tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post2219193340553684849..comments2024-03-29T08:26:06.759+00:00Comments on The Notion Club Papers - an Inklings blog: The wind siezes them and drives them away... Failing to get to Faery: Tolkien's strangely lame recurrent plot ideaBruce Charltonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-58879973232299599692013-10-23T11:19:11.274+01:002013-10-23T11:19:11.274+01:00@WmJas - It is not that the failure story is an in...@WmJas - It is not that the failure story is an intrinsically bad story - it could be very interesting; but that it is not a part of the story being written.<br /><br />(It seems very unlike what I know of Dante - and Dante was out of step with the Northerness of Tolkien's legendarium - but I suppose it could be.) <br /><br />It feels like there are two distinct stories, and sometimes they get mixed up. <br /><br />1. There is the story about how a Man fights his way through to Faery and establishes a re-connection between elves and men, including getting the elvish legends and bringing them back to England. <br /><br />The tragedy here would be that England does not receive the book: England ignores the legends, of they are distorted, mocked, forgotten or something like that.<br /><br />2. There is another story about how - after hardship and travail - a Man gets a tantalizing and momentary glimpse of Faery before being blown back by winds and swept to the British Isles. <br /><br />And here the tragedy is that he is perhaps unsure whether it was real (or a wishful dream or delusion brought on by starvation and cold) and the yearning for more, being driven crazy by the partiality and briefness of the knowledge of higher things. <br /><br />Another good story - and one which Tolkien used in various forms; but not compatible with the first story.Bruce Charltonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09615189090601688535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2410716623228444076.post-46828361285356806622013-10-23T01:38:13.588+01:002013-10-23T01:38:13.588+01:00Is this perhaps partly inspired by Dante's sto...Is this perhaps partly inspired by Dante's story of Ulysses sailing <i>almost</i> to Mount Purgatory and then sinking within sight of its shores?Wm Jashttp://wmjas.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com