Re: also sprach Tolkien

Thanks much to you two for posting that. It's pretty
interesting....something to think about. The reader contributes a lot
to the text in Tolkein's view, within guidelines provided by the
author. The author specifies the type of image (garden) and the reader
provides the specific image (their mother's garden when they were
growing up, perhaps).

I think this would work differently for different authors, of
course...so Scottie likes Hemingway's more minimal descriptions that
work along the lines of the Tolkein excerpt, while people who provide a
great deal of specific detail are trying to turn literature into
painting (by Tolkein's standards). It's a blurry line, then, and good
art would be separated from bad by how well the line is walked.

This would be fun to play around with using specific texts. The
occasional very specific detail adds quite a bit sometimes. EVERYTHING
being described in specific detail is too much.

I actually have that book on my shelf but haven't read more than the
first few pages. Too much else to read right now.

Jim

Yocum Daniel GS 21 CES/CEOE wrote:

>Specifically Jim, it is from On Fairy-Stories, the authors notes at the end of the essay.
>Daniel
>
>

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Received on Wed Aug 20 13:27:40 2003