tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post8815747339330362351..comments2023-11-07T06:20:12.181-08:00Comments on Tolkien: Medieval and Modern: The Importance of Machine"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"http://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-58817019274645887872014-04-13T18:38:07.310-07:002014-04-13T18:38:07.310-07:00A fine meditation on History, Myth, language, and ...A fine meditation on History, Myth, language, and the Machine!<br /><br />I think you've touched on two very important ideas in Tolkienian thought—“history” (is it myth? Is it language? Is it both? Is one a means to the other?) and the problem of the “machine,” the mechanism for entering into a story. I agree that we cannot perhaps read Guildford as an exact simulacrum of Tolkien—there are two quotes from this passage that I would like to add to yours and see what you think. The first comes as he is thinking about the impossibility of suspension of disbelief as it pertains to space-ships: “I suppose no one has ever solved the difficulty of arriving, of getting to another planet, no more in literature than in life. Because the difficulty is in fact insoluble, I think. The barrier cannot and will not ever be passed in mortal flesh.” Do you think Tolkien would agree that it is utterly impossible to convince a reader that he has passed in the flesh to another world? I'm not sure. I do think, however, that the next quote is a good Tolkienian sentiment: “A picture-frame is not a parallel. An author's way of getting to Mars (say) is part of his story of his Mars; and of his universe, as far as that particular tale' goes.” The framing of the story cannot simply be an awkward, magical, “black box.” The getting there is as important, in any act of creation or exploration, as being there (a sentiment reflected in the need for the final essay along with a final project!). <br /><br />I agree that, as you say, for Tolkien “it is very clear that history, language, culture, and myth are all very muddled, closely intertwined to the point of almost being indistinguishable.” I have always wondered how we ought to interpret the phrase “feigned history,” from the preface to LotR (in the section about his preference for “applicability” over “allegory”: “I much prefer history, true or feigned, with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers.”) Where in your musings about the relationships between myth, history, and language would you place “feigned history”?<br /><br />-Jenna<br />"Tolkien: Medieval and Modern"https://www.blogger.com/profile/04348913969813157482noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5746173806126403959.post-65272507495104951342014-04-13T16:14:41.222-07:002014-04-13T16:14:41.222-07:00I too was drawn to Tolkien's discussion of mac...I too was drawn to Tolkien's discussion of machine's as unnecessary frames, specifically his discussion of spaceships in Notion Club. It seems obvious to say that Guildford rejects the unnecessary break from reality that the function of spaceships provide in much of science fiction, but what seemed more curious to me was the question of whether all such machines were by their very nature bad. Notion Club contains for instance a brief reworking of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine in which the titular machine is removed for the better. Any familiar with that work will immediately realize that much of the plot would be changed without the reliance on an external machine. The Traveler is in no real danger if the Machine is replaced with the transportation via dreaming that is discussed later in Notion Club. Since his method of transport is internal rather than external it cannot be easily removed without similar handwaving breaks that Tolkien through Guildford is critical of. Certainly this simple replacement of Machines cannot be what Tolkien is pointing to, can it? I purpose instead that Tolkien's distaste for machine's arises from the fact that the machine pretends to be more than magic, when as the quote from Letter 131 above illustrates they are in fact quite closely related. By doing so the machine exposes itself to be undercut with disbelief, one may talk their way out of the enchantment through impossibility. My confusion begins then when i wonder if there is any machine of solid enough construction that it can survive this scrutiny? Is it this mechanism that Tolkien actually dislikes or is it the frame that the mechanism necessitates? I wonder if his hypothetical reworking of the Time Machine would not more closely resemble later soft-scifi influenced far greater by anthropology, like LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness. Here the machine is unnecessary, the world presented to you much like Tolkien's own Middle Earth. I realize that I have raised more questions than I have answers but I am unsure at the end of Notion Club Papers whether the point is not simply that the group is wrapped up in the dream-travel in a way they never were with the space-ships of Ramer's work? That the real critique of the machine may not be that it seems so trivial when placed beside this enchanting notion and is quickly forgotten by not only the group but the casual reader. jthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01799631598160598708noreply@blogger.com