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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3461833" data-attributes="member: 4937">I know what he is suggesting.  But no matter how many times he or anyone else suggests it, I don't have to agree with it.That's not especially telling.  'The Great Gatsby' says nothing to me about my life, whereas The Lord of the Rings hits me where I live, sometimes painfully, and sometimes with great joy.  But I don't care about fantasies about life in rural aristocratic New York in the 1920's, fashion, cocktails, and such because there isn't a single character in the whole novel I can remotely relate to and there isn't a thing that they do that seems to have any sense to it outside of the context of this novel.  It means something particular to somebody sometime back when it was written, and I suspect some people are caught up in the illusionism of it, imagining that they now 'know something' about life in the 1920's, but its barren to me.  Of course, maybe this is my fault.  Maybe if I'd paid more attention in class, had a better teacher, done some research on the story, or thought more on the words, I'd uncover the gnostic knowledge required to unlock the works secrets.  This is certainly possible, as I'm often inclined to say the same thing to people who find LotR's to be devoid of any meaning beyond fanciful histories and 'hobbit toast buttering songs', as if the whole of the work was merely its fantastic secondary creation.  So, maybe it is me.  But that's really neither here nor there.  The point is that I get LotR with the knowledge that I have and the experiences that I have, and well, I could care less for Gatsby because I don't.  It's required reading, they say.  I hope, they enjoy it.Some month I have time to waste, I'll have to force myself to plow through Proust.  Or maybe not. And to me, personally, I get more out of one paragraph in 'Shadow from the Past' or 'The Pass of Cirith Ungol', than I get from the whole story which effects you so.  Not that I can't see that there might be something from someone to hold dear in it, but its just not for me whatever it is.I'm not so sure of that, but I couldn't say strongly one way or the other - having never watched Baywatch any more than I've read Mr. Harrison.   Once again, they quite obviously were.  I don't know anything about the private intentions of the author beyond what is in the text.  But the words he wrote were obviously quite strongly universal.</blockquote>

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