?



P.S. I think this is deluged [and deluded] enough not to be redundant. But, just in case, here's this handy little Copyright Clause

[Encaitare]

Great topic, Kransha!

This is going to sound rather bizarre, but the more detailed a description is, the harder it is for me to picture it in my mind the first time around. After a few reads then I can get a decent image, but even then it's a little fuzzy. But today during the 41-minute period of bliss that is study hall, I was reading Lost Tales II: Turambar and the Foaloke, and everything was described so vaguely that I could suddenly see poor little Turin crying for his mother and orcs attacking, and I had pretty vivid images of the characters in my mind even though they weren't described much more than being "strong" or "great."

[Lalwendë]

Real food for thought…the human mind…

According to Neuro-Linguistic Programming techniques, there are many different ways of thinking, and often one way will be dominant in a person. I know someone who thinks in a highly visual manner; she uses diagrams to explain concepts, and speaks in phrases such as “I can see…” or “The shape of the issue is…”. I am apparently a kinaesthetic thinker; I respond to taste, smell and texture; I say “it feels…”, or “I think…”. Such things affect our thinking and perceptions at the most basic level.

To add to this, apparently we all have a tendency towards a particular type of intelligence. There is an interesting test which can be taken here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/leonardo/ A few months ago, I passed this around to a few friends; of the Tolkienians, all three women (including myself) came out as existential thinkers, while both men came out as logical thinkers. This rang true from discussions we had all had; the existentialist thinkers amongst us often talked of why things happened, while the scientific thinkers seemed to talk of how things happened.

And finally, to add into the psychological mixture, there is the life experience which we all gather. I am very different to the person I was three years ago, and at that stage I was very different to the person I was when I first read Tolkien.

With age, I see that all these things and more are brought to the text by us as readers. And so the question/s:

What did you see in Tolkien? What do you see now?

Way back when, I was little more than a child, and I viewed Middle earth as a merely fantastical new world. I stumbled across it somehow at an important time in my life, and have walked there ever since. I see it as a traveller might, with wide eyes. But while back then I met a Gandalf who was simply an untouchably clever wizard, a Gollum who was faintly creepy and a Frodo who was heroic, now when I take a walk there I meet different people. Gandalf is wise and something of a moral relativist, Gollum is a broken creature who I want to help yet can do nothing for, Frodo is in real and tangible despair.

At 12 I was steeped in mysterious folk tales and fairy stories, and some of those creatures were very much real to me. When I discovered the weird creatures of Middle earth, the Dragons and Elves and Orcs and Balrogs, they were also real; how could they not exist? And now I am older, and after that first reading have ventured into learning of many things which are not of this world; whether of the mind or of something more spiritual. The creatures are still real, but they are mixed with ideas of other creatures.

The places of Middle Earth remain much as they ever did. It took a lot of effort to take that journey to see those places, so they are pictures that aren’t easily shaken off. As I have visited new places in the real world, they have sometimes added to my picture of Middle Earth. I have at various times tried to draw or paint what I saw, but it is like trying to hold water in my outstretched hand, it is impossible to convey quite what I have seen. I love to see paintings of Middle Earth, but it’s as though everyone who goes there has taken a different type of camera with them, or as if the world itself changes for every visitor.

I used to think Middle Earth was pure perfection, but now, with familiarity and age, it is not perfect. I see that it has troubles as much as my own world does and I can’t pretend that I’d like to be chased from my home by a bunch of Orcs, or be expected to be a woman who must simply ‘sit and wait’. Even this in its way is changing, as I think how nice it would be to take up the philosophy of downshifting.

When I’ve walked in Middle Earth, I’ve been able to smell the flowers and the grass, and the burning stench of battle. I’ve imagined drinking the cool Entdraughts and wondered whether those Elven cloaks are as itchy as I imagine.

This is a bit of “This is my Middle Earth, tell me yours”… but this is an interesting thread, tempting me into the twin areas of philosophy and reflective thought at the same time. I firmly believe that once a work leaves the hands of its creator then the creative process has only been half begun, as readers inevitably bring themselves to bear on a text; they do not change it physically, but it is different for everyone metaphysically.

[Rimbaud]

"Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by heart and his friends can only read the title."


Interestingly, prior to posting, I took the test to which you link, and came out as a 'Linguistic Thinker'. Although such devices are to be approached not so much with a pinch of salt as an ocean's worth, the result tallies with what I was planning to say.

There are two levels within me on reading Tolkien. These I shall call, for simplicity, the Child and the Critic; the latter is now always in play with all my reading, the former only with books of a particular hue (JRRT and similar being a good example).

I use a colour-based metaphor with deliberation, for as the test result above suggests, it is the material, the fabric of the thing that affects me now, the warp and the woof of the words that stitch together my experience. The Child was and is awakened by the heady rush of story, the impetus, the turns, and later in life now, by the shimmer of well-worked language - the Child wants to be transported. The Critic (for wont of a better term, although critic has unwelcome connotations in this analogy), when reading JRRT, is enthralled by the language as the work itself, by the structure, the pacing, the tone. The words themselves, the phrase and the poise are what this half seeks. Absorption is desired, yet always kept at hand's distance. The Critic is like the ancient paradigm - how to you discuss consciousness from a viewpoint that will never be outside of it?

It is also, naturally, this half that also finds the disappointments within the books, but yet sometimes, the very greatest pleasure. For often now, the Child remains unawakened, that sense of wonder diminished as I read more and more, and review, and reccommend, and critique, but the older half can sometimes lead the Child to see new benefits. Very few works awaken this more primitive sense of wonder directly now, and it is to the credit of the ME mythologies that they rouse both to wakefulness.

So here, two levels: one is feeling the crops in the fields around the Shire brush against my head and arms (bringing personal memories of childhood, often spent in such fields back to me), the other is noting the well-cut sentence, the finely tuned chapter, the awkward shift of tone; yet these come together, to leave the cloth of the whole to be admired.