{Multiple Viewpoints and Single Minds [continued]}[12th February 1988]

[Redbook5:10-11][19880212:1155b]{Multiple Viewpoints and Single Minds [continued]}[12^th February 1988]

19880212.1155

[continued]

*However, certain ground rules must be observed – particularly the work's own rules. I remember my shock when I came across [J.R.R.] Tolkien's version of his early world with its ground-based Suns, and the later creation of the moving Sun. My shock was because at that point, for me, his world-myth, which I had never believed to be historically true, became unbelievable: it was possible to believe that it could have been a myth, which as what I think he as an academic stated his intention to be, but it was no longer possible to believe that it could have been historically true (could have been – not was), which was what I think his literary theory required (bearing in mind that it was conceived as our World at an earlier stage), because it broke away from the fundamental organisation and structure of physics** as we*** see it.

Oddly enough, the different versions of well-known Tolkien legends did not bother me: I could explain this away within the fiction-believing part of my mind as different received versions of an original (potential) history, although closer examination (which was not required) might have caused problems. But with the Suns, my controlling part suspended disbelief; and I think it was from that time that I really lost interest in**** Tolkien, although the habit took some time to die away.

*[See last previous entry.]

**[It might be asked: What of dragons, magic rings, and magic generally? Don't these break away from physics? – The answer is: Not necessarily to anyone who reads science fiction; and it is worth pointing out that science at the time of writing this note makes almost everything in The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings possible (e.g. doors opening on a spoken password) or at least potential (e.g. genetic manipulation to produce orcs, wargs, elves, hobbits and possibly even -- with a dash of artificial intelligence and mechanical technology -- talking, flying, fire-breathing dragons), with the rest based on collective Human anecdotal experience (e.g. ghosts, telepathy). ’It’s really super science-fiction’, per Naomi Mitchison in the orginal dustwrapper blurb to the Lord of the Rings. But the creation of the Sun after the creation of what is specifically stated to be our own planet does, as in Genesis, somewhat complicate the suspension of disbelief: even if one can accept the change of the World at and after the Fall of Numenor as being as much on a spiritual plane as physical <20170915>]

***{(or rather, I)}

****{reading}[especially H.O.M.E. – the multi-volume History of Middle Earth <20171123>]

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