Middle Earth: The Inside Story... Or is it more?

[Hookbill the Goomba]

I want to discuss something about how many of us have felt about Middle Earth. Very often I've heard or read people explaining that while reading The Lord of the Rings (especially), they felt 'drawn into' the world. I was no exception. But I wonder, did Tolkien himself feel the same way?

Tolkien is a little unusual compared to most authors. Very rarely do we get such a detailed look at the creative process and the development of a narrative than we do with The History of Middle Earth series. But it acts as more than just a look into the development of the tales, sometimes even offering us different stories, perspectives and ideas.

I, for one, loved reading what I have read of The History series. I include The History of The Hobbit in this, as well, though I have not studied it very thoroughly. What I want to get at is the fact that besides offering us new insights into Middle Earth, there is something odd about reading these old drafts.

From the Fall of Gondolin to The New Shadow, we get a sense that Tolkien himself was being drawn into this world just as we were when we first picked up The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit. Indeed, it speaks very closely to my own creative process. It was something Tolkien said in the introduction to The Lord of the Rings that illustrated this very nicely.

"This tale grew in the telling, until it became a history of the Great War of the Ring and included many glimpses of the yet more ancient history that preceded it."

More than a good summery of the writing of The Lord of the Rings, I would guess this may be how he felt about the mythology at large. The vast expanse of time he spent putting together the mythology alone should speak of this.

But, you may say, most stories grow in the telling. This is true enough, but I suspect it is deeper and more pronounced with serious fantasy; if it includes a world of many histories. The wideness of Middle Earth and its differing races, themselves differing from age to age, create, as if for themselves, a tapestry of history.

While I read some of The History of Middle Earth, and The History of The Hobbit, I get the sense that Middle Earth held that pull for Tolkien. Perhaps because the author himself was so drawn into the world, this desire melted through onto the page and has, for many, ebbed up and caught them too.

Given the fact that The Fall of Gondolin is one of the first stories of Middle Earth that old John Ronald wrote down, I do not think it is surprising that when he re-enters Middle Earth in The Hobbit, it is at a late stage in the history. Gondolin's fall comes relatively late in the story of the War of the Jewels. Perhaps it began simply as Tolkien's desire to tell of the fall of the city of the elves and grew into his exploration of who the enemy was and why Gondolin was such a threat.

For a long time, I thought of the story of Gondolin to be one of the key stories in Middle Earth and I find it not at all strange that it gets a mention in The Hobbit. You might say that Gondolin comes to represent the culmination of the ages, in Middle Earth terms. The history grows behind it and then forth from it, as it were a source of many rivers heading in many directions.

The point I want to get at is this; do you feel that Tolkien was drawn into Middle Earth in the same way that we are? His constant re-writes and re-drafts speak to me of a man desperate to explore this world, just as we discuss and debate them.

If not, what level of insanity have I fallen into?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Okay, it's evening, I am tired, so I apologise, I won't post anything long But a nice thread, Hookbill. I will just throw in a few titles.

The Smith of Wootton Major. On Fairy-Tales. Leaf by Niggle. The three of those (and mainly the first two, the one by narrative and the other by discoursi... I wanted to say, as an essay) present, in my opinion, also Tolkien's own view of the world of fantasy, of which M-E was a part. There are some quotes in both of them about the dangerous lands to tread, but which are appealing for one enough so that he wants to tread them - he wants to see what is beyond the mountains etc., and wants to meet the Elves and whatever. I believe that the Smith is a kind of self-reflection, even. And as for the Leaf, that catches the aspect of being dragged into the process of making the story: now I am referring to Niggle's obsession with just one leaf, where in the end it makes a big tree - that's this whole mythology of Tolkien's. In some way, these tales were each for itself, but they became connected - or were connected (even without the author noticing that at some points) - to the rest of the tree, so to speak.

As for the question you posed, for me: if I understand it correctly, then at least I think I was - at some times at least - as much drawn in as him. Not sure if you can formulate it the other way around. (And not sure if I am correct about what he thought anyway.)

[Hookbill the Goomba]

Yes, I was going to mention Smith. That was probably what triggered the thought (I'd been listening to a bit of the audio dramatization earlier). It's one of those stories that give us a good insight into how Tolkien felt about writing Fantasy. On Fairy Stories I agree is full of hints about the worlds of Faerie having that magical 'pull' to them. (I'll gather quotes in the morning ).

I was almost going to say something about Leaf by Niggle, actually. As it is the closest to a 'personal allegory' as Tolkien gets, one could see a lot in the fact that, at the end, his life is given to finding deeper and deeper parts of the thing he created.

[Inziladun]

Originally Posted by Hookbill the Goomba

I want to discuss something about how many of us have felt about Middle Earth. Very often I've heard or read people explaining that while reading The Lord of the Rings (especially), they felt 'drawn into' the world. I was no exception. But I wonder, did Tolkien himself feel the same way?

Not being a writer myself, the creative process is somewhat alien to me, and I must confess never having much desire to learn about the mechanics of story telling and the craft of literary creation.
As wondrous as I find the Professor's works, I have never read any of the HOME series, beyond brief glimpses in the local book store, and have no compelling desire to do so.
That said, I think any author of fiction who is at least tolerably good at it, must fall into the world of their story and believe in it themselves; otherwise, how could we readers take it seriously? Personally, I don't feel any more 'drawn' into Tolkien's books than I do for the works of other authors. For me, when reading a book I like, the suspension of disbelief and sense of being there are equal, whether I'm reading The Silmarillion, Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, or Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study In Scarlet. Tolkien's books are especially dear to me though because I do love the world, the characters, and in particular the incomparably exquisite and powerful liguistic style.
Speaking of Stephen King, he has written fairly extensively of his particular muse and the ways in which it works on him. He makes repeated references to losing one's self in the story, and not having any idea just how it's all going to work out in the end until he arrives there. That sounds similar to some of what I've read of JRRT's comments of how he wrote the books. Just from reading Tolkien's published works, I don't feel any special sense of his connection to the world of his creation, at least, like I've said, nothing more than other writers who know how to grab you and keep you enthralled to the very end.
Perhaps, not having read HOME, I may be at a bit of a disadvantage.
Please excuse any exceptionally uninformed comment or blatant inanity you find here.

[Ibrîniðilpathânezel]

I myself do write, and some of what I write is fairly complex fiction somewhere between fantasy and science fiction. When I first began to conceive of a world of my own imaginative creation (well over 40 years ago), I know that I was heavily influenced by both Tolkien and Anne McCaffrey. My early attempts were quite abysmal, but as time went on and I and my writing matured, things improved. Part of the improvement I know I can gratefully acknowledge as having come from my relationship with my friend and mentor Katherine Kurtz (who penned the Chronicles of the Deryni). What is possibly the most valuable piece of advice she gave me was that when an author creates a "new world," they must know that world in as exacting a detail as possible. What shows up in the actual books may be only a comparative tip of the iceberg, but if you don't know all there is to know about the world you are inventing, your lack of knowledge will be picked up by the readers, usually as inconsistencies, contradictions, or illogical events or behaviors. I found she's quite right. And because of that, an author does tend to get drawn into the world they are inventing. It is an immensely complex work of art, and as you develop one part of it, other parts suggest themselves; backstory grows and becomes more intricate as events of the present and future are mapped out. When you determine that a certain character is to do something, you wonder about their motivation, and in determining their motivation, you begin to build their past history, which grows into a family tree, with other people who came from other places and did things in their own rights. As cities are imagined, the societies that inhabit them is created, and given histories of their own. The process of imagining one thing pulls you into imagining another, and another, and another.

Tolkien, I think, rather neatly summed up much of the process early in LotR:

"Certainly it reminds me very much of Bilbo in the last years, before he went away. He used to often say that there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: its springs were at every doorstep, and every path was its tributary. 'It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,' he used to say. 'You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to."

That, in my experience, is very much like the process of inventing your own world, in which your characters live and have adventures. It draws you in, and quite often, it sweeps you along in the current of your own imagination unleashed. It's often a difficult process, but it can be exhilarating as well.

Just my experience, of course.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

That said, I think any author of fiction who is at least tolerably good at it, must fall into the world of their story and believe in it themselves; otherwise, how could we readers take it seriously?

Well, you will wonder, but I think some don't. Or, in any case, not in the "Tolkienish" sense - of being in there - sometimes the writing can be detached, "programmed", especially if the author wants to put in some message, which is more important for him than the requisites of the story.

Personally, I don't feel any more 'drawn' into Tolkien's books than I do for the works of other authors. For me, when reading a book I like, the suspension of disbelief and sense of being there are equal, whether I'm reading The Silmarillion, Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot, or Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study In Scarlet. Tolkien's books are especially dear to me though because I do love the world, the characters, and in particular the incomparably exquisite and powerful liguistic style.

Hmm, as for me, it certainly is not the same with every book. Some are just badly written and you do not get into it as much anyway. And with some it really works, I recall this one book where a character was in the desert, for whole one chapter, thirsty, trying to find a way out, and I really was just sitting there, reading the book and sharing it, I could not get up from it, even though I felt unbelievably thirsty as well. Something similar happened to me, in fact, with Frodo and Sam in Mordor. But some books just pull you into the world strongly, some don't as much.

Originally Posted by Ibrîniðilpathânezel

When you determine that a certain character is to do something, you wonder about their motivation, and in determining their motivation, you begin to build their past history, which grows into a family tree, with other people who came from other places and did things in their own rights. As cities are imagined, the societies that inhabit them is created, and given histories of their own. The process of imagining one thing pulls you into imagining another, and another, and another.

Tolkien, I think, rather neatly summed up much of the process early in LotR:

That, in my experience, is very much like the process of inventing your own world, in which your characters live and have adventures. It draws you in, and quite often, it sweeps you along in the current of your own imagination unleashed. It's often a difficult process, but it can be exhilarating as well.

Yes, well, I have similar experience, but rather from my creating the RPG scenarios and worlds, where it is more like "mechanical", though: I simply have to know where this character came from, to determine what is he going to act like when he meets the player characters, and to know what was his life like up to now, I have to make up more of his home country, and when I am doing it, I have to know who is the ruler of it etc. But it is not always that I would be necessarily interested in it the way I understand it with Tolkien. This was really a necessity: more like a mechanical process, indeed.

But from my personal experience also, another thing is when I am "just writing", and I don't have any particular intention to "explore the world" - I just have the inspiration and, rather, I watch the story unfold in front of me, as it goes, not knowing what comes next, but I am an observer, dragged into the story, but I do not have any intentions of my own. I do not want to know what happens next. I don't think about it. It just happens. That is something Tolkien wrote about as well, I think. But of course not that it would happen all the time.

The third situation would be what Tolkien says - this exploring, and at least for me this is extremely rare. Simply a sort of conscious working on the process (like in the first case I mentioned), but at the same time, being dragged into the story actively, being "inside it", as Sam Gamgee would say (like in the second case). This is when I am actually there on the plains of Rohan or wherever and decide, yes, there are these mountains one can see on the horizon - I wonder what is there? And you go there (intentional activity) and find something there (unintentional activity, like in the second case). This is what I understand under Tolkien's journeys to Faërie. But like I say, at least for me, it is extremely rare to get into that mood - to enter the true realm of Faërie in the first place, so to say.